[SOLVED] External hard drive making beeping/squeaking sounds ?

[hjvd177]

I have a WD Elements external that I bought less than a year ago started making this beeping/squeaking sound and didn't get recognized when I plugged it in at a computer at my college. It worked fine with those computers before (which are macs btw). When I plugged it into my laptop at home(windows) it worked perfectly fine. I read that it could be due to a poor connection and insufficient power, since I connected it via a USB hub, as opposed to the read/write head getting stuck or the drive failing. As mentioned, it is still pretty new and still under warranty and hasn't suffered any damage except for maybe a few occasional light bumps from carrying around in my backpack. Is it safe to assume that the weird noises were primarily due to a faulty connection or should I look to replace it?

 

[Ralston18]

If the external drive originally worked with the college macs then something there has changed.

Especially if the WD drive works on your laptop at home and/or other devices to which the drive is connected.

My suggestion is to work with the applicable college IT staff - some mac upgrade or change may be reason. Perhaps other students have had the same problem.

Anothere thought is that it could be a cable problem that manifests when the WD Elements is connected to the macs. Try another known working cable between drive and mac(s).

That said it is certainly possible that the drive may indeed failing in some manner. Just more "sensitive" when connected to a mac versus other host devices. Power, connectivity, etc..

I would make a full effort to back up that WD Elements drive ASAP and ensure that the backed up data is recoverable and readable.

Remember that anything you do could cause a failure and loss of data.

May happen piecemeal or catastrophically.