p.1 #1 · External HD not detected by macbook - please help
I'm posting in this forum and in the general gear talk forum in because I'm not sure where the best place is:
Hi,
I know there's some real tech savvy people around this forum and I'm hoping you can help me. I use a WD My Passport external HD for my photo storage because I shoot RAW. I've used this HD for quite a while and I've never had an issue with it. Suddenly today, I plug it in but the computer doesn't recognize that it's plugged in. The HD light comes on and humms as if its working but the macbook doesn't detect it. I went to disk utility and it doesn't show up there either and I know the computer is not picking it up. I tried plugging and un-plugging, turning the macbook on and off, and I tried plugging it into a different macbook but nothing works. I'm soo scared I've lost my photos. If I have it's going to be devastating. Please let me know if anyone has any tips or advice. Thanks,
p.1 #2 · External HD not detected by macbook - please help
Pull the external HD power plug from the wall outlet then plug it back in and see if the computer recognizes it. This happens to me all of the time with my WD Passport external drive.
p.1 #3 · External HD not detected by macbook - please help
I got it fixed! It was the cord. I rePlaced it and now works fine. However I'm going to create a backup of my external drive photos from now on even though it will take a lot of extra space. Thanks for your suggestion.
p.1 #5 · External HD not detected by macbook - please help
Lesson learned the easy way, back up, back up, back up.
You may have been scarred but you didn't lose anything glad you didn't learn the hard way. Back it up locally but off site also. That way if you have it covered if your computer and your back up get lost at the same time (fire, stolen ect. ) you still have your photos.
p.1 #6 · External HD not detected by macbook - please help
I had thought that the this external drive was the safe way to store my photos (because it wouldn't be affected by computer failure/power surge etc). But from now on I'm going to have several copies stored in different ways.
