Question The weirdest Hard drive failure

[dili11]

The weirdest thing happened 2 days ago. My EXFAT formatted portable Hard drive (Seagate Slim), suddenly Unmounted from my Mac and never came back on again. The drive spins when I connect it, the light shows but it doesn’t get recognized on the Mac or on disk utility or even system profiler on both Macs.

I then tried Windows 10 on Parallels for Mac and the drive showed on disk management but no drive letter no partition and no volume. Just a cd rom letter showed. I swapped the usb c bridge adapter for the drive with another from a second seagate drive and it didn’t make a difference.

It’s unbelievable how it stopped working just like that. The drive makes no noise, it’s spinning properly. No clicks no beeps etc. yet it seems it’s dead. What do you think?

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

i've seen similar problems happen many times with external housing failing.

if still in warranty,
file for RMA with Seagate.

if not,
remove the drive from the housing and try connecting directly.

 

[dili11]

I’m expecting a new housing case tomorrow. I’ll try that and see if it works. Though I did swap the housing sata connector with another from a seagate hard drive and it still didn’t work.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

why not just try the drive via direct SATA connection to the motherboard?
this will absolutely show if the drive itself has failed.

 

[dili11]

why not just try the drive via direct SATA connection to the motherboard?
this will absolutely show if the drive itself has failed.

it’s a MacBook Pro so it has to be connected via Sata to USB

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

My EXFAT formatted portable Hard drive (Seagate Slim), suddenly Unmounted from my Mac and never came back on again.

i guess you have tried other drives in it's place to ensure it is not the port itself or other malfunction of the MacBook?

 

[dili11]

i guess you have tried other drives in it's place to ensure it is not the port itself or other malfunction of the MacBook?

Yeah I did including other seagate drives and they mounted fine.

 

[dili11]

I have a feeling this is the culprit. When I use it to connect another drive it takes a while to Mount. But when I connect the drive through a standard usb c to usb hub it mounts with no issues.

 

[dili11]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1II2AcOZAsUBf-hvum_hIaXcsXNIxJi0-/view?usp=drivesdk