Problem opening files from WD Passport

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
1

I’ve spent so much time trying to sort this myself with no luck, I’m hoping the experts can help me.

I have a WD Passport 1TB filled with family photos and movies. For some reason, a few months ago it stopped working. There is no obvious physical damage or anything, it plugs in just fine, turns on, and says that “Mac can’t repair the files but I can still copy them” (or something of that sort). When I click on the iPhoto libraries on there, it says that the library could not be opened because it is “read only.” However, when I check the info on the folder, I see that I have both read & write permission.

In addition, my video files (outside of iPhoto libraries) are not working, they go from first to last frame in a second or don’t open at all. And most of my standalone (again, outside of iPhoto) .JPEGs have the wrong date on them. But at least I can open these.

The disk is formatted Mac OS Extended (?). Not sure if that has anything to do with it.

I don’t care about the HDD, I just want to recover the files from it. Any suggestions?

2

Hello pineapple81,

It is possible that you corrupted some of the files on the drive. Make sure that you are not just pulling the cable without safely removing the drive.

https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=5316

You can try to rebuild the iPhoto library following the below link

Western Digital Use of Third-Party Software or Websites Disclaimer Notice

Also, transferring iPhoto library to the drive is not recommended. iPhoto typically displays pictures that it finds in folders on your Mac. In order to backup the pictures you will need to know where iPhoto is reading the pictures from and then backup that folder to your external drive. If you do not know where your photos are stored, you may need to contact Apple to find out where the storage location is. Please visit Apple for iPhoto support.

3

I can’t activate my account.