External hard drive files suddenly not readable

This keeps happening to my hard drives for no apparent reason. I use an external drive to backup my macbook pro contents, eventually, I cannot open the files. I get an error message saying they may be damaged and their preview icon defaults back to the system original. The file is there, with the same file size but I cannot open them......
This happend with my time machine and 2 external drives. Disk rescue and similar programs do not work.
Any suggestions?

Hi Barry,
thanks for your answer! The hard disk with my time machine backups on it is the same hard disk I successfully used to migrate my "old" files (from the Leopoard installation) to the new Snow Leopard based system (through the migration process during the installtion). I expected that this time machine backups would be still available and that I could use the same external hard disk to resume the time machine backup on the new system. Hope this was understandable?
But I am still wondering how this could happen while it worked obviously fine during the installation itself.
I understand that I could just reformat but then my old backups would be gone
But probably this is the easiest solution.
Thanks! And: yes! I am from Munich (Germany

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My external hard drive is suddenly not recognized.

I have a thunderbolt enabled 1.5 Terabyte Seagate FreeAgent Go Drive. It was used as a simply external hard drive and then I added it to be used as a time machine location. After the first initial backup, it suddenly became no longer recognizeable. It does not apear in the finder, disk utility, or in the terminal when I ask for list of the Volumes. The drive light is on, I can hear the disk spinning, and it warms up as normal after being plugged in to the computer for a period of time. Still, I am unable to recognize the drive in any way.
Ideally, I would like to save the files if possible. If not possible, I'm happy to reformat the disk but this is not possible at this time with the drive being unrecognized by any means I am aware of.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I am using 2.3 GHZ i7 Retina MacBook Pro with 8GB RAM. I'm on 10.9.1.

Yes, exactly. It's very strange. I've never had this happen. Drives fail but then don't apear in the DiskUtility app. This drive is "there" but I cannot seem to preform any action on it. This is the type of response received (in Log) I get whenever I attempt any action:
Securely erasing data to prevent recovery failed.
2013-12-26 08:43:39 +0530: Erase complete.
2013-12-26 08:43:39 +0530:
2013-12-26 08:44:06 +0530:
          Name :           Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Media
          Type :           Disk
          Partition Map Scheme :           Unformatted
          Disk Identifier :           disk1
          Media Name :           Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Media
          Media Type :           Generic
          Connection Bus :           USB
          USB Serial Number :           NA0B3X6P
          Device Tree :           IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/XHC1@14
          Writable :           Yes
          Ejectable :           Yes
          Location :           External
          Total Capacity :           1.5 TB (1,500,301,909,504 Bytes)
          Disk Number :           1
          Partition Number :           0
          S.M.A.R.T. Status :           Not Supported
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530: Preparing to partition disk: “Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Media”
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530:           Partition Scheme: GUID Partition Table
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530:           1 partition will be created
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530:
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530:           Partition 1
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530:                     Name                    : “Untitled 1”
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530:                     Size                    : 1.5 TB
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530:                     File system          : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530:
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530: Unmounting disk
2013-12-26 08:45:04 +0530: Partition failed for disk Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Media Unable to write to the last block of the device.

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Hi folks,
I think this should be a common problem, but I couldn't seem to find an exact match to my topic in the search, so I hope you guys don't mind helping me out if this has been asked before!
Well my problem is basically stated in my subject. A few days ago, I plugged in my friends external hard drive to copy some files off of. Everything loaded fine once I plugged it in, but the problem was that the file that I needed to copy was invisible in my finder! Other files were there, and the remaining disk space indicated that it was there, but the file itself was not!
I disconnected and reconnected the HD several times but to the same problem. I tried to search for it in the HD directory, but it didn't bring up any results.
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One slight problem now is that I don't have my friends HD to test any solutions at the moment, so I guess my main question is to know why does this happen/what causes this to occur? I'm think it's my iMac acting up, because it has been running a bit slower and noisier lately, so I'm thinking of reformatting my iMac? What do you guys think?
Cheers!

Hmmm, only thing that comes to mind at the moment is Permissions, Admin Rights, Groups, or HW/SW!

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To what password are you referring? Do you mean your user account's admin password? Or do you mean the master password for File Vault or do you mean a Firmware Password?
For an admin password:
Forgot Your Account Password
For Snow Leopard and earlier
     Mac OS X 10.6- If you forget your administrator password
For Lion/Mountain Lion
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Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
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1. Boot to Safe Mode by restarting and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND-S keys until a black screen with white type appears.
2. At the prompt, type the following commands pressing return after each command line:
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     cd /private/var/db/netinfo
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The second-to-last command above will cause OS X to think that the operating system is newly installed, and when the new owner starts up the computer it will send him/her to the startup wizard where he/she can start a new user without reinstalling.
This last method does not actually change a password. It simply removes the user accounts and lets you create an initial admin account as if the computer were new out of the box.
How to reset the OS X password without a startup CD:
Reboot into Single-user Mode. Enter the following and press RETURN after each command line
   1. Type fsck -fy
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I have never tried this method myself.

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Download and install VLC. http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html

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http://www.howtogeek.com/104298/sync-your-ios-device-with-a-new-computer-without -losing-data/
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http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1591
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Apple - Support - iPad - Syncing
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 Cheers, Tom

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Ok.
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Hello everyone.
I have an external hard drive that I've been using for the past year. It's a Porsche Design. No on/off button, just a light that flashes white when it's plugged in. The other day I found that the lead had been bent and the hard drive no longer worked when plugged in, so I bought another identical lead, brand new but the hard drive is simply not showing up. The light's not flashing, it's not showing up in my disk utility, it's nowhere.
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Tom

MBP = MacBook Pro.
The enclosure is the case in which an external HDD is mounted in. This is an example:
If you have access to another external HDD, take out the existing HDD, install the 'questionable' HDD and connect it to the MBP. If it does not show in Disk Utility, the HDD is dead. If it does show in disk utility, then there is a flaw in the connections (bad enclosure or cable).
Ciao.

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I haven't tried this:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/systemdiskutilities/ntfs3g.html
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External hard drive files suddenly not readable

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