0

I've got a Mid 2015 MacBook Pro running Monterey. A WD 1TB My Passport quit being recognized by the system after several times of inadvertently being unplugged without ejecting. It's got a micro usb connection that would fall out a lot. The drive lights up and whirrs when connected and the light stays solid but I can't see the drive. Here's what I've tried.

  • A different external drive works
  • Tried a different USB cable
  • Tried different USB port
  • Tried it on another computer w/ same result
  • Enabled see external disks
  • Looked for it in Disk Utility but it doesn't show up.
  • Looked for it with Terminal list command but it doesn't show up Rebooted
  • Upgraded to Monterey
  • Tried WD Utilities
  • Removed it from external casing to plug in more directly but still is via usb micro interface. Not sure how to put it into another enclosure or interface.
  • Tried to manually force quit the fsck process from activity monitor but there is no fsck process running.
  • Downloaded a couple of different recovery programs Recoverit and Easus and it's not recognized. It did show up with Easeus twice but when I tried to search the disk it spontaneously dropped/disconnected after 2 - 3 minutes.

Of course the files on their are not backed up. I was working my way towards that over the next few days. Anyway I'd like to get at them. I know data recovery would seem to be my next step but I thought I'd reach out to see if anyone had any other suggestions/recommendations. It seems the issue is from the frequent disconnecting without ejecting but I'm not sure what else to try.

Here is what terminal spit out when I put in that code.

The default interactive shell is now zsh.
To update your account to use zsh, please run `chsh -s /bin/zsh`.
For more details, please visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT208050.
Brians-MacBook:~ brianvondedenroth$ system_profiler SPUSBDataType
2021-12-08 10:57:57.924 system_profiler[15708:1013170] SPUSBDevice: IOCreatePlugInInterfaceForService failed 0xe00002be
2021-12-08 10:57:57.925 system_profiler[15708:1013170] SPUSBDevice: IOCreatePlugInInterfaceForService failed 0xe00002be
USB:

    USB 3.0 Bus:

      Host Controller Driver: AppleUSBXHCILPTH
      PCI Device ID: 0x8c31 
      PCI Revision ID: 0x0005 
      PCI Vendor ID: 0x8086 

        Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad:

          Product ID: 0x0274
          Vendor ID: 0x05ac (Apple Inc.)
          Version: 6.24
          Serial Number: D3H60310GC1GHMFAD5PS
          Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
          Location ID: 0x14400000

        Bluetooth USB Host Controller:

          Product ID: 0x8290
          Vendor ID: 0x05ac (Apple Inc.)
          Version: 1.69
          Manufacturer: Broadcom Corp.
          Location ID: 0x14300000

        My Passport 071A:

          Product ID: 0x071a
          Vendor ID: 0x1058  (Western Digital Technologies, Inc.)
          Version: 20.11
          Serial Number: 575844314135305032363931
          Speed: Up to 480 Mb/s
          Manufacturer: Western Digital
          Location ID: 0x14200000 / 11
          Current Available (mA): 500
          Current Required (mA): 500
          Extra Operating Current (mA): 0
          Media:
            My Passport 071A:
              Capacity: 1 TB (1,000,175,828,992 bytes)
              Removable Media: No
              BSD Name: disk2
              Logical Unit: 0
              Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
              S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
              USB Interface: 0
              Volumes:
                EFI:
                  Capacity: 209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
                  File System: MS-DOS FAT32
                  BSD Name: disk2s1
                  Content: EFI
                  Volume UUID: 7B11024B-2E01-3DDB-B085-1CCFAA24F4B5
                Brians Pictures:
                  Capacity: 999.83 GB (999,831,855,104 bytes)
                  File System: Journaled HFS+
                  BSD Name: disk2s2
                  Content: Apple_HFS
                  Volume UUID: EE82A5C7-92E9-37F4-9F05-0CFB0765AAA9

Latest System Profiler Result:

2021-12-10 08:32:43.863 system_profiler[20593:1810791] SPUSBDevice: IOCreatePlugInInterfaceForService failed 0xe00002be 2021-12-10 08:32:43.865 system_profiler[20593:1810791] SPUSBDevice: IOCreatePlugInInterfaceForService failed 0xe00002be USB:

USB 3.0 Bus:

  Host Controller Driver: AppleUSBXHCILPTH
  PCI Device ID: 0x8c31 
  PCI Revision ID: 0x0005 
  PCI Vendor ID: 0x8086 

    Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad:

      Product ID: 0x0274
      Vendor ID: 0x05ac (Apple Inc.)
      Version: 6.24
      Serial Number: D3H60310GC1GHMFAD5PS
      Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
      Location ID: 0x14400000

    Bluetooth USB Host Controller:

      Product ID: 0x8290
      Vendor ID: 0x05ac (Apple Inc.)
      Version: 1.69
      Manufacturer: Broadcom Corp.
      Location ID: 0x14300000
Improve this question
5
  • First let's see if the system sees anything on USB. With your drive connected, please add a code block to your original question containing the output of the following command: system_profiler SPUSBDataType
    – pion
    Commented Dec 7, 2021 at 7:46
  • macOS complains a lot about disconnecting storage without ejecting first. It's more of an "I want to be sure everything is written to the drive first before you pull the plug" in my experience. The very few times I could ever trace a drive problem to that disk utility or diskwarrior could easily fix the problem. More likely unplugging was coincidental and the drive was already failing. But @Pion is right, lets get a look at what the Mac sees on USB when it is plugged in.
    – Steve Chambers
    Commented Dec 7, 2021 at 20:46
  • Thanks for the response guys. I edited my post to include the output from that command.
    – bvon
    Commented Dec 8, 2021 at 19:02
  • Interestingly enough, macOS recognizes the drive. What is the output of ls -la /Volumes?
    – pion
    Commented Dec 9, 2021 at 8:33
  • This is what I get. I ran the system profiler command again since something looked wonky and now the drive doesn't seem to show up. I posted the result in the original post. Brians-MacBook:~ brianvondedenroth$ ls -la /Volumes total 0 drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 96 Dec 9 15:28 . drwxr-xr-x 20 root wheel 640 Oct 17 20:30 .. lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1 Dec 6 21:38 Macintosh HD -> /
    – bvon
    Commented Dec 10, 2021 at 16:31

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

From our exchange in comments, we've seen that your visible symptoms are caused by the drive falling off USB. Given your earlier debugging findings:

  • A different external drive works
  • Tried a different USB cable
  • Tried different USB port
  • Tried it on another computer w/ same result

it's clear that this is a problem with the WD My Passport, not your Mac or cable.

The next question is whether the issue inside the WD lies with the hard disk (HDD) itself or with the USB interface controller that it's attached to.

You will need to fully disassemble your WD in order to extract the HDD and attach it to a different USB interface controller, which you'll have to buy.

If I were you, I'd contact WD support first. This is their bug and they should repair or replace your drive. If you're out of warranty, then go ahead with the above troubleshooting step.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .