External hard drive failure

My external hard drive that has been successfully holding my Time Machine backup failed - simply died and will not power up. The drive manufacturer is offering to fix the drive, but the first thing they will do is delete all data. I assume this means that all prior backups are gone forever? In other words, if I buy a new drive and start a new Time Machine backup, I cannot get a version of any file older than the current?
Has anyone had success replacing a failed power supply on a LaCie drive? This drive has all of my data and I am reluctant to put the drive into stranger's hands...

mulkmon wrote:
My external hard drive that has been successfully holding my Time Machine backup failed - simply died and will not power up. The drive manufacturer is offering to fix the drive, but the first thing they will do is delete all data. I assume this means that all prior backups are gone forever? In other words, if I buy a new drive and start a new Time Machine backup, I cannot get a version of any file older than the current?
that's right.
Has anyone had success replacing a failed power supply on a LaCie drive? This drive has all of my data
and I am reluctant to put the drive into stranger's hands...
replacing a power supply is a trivial operation but if the drive itself failed that will not help you.

Similar Messages

Time Machine backups corrupt or external hard drive failure?

My goal today was to upgrade my MacBook Pro's HD, and to restore my system from my latest Time Machine backup which resides on an external hard drive. I installed the new hard drive, formatted it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and selected Restore System From Backup from Utilities. The system restore was five minutes form finishing when I received an error that the system restore could not be completed, and that I should restart my machine and try again. I did as instructed, but once the system restore process began, the screen went gray, and I was told that the Snow Leopard install could not be completed.
Before beginning the process a third time, I ran Disk Utility from the Snow Leopard install disc and attempted to verify and repair the external (Time Machine) hard drive. The Time Machine hard drive could not be verified, nor could it be repaired. I popped in the old hard drive into my MacBook Pro, booted Snow Leopard, and ran Disk Utility, and tried again repairing the Time Machine hard drive. Here is the log of the error I received:
2010-12-29 21:14:30 -0800: Verify and Repair volume “Time Machine”
2010-12-29 21:14:30 -0800: Starting repair tool:
2010-12-29 21:14:31 -0800: Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
2010-12-29 21:14:31 -0800: Checking extents overflow file.
2010-12-29 21:14:31 -0800: Checking catalog file.
2010-12-29 21:20:22 -0800: Invalid node structure
2010-12-29 21:20:22 -0800: The volume Time Machine could not be verified completely.
2010-12-29 21:20:22 -0800: Volume repair complete.
2010-12-29 21:20:22 -0800: Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
2010-12-29 21:20:22 -0800: Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
2010-12-29 21:20:22 -0800:
2010-12-29 21:20:22 -0800: Disk Utility stopped repairing “Time Machine”: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
Do these errors indicate that my Time Machine backups located in the Backups.backupdb are corrupt, or is the external hard drive corrupt and failing?
The Time Machine backups are on a Maxtor OneTouch, and from what I've read, they're prone to an early demise. I've also recently noticed that my Time Machine backups started slowing. For example, I would plug in my external hard drive and if 1.3GB needed to be backed up, it would stall at 300 MB before jumping to 700 MB, stall again, then jump to 900 MB. That could be a sign of a failing hard drive, correct? If the external hard drive is failing, I can purchase a new eternal hard drive then copy the Backups.backupdb to the new hard drive, correct?
However, if Backups.backupdb is corrupt, then from what I understand, I would have to start fresh. I would prefer to not start fresh unless there's no other option, as I would be losing almost three years worth of Time Machine backups.
Any guidance is appreciated. Thanks!

ali_baba7 wrote:
2010-12-29 21:20:22 -0800: Invalid node structure
2010-12-29 21:20:22 -0800: Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
It's possible a heavy-duty 3rd-party utility such as +Disk Warrior+ can fix that. It's about $100, and there's no guarantee, but it's probably a good investment for the future.
Do these errors indicate that my Time Machine backups located in the Backups.backupdb are corrupt, or is the external hard drive corrupt and failing?
The structure of the file system is damaged.
That may have been caused by the disk beginning to fail, but there's no way to tell for sure until you erase and reformat the disk and try to use it.
I've also recently noticed that my Time Machine backups started slowing. For example, I would plug in my external hard drive and if 1.3GB needed to be backed up, it would stall at 300 MB before jumping to 700 MB, stall again, then jump to 900 MB. That could be a sign of a failing hard drive, correct?
It could, but it could also be whatever's wrong with the file structure.
If the external hard drive is failing, I can purchase a new eternal hard drive then copy the Backups.backupdb to the new hard drive, correct?
No. You can't copy corrupted backups. They're all linked together, like a database, so if anything's damaged, the whole set is suspect, and can't be copied.
There are a couple of options:
If the disk is physically ok, and the directory damage was recent, you might be able to restore from an earlier backup. But since you noticed problems some time ago, the damage may not be recent.
Or, you might be able to get up and running by just installing OSX from your SL Install disk (and the 10.6.5 "combo" update). You'll be missing whatever wasn't restored in that last 5 minutes or so. Things are restored in the same order they're listed by the Finder, so it will be the last things in the last user account. You should be able to figure out where it stopped, check or delete the very last file (likely incomplete) and selectively restore as many of the remaining things as you can, via the "Star Wars" display.
Just to make things more difficult, if the disk is failing, the more you use it, the more likely it is to get worse or fail completely.
So your safest bet may be to install OSX, then download and install the 10.6.5 "combo" update. Info and download available at: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1324 Be sure to do a +Repair Permissions+ via Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder) afterwards. Then recover what you can.

Disk utility/external hard drive failure

I have a MacBook that I got about two years ago and a Western Digital portable external hard drive (WD Passport) that's almost as old. I keep almost all of my music files on my external hard drive and then play them through iTunes. About a month ago my external hard drive stopped working. I plug the hard drive into my computer and the blue light comes on. It even shines brighter for several seconds as (it appears) the hard drive attempts to mount. But every time I do this the blue light then becomes dimmer and the drive never mounts. When the hard drive is plugged in and I open up the Disk Utility application the drive shows up. When I try to manually mount the disk it tries and fails. When I click "Verify Disk" it tries and then an error message pops up saying "Phase 1-Read FAT, Unable to read FAT (Input/output error)". I've read that the PC disk utility application may be better at reading drives so, once I'm in a place where I have access to a PC, I'm going to give that a try. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

I am assuming that you're using the Passport in the same USB port that you always have. I ask this because some people complain about USB devices working on one port but not the other, as they claim that one port may put out more voltage then the other. If this is happening in your case it would kinda make since as when you plug in the Passport all that is required is the logic board power then it will start to spin up the disk which will pull down the power and that may be why you're getting a dimmed light on the Passport.
Just try the other USB port to verify, I know it sounds silly but it's worth a shot.

External Hard Drive Failures after iMac internal drive replaced

I was one of those lucky ppl who had to have my internal 1TB Seagate HDD replaced due to the recall. It was replaced on Friday.
After the drive was replaced (with another Seagate, ***?), I cloned my previous system back to the new drive (restoring from Time Machine required me to re-download Lion, which required me to re-download to a newer version of Snow Leopard, and just, Oi, vey, I used my clone).
I then had to create another bootcamp partition, and after that, I restored my previous bootcamp from an image backup with Winclone.
The next morning, my Time Machine external backup drive (a Maxtor OneTouch) makes horrible fluttering and crunching noises and cannot be found via disk utility, certainly doesn't mount to the desktop. I figure it just coincidentally failed and attached a new drive (a different OneTouch) for backup.
While Time Machine is performing an initial backup to this new drive (will take 10 hrs), I try to move a few media files to another external media drive (LaCie 1TB). I receive a couple of error -36s on a few particular files, so I figure I should wait for the Time Machine to backup and then diagnose the media drive.
The next morning (after 10 hr backup is finished), I have a stop-sign error that a disk was unmounted improperly (the LaCie media drive). The drive cannot be seen in disk utility or on a completely different MBP running Snow Leopard. It's spinning up, but it can't be read.
Only thing I can think to do is reinstall 10.8.2 over top the cloned system, make sure that the recovery partition was recreated and working.
This can't be a coinicidence, right? At this point, I'm afraid to keep my external storage drives and clone attached to the iMac, but I'm afraid to not have TM drive attached. Anyone know where to start diagnosing the problem?
1. Could a new internal drive be the problem, hardware wise?
2. Could the lack of an initial recovery partition or the setting up of a bootcamp partition have these sorts of consequences?
3. Could the problem be from restoring a clone?

Well, it is a LaCie-packaged adapter, some version of that model. The hub is on the mac mini inspired line of LaCie HDs (http://www.lacie.com/company/news/news.htm?id=10269). I've had it for 6 yrs, and the hub is still going. Other drives have been running from the hub without issue for all that time (and still are). There is no hissing, and the display light indicates the hub is getting power.
You think it's time for a new hub?
The internal switchout is just a coincidence?
(Basically, I'm not a hardware expert. Does anyone know if an internal drive or internal sensor/connection problem can cause externals to fail or blowout a controller? I'm waiting on a drive dock to arrive—I'll know more whether these are HD failures or chip failures after that. Both drives showed normal-seeming power use via their display lights.)

External hard drive failure. please help

I am on tiger 10.4.10 and my external 500 gb buffalo hard drive is NOT mounting in os x. When I go to disk utility it tells me I have no files. I verify disk says its ok.
what can I do to get my files back?

Which computer? If the HD is FireWire, see http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=88338
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20041221081432908

I have all of my data from my old macbook pro in an external hard drive. Basically it's my old Macbook hard drive with external casing. It was working fine before when retrieving files using my new macbook air, now I can't access any files?

I can't access any of my files, photos, anything form my external hard drive... It worked before now when I plug it in the light comes on, but it doesn't even show up as an external drive, so I can't access anything, I'm worried I have lost everything...

Huge mistake was only having ONE copy of your data OFF computer,
most people do it, and its just horrible and the typical reason for serious data loss.
Likely you have a very common failure (extremely common actually) called SATA bridge card failure, which would be "good" news,
read about same here:
Your dead external hard drive is likely fine! Great hope for your 'faulty' external HD
Never again let yourself have LESS than 2 copies of your important data off-computer, ever
1. verify the external HD doesnt show up on another Mac
if same, you have about a 8 in 10 chance its SATA card failure.......... easy to fix.
The great news at the end of the tunnel of an apparently failed or failing external hard drive.
When checked on another computer, and with no need for spending money on data extraction expertise or software, the very likely case is that your external USB or thunderbolt HD is in fact fine, and merely the card interface, or SATA bridge card has failed or is failing. Keeping a HD dock around handy, or cheaper still a $20 hard drive enclosure or a SATA to USB connector can be a real life saver in getting your drive back to use, when the drive itself is fine, and merely its interface card has gone bad.
The SATA bridge card inside a USB external HD has a very high failure rate in general
Typical SATA bridge cards as seen inside a 3.5" external HD with power input (#1), and 2.5" SATA cards (#3, #4, #5)
What are the realistic odds your HD is perfectly fine?
There are no hard facts whatsoever, especially since so many people discard their assumed “dead/faulty” hard drives, but a good educated conclusion from years of examining and seeing this issue is that for hard drives made since 2010, and not dropped or generally abused, is that a minimum of 50% conservatively are perfectly fine! I personally estimate however that it likely approaches 60%+.
Considering how many external hard drives ‘fail’ (rather the SATA bridge more than half the time) each day, that is a very high number of perfectly fine HD that are tossed!
This is especially common with 3.5” desktop HD that are connected 24/7 with power and see a lot of data transfer. People wrongly conclude that “X” mfg. just made a defective drive, when in fact their 3.5” drives inside the plastic enclosure is 100% fine. I have personally seen well over 200 of these dead SATA cards and additionally seen 3 fail within a one hour span of doing a large data copies.
One of the very reason pros use bare HD as inserted into HD docks is not just the saving of space and the need for endless USB cables, but the elimination of the need for this high failure-rate part.
While the shapes and sizes vary somewhat on SATA bridge cards, they all serve the same purpose and have likewise failure rates
What exactly is the SATA bridge card in your external HD?
In the middle to late of 2009, most all external hard drives both in 2.5” and 3.5” reached the shelves in SATA III. These small SATA cards or "bridges" are used to translate between the hard drives’ interfaces and the enclosures' external ports (USB, Thunderbolt, Firewire). Additionally these small bridges not only transfer power but also of course the data. Unfortunately these SATA bridge cards have a very high failure rate as they are burdened with shuffle power and data.
Literally these little unreliable and fragile cards are the power conduits and the nervous system for all external HD data transfer.
SATA card as found inside a typical USB external hard drive
The assumption that the hard drive is bad when its not!
Countless 1000s of good external hard drives are thrown away each year because the owner thought the HD was bad when it fact it was the SATA bridge card which had failed. This card is removed in a matter of mere second once an external USB HD is cracked open from its plastic casing to reveal the bare HD and the attached SATA card which attaches between the HD and the USB cable.
To complicate this problem, even many computer professionals do not know that there is a very easy solution to the “failing or dead HD” issue since the hard drive itself is very likely just fine. Its astonishing that so many highly educated computer repair persons are unaware of this high-failure part, but this is mostly due to the fact that they do not juggle 100s of hard drives and know that of the iceberg that is a “external hard drive failure”, the mostly unseen majority are not a HD failure at all, but a bridge card failure.
To add to this great misunderstanding is the fact that people assume that "likewise symptoms seen on an external HD are the same as seen on an internal HD, therefore also the external HD must be bad". This is a compositional fallacy of logic. Since internal HD do not have a SATA bridge interface, to conclude similar symptoms "indicate the same failure" is misplaced and incorrect.
This is all not to say that HD do not fail, they do indeed, and I have seen many 100s of dead and failing hard drives. Hard drives even under ideal conditions have a life expectancy of around 4-8 years due to ferromagnetic depolarization from entropy. But of the mountain of symptoms that are seen as “hard drive failures” in comments, posts, and hearsay, half or more of these are not a HD failure at all.
Once your rescued hard drive is removed from the bad SATA card
You have several options, but the purchase of a $20 HD enclosure is one option, another is having a HD dock, however this eliminates the former portability in a 2.5" small HD.
Remember that 3.5” HD require power, which means you need either a HD dock, or a powered SATA card kit as seen at top left in the picture below. 2.5” HD get power from the USB port itself.
Just remember that the serious downside to the low cost external HD enclosures is THEY TOO contain these SATA cards, and what is worse the cheap ones will fail, often, much quicker than the original factory one did! In which case it is recommended you buy a quality HD USB enclosure
Rescue tools to use with your extracted HD for data recovery

Hi, I have a hard disk failure so to recover my data I am using disk utility to restore the data on an external drive while booting from a second external hard drive. When I perform the operation it gives me an input/output error and stops. Any tips?

Hi, I have a hard disk failure so to recover my data I am using disk utility to restore the data on an external drive while booting from a second external hard drive. When I perform the operation and after having selected both my destination and source drives, the operation begins but soon fails due to input/output error. If I try to create an image of the drive it gives me the same error message. Any help would be much appreciated.

Disk Utility only creates a image of the drive, so it's no help getting exactly what you want, which is your files. If the file structure is messed up or the drive is failing then it's no help.
If you have a external boot drive and you can't access the internal non-booting drive though the typical Finder and windows to transfer your files via drag and drop methods, then you need to install Data Rescue on the external boot drive and it will do as best as it can to recover your files. (works on non-encrypted/non-Filevaulted drives only)
.Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
Are you sure you have hard drive failure, or that OS X isn't merely not booting?
Because if the drive is working physically, then there is a host of fixes
..Step by Step to fix your Mac
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro?view=documents#/

Logic board failure on Mac Book Pro. Backed up info via time machine with sea gate external hard drive. Help!

I now have no access to any mac now, and the old mac while it still has my old information freezes immeadiatley upon starting. I am therefore switching to PC laptop that has be graciously given to me. My question is how do I get my information off my external drive, and on to my new laptop? The laptop is an Asus with windows vista, and I am planning on upgrading it to Window's 7. All my information from the past 3 years of college is stored in this Seagate 320 gb external hard drive. What do I need to do?

OK… firstly try the USB port on the other side and see if it makes any difference. Otherwise, do you have any better luck using the drive when it's connected through an AC powered USB hub.
To check if your MBP is seeing your drive at all it should appear in the USB section in the System Profiler utility.

Failure to connect External Hard Drive.

I have a new External Hard Drive and am having trouble getting it to work. It connects via USB ( and is suitable for Windows and MAC). ....but when I connect and try to drag and drop to it a message comes up " the item '....' cannot be moved because the External HD cannot be modified"
I have enquired at the place where I purchased and they advised contacting MAC help in reformatting / initialise the Ext HD.
Can any one help please.

Hi loons,
This article describes it better than I could:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=DiskUtility/10.5/en/duh1009.html
Hope that helps

Failure to copy MOV files to an external hard drive

I only have 185 GB worth of hard drive space on my Mac and I do video editing, so I always move the files onto an external hard drive to save the space on my computers hard drive. Lately, I've been having issues when some of the MOV files give me the following error:
Sorry, the following operation could not be completed because an unexpected error occurred.
(Error Code 0)
Some of the files will copy over perfectly fine, but others give this error. All of these files have been created from Final Cu Pro 7.0. Please let me know what I can do to move them off of my computer.
Thanks

How big are they and how is the external drive formatted?

My external hard drive is no longer recognized by my Mac

I have used Time Machine and a WD external hard drive to back up my computer for several years. Now, when I connect the hard drive, the drive lights up as though it's working, but the connection does not appear on my Mac -- the external hard drive is not listed in Device (in Finder). Any suggestions?

power feed issues and data appearance/disappearance are both symptoms of the SATA bridge card,..arguably the most failing modern computer component made.
throwing more power to the drive wont fix that.
SATA bridge card as found inside all USB HD devices which has an extremely high failure rate.
Inside a USB hard drive, containing the HD and SATA card
Countless 1000s of good external hard drives are thrown away each year because the owner thought the HD was bad when it fact it was the SATA bridge card which had failed. This card is removed in a matter of mere second once an external USB HD is cracked open from its plastic casing to reveal the bare HD and the attached SATA card which attaches between the HD and the USB cable.
quick and easy option is to crack open the WD USB drive, and remove the SATA card, and put the WD drive into a new enclosure ($20)
HOWEVER, if its an OLD WD drive, the SATA interface is permanently attached to the HD and the OP is "out of luck".

External hard drive gone kaput

I have an old Mac mini (1.42 GH PowerPC G4, Mac OS X 10.4.11) with an 80 gig internal startup HD, and an external 250 gig Firewire HD. For the last couple of days, the external HD has not been getting recognized by the Mac. When I run Disk First Aid, the drive shows up, but the disc itself - "disc2s10" - is greyed out. When I run "Verify Disk", and subsequently "Repair Disk", I get the following response:
"Checking HFS Plus volume
Invalid node structure
Invalid node structure
Catalog file entry not found for extent
Volume check failed
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error"
I've tried everything - power on, power off, disconnecting and reconnecting every cable both on the Mac and on the external HD, but nothing seems to work.
I tried looking at solutions in the Apple Support section, but frankly, I've not had much success and am not even sure whether I did the right things.
Losing the disc would be a disaster - not least because I've painstakingly organized 18,000 songs in my iTunes library, and those songs are all stored on the spoilt HD!
The only other thing I can add is that the disk went bad after I Installed the latest Apple security update a few days ago. I don't know whether that had anything to do with this.
Finally, I've had some problems in the past with this HD - which is housed in a casing that has the same form factor as the Mac mini - in that it sometimes did not mount. But I believe that has been due to some loose internal connections between the disk and the casing. At any rate, that has not been a major problem.
Clearly, since the Mac mini says the disc is unreadable, it can "see" the disc.
Could somebody please help? Thanx.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
When you get this message, does is also show a -9972 error number? If so, the Apple disk utility can't repair the drive. As Boece recommended, Disk Warrior, or similar, program would be your next step, and it can often repair what Disk Utility can't repair. However, if Disk Warrior can't repair it, then you want to look at other software to try and recover the data, as the next step would be an erase and restore. And if that didn't work, then the drive is toast. There are services that can recover the data off a dead drive, however, they are not inexpensive.
Some other thoughts ... can you open the hard drive case and pull the short cable off the hard drive and put it back on? Make a difference? Do you have another mac available to you that you could hook your external hard drive up to? Just to see if there's any difference in accessing it? Is it only a USB connection or can you also connect via firewire?

I just backed up my mac to an external hard drive using Time Machine. What would happen if I turn Time Machine off and then plug the external hard drive back into my computer?

I just backed up my mac to an external hard drive using Time Machine. What would happen if I turn Time Machine off and then plug the external hard drive back into my computer?
What I am ultimately wanting to do is make more room on my computer by backing up all of my files onto the external hard drive and then deleting them off of my computer. However, neededing to be able to retrieve them from the external hard drive later down the road.
From what I have read and am trying to understand, is that I probably shouldn't have used time machine. I need to use the external hard drive like a basic flash drive where I can put things on and get things off without having it automatically update through time machine everytime I connect it to my computer.
Not tech savvy at all and barely understand basics. I need very simple and easy to understand explanations.

sydababy wrote:
and then deleting them off of my computer.
BIG BIG MISTAKE ..... youre making a linchpin deathtrap for your data trying to shove everything on a single fragile HD.
Dont suffer the tragedy other people make, buy another or 2 more HD, theyre cheap as dust.
The number of people who have experienced terror by having a single external HD backup is enormous. One failure that WILL HAPPEN, and kaput,......all gone!
Dont do it, its all about redundancy, redundancy, redundancy.
follow here:
Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection
Deleting them off your computer is fine....having only ONE copy is extremely BAD.
The Tragedy that will be, the tragedy that never should be
Always presume correctly that your data is priceless and takes a very long time to create and often is irreplaceable. Always presume accurately that hard drives are extremely cheap, and you have no excuse not to have multiple redundant copies of your data copied on hard drives and squirreled away several places, lockboxes, safes, fireboxes, offsite and otherwise.
Hard drives aren't prone to failure…hard drives are guaranteed to fail (the very same is true of SSD). Hard drives dont die when aged, hard drives die at any age, and peak in death when young and slowly increase in risk as they age.
Never practice at any time for any reason the false premise and unreal sense of security in thinking your data is safe on any single external hard drive. This is never the case and has proven to be the single most common horrible tragedy of data loss that exists.
Many 100s of millions of hours of lost work and data are lost each year due to this single common false security. This is an unnatural disaster that can avoid by making all data redundant and then redundant again. If you let a $60 additional redundant hard drive and 3 hours of copying stand between you and years of work, then you've made a fundamental mistake countless 1000s of people each year have come to regret.

I need to buy an external hard drive for my MacBook Air as it is almost full. Which one should I buy?

Do I need to buy an Apple external Hard Drive for my MacBook Air?

There is no such thing as an Apple hard drive, ...Apples doesnt make same.
avoid western digital if possible.
Yes, having an external HD is necessary for data backups and keeping large media files for packing around etc.
you need data redundancy.
best options for the price, and high quality HD:
Quality 1TB drives are $50 per TB on 3.5" or $65 per TB on 2.5"
Perfect 1TB for $68
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-Hard-Drive/dp/B005J7YA3W/ref=sr_1_ 1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379452568&sr=8-1&keywords=1tb+toshiba
Nice 500gig for $50. ultraslim perfect for use with a notebook
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B009F1CXI2/ref=s r_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1377642728&sr=1-1&keywords=toshiba+slim+500gb
Best small HD for the money:
2.5" USB portable High quality BEST FOR THE COST, Toshiba "tiny giant" 2TB drive (have several of them, LOT of storage in a SMALL package) $117
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Connect-Portable-HDTC720XK3C1/dp/B00CGUMS48 /ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1379182740&sr=1-4&keywords=2tb+toshiba
*This one is the BEST portable external HD available that money can buy:
HGST Touro Mobile 1TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive $88
http://www.amazon.com/HGST-Mobile-Portable-External-0S03559/dp/B009GE6JI8/ref=sr _1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383238934&sr=8-1&keywords=HGST+Touro+Mobile+Pro+1TB+USB+3.0+7 2 00+RPM
Most storage experts agree on the Hitachi 2.5"
Hitachi is the winner in hard drive reliability survey:
Hitachi manufacturers the safest and most reliable hard drives, according to the Storelab study. Of the hundreds of Hitachi hard drives received, not a single one had failed due to manufacturing or design errors. Adding the highest average lifespans and the best relationship between failures and market share, Hitachi can be regarded as the winner.

External hard drive won't erase and now is not recognized

My 1 TB WD external hard drive was partitioned into 2 partitions. The top partition was for Time Machine, the bottom for my personal files. Those personal files are not on my regular hard drive so I decided I needed to get another external hard drive to back them up. I bought a 2 TB WB and set up Time Machine with that drive to back up my computers hard drive as well as my 1 TB external hard drive. Through my online research I discovered I couldn't make the 1 TB into one partion without deleting my personal files, so I figured since it was backed up on the 2 TB it would be okay. Just to be safe I backed it up onto a 500 GB Seagate as well (this drive crashed a while ago and then randomly started working again, so not too trustworthy - if anyone knows how I can make it trustworthy again, that would be fantastic). Then I partioned the 1 TB into 1 partition. Success. I went to erase it and selected Zero Out Data. This failed "Volume Erase failed with the error: Disk object invalid or inable to serialize." And then my hard drive disappeared. I've been able to open it in Disk Utility and partion it again into 1 partition, but each time I try to erase it, it always fails. Is something wrong with my drive? Is this external hard drive truthworthy to hold important files without crashing again?
Here's a screenshot of what happens when it fails. Yay.
After the Zeroing out doesn't work, this box pops up. And then my drive disappears from the desktop.
At one point the partition failed, but it seems to have gotten over that. Although each time I try to erase and it fails, I have to rename and repartition my 1 TB external hard drive so it shows up on the desktop again.

I came back from uni and it looks like the writing zero's was effective. There were no "failure" boxes. And here's the final reading for the partition and then the whole drive. Does anyone know why it says 12 folders and 66 files (more filed than when it started writing)? Does this mean it's not zero-ed out? Can I use this external hard drive?

External hard drive failure

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