1TB external HDD formatted in exFat no longer reads on one of my PCs

Drez

So, I have an exFat formatted external HDD (1TB WD Passport).

Works fine on my MacBook Pro - Mavericks partition
Works fine on my MacBook Pro - Windows 7.1 partition
Used to work fine on my PC - Windows 7.1 partition but now it tells me it's buggered and that I need to format it for it to start working again

Any ideas?

Also, I have installed Final Fantasy XIII three times now because it decided to randomly delete itself. I don't know if that's related or not. I have a Steam directory on the external HDD. It's certainly weird. And clearly it's a conspiracy perpetrated by aliens working at both Verizon and Square Enix trying to make me redownload a 60 gig game multiple times so they can drive toward capped internet services. That last sentence is a joke. But really, that's goddamned annoying.

Drez

Also, reformatting is not a feasible option at this time.

nexuscrawler

If you can access it via your mac you could copy over the critical files reformat and copy the stuff back over

Drez

Not feasible. It's an 80% filled 1TB HDD and my MacBook is a 90% filled 500GB model.

edit: All files are critical. It's photo data, mostly. I can't lose any of it.

I guess I'll just have to live with not using it on the other PC.

bowen

There's really nothing to be done. However, try another USB port. The drive is probably on the way out, I'd look into replacing it and getting the contents off asap. Usually glitches like you're noticing with FF are symptoms of a larger issue, the drive might be marking those sectors bad.

Darkewolfe

If you absolutely can't bear to lose any of those files, you need to back them up somewhere else anyway. You will potentially lose that drive entirely someday.

hsu

I'll second bowen. The symptoms you describe are of a hard drive that's about to fail completely. That drive needs to be backed up and replaced, yesterday.

Drez

The drive is less than a month old. It's newer than my MacBook Pro which some of you may know I purchased very recently. I suppose it is possible it is a dud, but I highly doubt it.

I was leaning toward it being a software issue or maybe even USB with my other PC. You guys really think it's a hardware issue with the drive itself?

bowen

Losing data multiple times is a pretty big deal yeah.

Drez

Oh yeah I was wondering what FF meant. I forgot about the Final Fantasy thing.

You make a good point. Damn it all.

Draygo

Drives can sometimes fail quickly. You can get them replaced via warranty. If the drive has an advanced replacement option use that. They will ship you a new drive (you pay for it up front - well they put a hold), then you can copy your data to it and send it back (they refund your payment/hold). Use a credit card not a debit for this.

And 2, get a backup.

Foomy

Drez wrote: »

The drive is less than a month old. It's newer than my MacBook Pro which some of you may know I purchased very recently. I suppose it is possible it is a dud, but I highly doubt it.

I was leaning toward it being a software issue or maybe even USB with my other PC. You guys really think it's a hardware issue with the drive itself?

Drives are most likely to fail within the first month, and the chance goes down sharply until you reach 5+ years, sort of an upside down bell curve. It could also just be the controller on the external drive and not the hdd itself.

But either way I would backup that data asap and see about a replacement.

Great Scott

Drez wrote: »

Not feasible. It's an 80% filled 1TB HDD and my MacBook is a 90% filled 500GB model.

edit: All files are critical. It's photo data, mostly. I can't lose any of it.

I guess I'll just have to live with not using it on the other PC.

I would suggest that you take your files, password-protect and compress them using your favorite utility (I use ARC), and upload them to your cloud storage provider of choice (I use Google Drive, but I know that MS and Apple also have storage). There are a number of Internet-based backup solutions too (my Uncle uses Carbonite).

That way, if the drive is on the way out, no problem. If you need those files on your Windows PC, no problem. It's probably a good idea to have some other backup of those files in any case.

nexuscrawler

If the drive isn't physically dying it could be a serious problem with the formatting in which case a backup and reformat might fix it