Help with Time Machine?

[fmillerphoto]

My Time Machine seems to have evaporated...

I have a 6tb USB 3.0 external drive designated for my Time Machine backups. I'm on a 27-inch iMac from 2019 running Monterey 12.6.6

Everything has been ducky for a long time, but now I can't access the drive. It doesn't show up in the finder, disk utility, nothing. This -might-coincide with an OS upgrade, but I didn't notice at the time...

I'm not sure where to even begin. I can't reformat it if my mac can't see it...

Do I just toss the drive and start over? Or...?

Thanks!

 

[ignatius345]

If you don't already have one, make sure you get another backup of some kind done pronto while you sort out that 6TB drive. Otherwise you're one hardware failure away from losing all your stuff.

With that out of the way, to troubleshoot your existing drive, have you tried hooking it up to another Mac?

 

[fmillerphoto]

Thanks!
I've got it plugged into my MacBook via an adapter. The drive chatters a lot, but doesn't show up in the finder, disk utility, etc...
Dead?

 

[DarkPremiumCho]

Seems like a power supply issue. If you have the data safely on other devices, try:

• different cable, USB ports, computers
• disassemble the enclosure and put the bare drive in a desktop computer
• use another enclosure, preferably with a dedicated power supply

If you don't want to risk losing the data on the drive, contact a professional data recovery service. Do not spin it up again to avoid further damages.