External Hard Drive not recognised

[snigatkins]

I have a 250gb external hard drive that has always worked fine on my macbook, stores about 15,000 photos and acts as a time machine.

I recently plugged it in via USB, and was given the message "this disk is not readable by this computer" or something to that effect. I opened disk utility - but most options including repair were greyed out.

Not only this, but my macbook seems to think it is a 2 TB hard drive (which is definitely isn't) and when I connected it originally it made a horrible noise..

Is there any way to restore it back to normal, or at the least rescue my photos and reboot the whole thing?

Thanks

I have a MacBook, OS 10.5.8

 

[saphire7]

I've got exactly the same problem but with my WD 500GB external hard drive.
I'm in the middle of using Disk Doctor to try and get the Data Recovered.
You can download a demo version for free.
I'll know in 9 hrs whether it has worked.

Good luck

 

[Walrus666]

I have a 250gb external hard drive that has always worked fine on my macbook, stores about 15,000 photos and acts as a time machine.

I recently plugged it in via USB, and was given the message "this disk is not readable by this computer" or something to that effect. I opened disk utility - but most options including repair were greyed out.

Not only this, but my macbook seems to think it is a 2 TB hard drive (which is definitely isn't) and when I connected it originally it made a horrible noise..

Is there any way to restore it back to normal, or at the least rescue my photos and reboot the whole thing?

Thanks

I have a MacBook, OS 10.5.8

Hello, you can try using data recovery apps like saphire7 is doing. However, more times than not, when your drive is severely damaged and making noises, these apps are ineffective. Of course, you could try repairing the drive yourself (be careful) or you could bring it to an expert to do so, but they charge quite a bit money for their services. It's always a good practice to have at least two backups of your files.