dead external HDD advise
kind of as the title states my external drive containing all my sample library and software install files and DJTT ableton sound packs has decided to corrupt itself on me and ive forgotten half the sample libraries ive paid for over time so would love to find someway of recovering the data if possible.
system is OSX 10.7.5
drive is a 1TB usb3 WD mypassport
any advise is welcome
close thread the drive is totally unusable 
time to rebuild my libraries all over again
How do you k lw the dri e is totally dead…?
Where there is a will there is a way.
ive used 6 recovery programs on the drive none finds a single file but finds multiple bad sectors, i cut my loses and tried to just reformat the drive and disk utility returned a failure in formating and partitioning it
Bad times.
I assume you’ll know to buy TWO external HDD’s next time…
Shame you had to learn this the hard way.
nah just gonna remember to not rely on external drives ive got an older WD my passport which is still running sweet as anything just gonna make sure from now on i keep multiple copies of everything important just sucks ive lost so much data i had loads of samples and i cant remember where most of them came from so cant regain them for anything but such is life
It’ll happen again, mate. You can bet on it.
Storage is so damn cheap these days it’s not worth the risk.
I would cry if one of my drives died without a backed-up copy.
yeah dont worry im gonna make sure i back up and back up again in future and prob gonna go desktop external over portable too
just to add insult to injury one of my 3 desktop drives requires repairing to some degree and my OS on that machine doesnt have the recovery partition so i cant perform it myself just hope an apple store will be nice to me or that i can afford to replace and clone the drive before it stops working aswell
Major bummer to lose that data, although with so many gigs of legit free sound packs available and easier ways to write drum loops these days you’ll be ok. I’ve just changed computer for he fourth time in as many years, after numerous upgrades and reformatting debacles.
Anyhow ‘mega’ offers 50gb of cloud storage for free. Could be worth looking into…
thanks for the advise on cloud storage ive got it now and got 3 external drives to backup onto hopefully i shall no longer loose everything
I sometimes have had luck removing the actual drive from the enclosure, then using another external sata dock (or whatever the connection is) to your computer. Sometimes the actual drive doesn’t go bad, but the enclosure will no longer power the drive for whatever reason. Worth a try imo.
its a WD my passport so the enclosure is fixed to the drive itself sadly so ive just accepted the data loss and gonna use it as a paperweight
A lot of models you can still disassemble them and use in an external dock. Usually just need a torx and philliips screwdriver. Apparently some of the newer models have soldered the USB 3.0 connection, but it’s still worth trying. I’ve recovered a lot of data doing this in my I.T. job.
I prefer a SSD drive for taking outside. It’s shock resistant and less sensitive for other mechanical damage (since there are no mechanical parts inside). They’re more expensive but after your experience it’s a good choice.
Just happened to me too, except the passport loads and I can see my folders, but when I open them there is nothing inside… I don’t know what to do either.