[young pioneer]

I have this external harddrive. I think its a WD, not sure its in some ugly no-brand casing. now I want to connect to my PB 12" to make a double backup of the complete drive. It always worked fine. until i actually get another drive to back it all up onto...

i want to connect it. first time it showed up but showed a 'normal' harddrive icon, not the orange USB icon i always got. i could see all the folders on the drive, but when i clicked on the folders it just wouldt show the contents...
so i tried to disconnect. it wouldnt let me as it was 'busy' it said.

so i waited... nothing happened. restarted the PB. and reconnected the harddrive. now nothing showed up after i turned the ext HD on. so i turned it off and the moment i turned it off the Icon of that ext hd, the icon showed up...
and stayed there. when i turn it on again, another one of those icons shows up. so after a while i had 5 of those icons on my desktop. none of them worked

Disk utility doesnt let me repair or verify the disk. i won't let me click those buttons... they're lightgrey... don't work.

if i 'get info' on one the icons, it says it still has 4gb free (of the 320gb) which is correct. so all the files are still there. just cant access them...

anyone has an idea of what the problem could be?

thanks a lot!
s.

[MacLoyal]

I have two external HDs hooked up to my Mac Pro. I've had both the Maxtor Other World Computing drives for a few years with no problems with either. Recently, the Maxtor disappeared, much like you described. Does this mean it's dead? Is there anyway to recover the files?

[WishingDigiJosh]

4gb of 320gb drive free?! WOW, that is a big problem... once you pass the 10% free space limit and below, you are really stressing the drive to do any sort of write function in particular. We generally tell people to keep at least 15 to 20% of the drive free at all times.

You might want to take the drive out of the case and hook it up directly to your motherboard. That way you can verify that the disk is still working... perhaps it's just a problem with that case's bridgeboard (what turns the drive into usb, firewire, etc).

Is the drive making any noise? Like a clicking sound?

[young pioneer]

Hi WishingDigiJosh

No clicking noise. i do hear it spinning though.. like it's starting up or something, spins for a while and then stops.
thanks for the suggestion. I have a Mac Pro at work... You say it might work if i put the drive directly in one of the free hd slots ?

i'll give that a try...
thanks again.

young pioneer

[young pioneer]

just thinking...
the drive is not an Sata drive.. but the old Pata...

wont fit in the Mac Pro.
any other suggestions are welcome

cheers!
y.p.