Can exernal hard drive be rescued?

While backing up files from MacBook Air, the external hard drive got damaged, is no longer recognized by the Mac. I think it was ejected while running.It was passworded. Is it possible that it can be wiped and restored to a working disk or is it trashed for good? I do not need the files, just wondering if it could become a working disk again.

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.6

Posted on Oct 11, 2022 1:09 PM

Similar questions

How to recover files from an unrecognised external hard drive on MacBook Pro? I used the external hard drive once to back up some files and now my macbook isn't recognizing it. Disk utility First Aid fails with the following info: File system check exit code is 1 Restoring the original state found as unmounted Cluster chain has too few clusters for its size When I tried to mount the drive I got this error message: "Could not mount. (com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error 49244.)" Do I need to partition the drive? I have some files on there already that I prefer not to lose. [Re-Titled by Moderator]
1984 10
Macbook Air M2 stopped recognizing external hard drive I have a Macbook Air (M2, 2022, MacOS Monterey 12.7.2) which, after a year of use, will suddenly no longer recognize external hard drives (a Seagate and a Western Digital My Passport). Here are the things I have already tried • the physical connectors and the ports are fine • the external drives work fine on an older Macbook Air • restarted several times • did a couple of full shut-downs • restarted in Safe Mode • updated to latest version of Monterey • apparently, for this computer, resetting SMC happens automatically on restart, and resetting NVRAM is not applicable On the older Macbook, I ran Disk Utility First Aid on both external drives. One of them was then briefly find-able again on the new Macbook, but the first time I disconnected and tried to reconnect, it didn’t work anymore. Oddly, the newer Macbook will still recognize a SanDisk thumb drive. I’ve seen a lot of earlier posts on this but didn’t find any solutions that worked for me. Has there been any further progress on solving this problem? One other thing: for a couple of months before this happened, I frequently received the “disk removed without first ejecting properly” error message, even when the connections were rock solid. From what I've been able to see online, there hasn't been a good solution for this either. I assume the problems are somehow related? This basically means I can't use Time Machine, which is disturbing though I have other backups too. Any clues would be most welcome! PS Could I tag on one more question -- would you recommend for/against just getting a high-capacity SanDisk thumb drive and using that for Time Machine? (Is there any obvious reason why the Macbook might like the thumb drive better than the hard drive, or reason to be optimistic that it will continue liking it?)
3457 6
lost access to G-drive mobile hard disk My external USB-C G-drive has suddenly stopped appearing when I plug it into my Macbook Air (OS Monterey 12.5) and has failed to perform auto back-up for nearly a month. G-Utilities does appear but displays the endless spinning wheel (loading) when I try to open. After about 5 minutes, I get this message: The disk you attached was not readable by this computer. How can I fix this?
2552 1

1 reply

-Bubba-

Level 6

10,550 points

Oct 11, 2022 1:12 PM in response to cjjj

Can you boot into macOS Recovery by holding CMD + R on startup? Failing that, try Internet Recovery (CMD + OPT + R).

From there, you should be able to erase the disk - Use Disk Utility to erase an Intel-based Mac - Apple Support

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Can exernal hard drive be rescued?