Time Machine - hard drive failed, isn't recognized by Finder

Hi,
Yesterday I went to plug in my Time Machine external hard drive to my Macbook Pro (Mid 2010, running Mountain Lion 10.8.2). The hard drive is a 320 GB Toshiba hard drive that I salvaged from an old laptop. The EHD is in a Kingston enclosure and connects to my Mac through USB (1 cord for everything). I have been using this setup for probably about a year at least.
Anyways, when I plugged it in yesterday, it did not show up in Finder. The blue light on the outside of the enclosure was still lit, and I could hear the hard drive spinning normally. I tried a couple other USB cables, but to no avail. The USB ports work with other things (e.g. my flash drive). I turned off Time Machine, and restarted my computer several times. Nothing worked.
I went into Disk Utility, and noticed that the hard drive itself appears, but the Time Machine partition is greyed out right underneath it. DU says on the bottom that the Time Machine is Not Mounted, and gives the format (Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)) and the capacity (320 gb).
When I try to eject through DU, it gives me this message:
The disk “Time Machine” could not be unmounted.
Make sure that all applications and files are closed on this disk.
BUT, it isn't even mounted!
I figured that I would just try to erase the hard drive, since it's only a time machine backup. Nope! It hanged right at the very beginning trying to unmount the disk that isn't even mounted.
I've looked on Google and on these boards and haven't found anything that could help me...so...
Help?
Thanks!

No luck.
I clicked on the hard drive itself (Kingston 320 GB) and clicked "Erase". I waited about an hour with the only activity being a striped bar at the bottom of DU saying "Unmounting".
So I tried just erasing the Time Machine partition. I immediately got this message (or something along the lines of it): "Disk Utility cannot erase the disk. Cannot open disk."
I tried mounting and unmounting the time machine partition, but would get messages saying that the disk cannot be unmounted, and that the disk cannot be mounted. Rather contradictory!
I tried ejecting the hard drive through DU by clicking the "Eject" button, but it said it could not eject the disk because it was in use, or something along the lines of that.
Any other advice?

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Sorry I missed the discussion last night. I'll tell you how I'm accomplishing the backup task and you can let me know if this is what you're trying to do.
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Jane Garcia wrote:
I may try Data Rescue but I may have another solution if I can make this work. I managed to get the backup drive to mount on my desktop--it's amazing what shaking the thing can do!--and it has two folders: Backups.backupdb and lost+found. I tried to copy the first one onto my desktop but it has 37,000 files and there isn't enough room.
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Specs: 1-year-old iMac (2.8 GHz i7 etc) running OS X 10.6.7.
Until a last week (and possibly this issue is related to my recent 10.6.7 update), my Firewire-800-connected external Lacie backup drive (2 Tb RAID) showed on the desktop faithfully. This is my Time Machine backup however I use it manually to safekeep various other files. Now it no longer shows up on the desktop and yet Time Machine still works fine, a clear indication that everything is connected + powered properly and there is data integrity.
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tuttle1150 wrote:
Hey Pondini. It appears my Internal HD is not sleeping either.
Since you've already replaced the preferences file (the first suspect), there may be something using both disks. If you're running any anti-virus software, turn it off (or uninstall it). Exclude both from Spotlight Indexing, if you haven't already, via +System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy.+
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I would like to do an "Erase and Instal"
That's extreeeeeeeemly unlikely to change anything, unless you have some software that you loaded for the Maxtor (if so, just delete it and Restart).
As another poster (Kiraly, I think) says, that's like fixing a dripping faucet by tearing out the kitchen!
but although I know my Documents are backed-up, where are the other things like all my emails and stickies, favourites, notes etc. filed?
What are you contemplating? Erasing your HD, installing OSX, applying the "combo," and selectively restoring things? If so, that's a large project, with very little chance of success.
First, make a second full backup on a separate external HD, via the Restore tab of Disk Utility, CarbonCopyCloner, SuperDuper, or the like. It's rare, but on occasion a backup drive fails during a restore, and everything is lost.
Then, here's what you'd be looking at:
|
• Erase your internal HD, per the yellow box in #1 of [Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Using Snow Leopard+ forum).
• Quit Disk Utility, and install OSX from your Snow Leopard Install disc.
• Set up a temporary User Account (different from any on your backups).
• Go through the set-up procedure for your Internet connection(s), power settings, and other system-wide settings and preferences.
• Download and install the "combo" update, to get back to your current version of OSX.
• If you've upgraded either OSX or iLife since purchasing your Mac, find the disks with iLife and restore those apps.
• Find all the discs for 3rd-party apps and install them. Re-enter any purchase keys.
• Find the websites for all downloaded 3rd-party apps, download and install them. Re-enter any purchase keys.
• Restore whatever data you saved. See #28 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum) for some common data.
• Re-enter all your Users' preferences and settings, including email accounts: account info, passwords, server names, etc. (if you didn’t save them).
• Wonder what you missed, and find out the hard way . . . for months . . . or longer.
|
Is it really worth all that?

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If you need help moving these libraries to an EHD then bookmark and use:
iPhoto: How to move the Library to an EHD
iTunes: How to move the library to an EHD
iMovie: How to move the Library to an EHD
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I have done it without issue.

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