I think my new Mac bricked my external HDD. Can it be recovered?

[pisaradotme]

I have a new Mac Pro 13". OS X El Capitan.

I have a 500GB WD Elements external HDD, which I used to use with my Windows laptop. Because it's not formatted for Mac, I wanted to format it so that I can use it for Mac.

I backed up the HDD by transferring the files from the HDD to the Mac's desktop. And because the HDD is readable only on the Mac, I cannot delete anything. I proceeded to Disk Utility to Erase the disk. But it failed, and now the HDD is not shown on Finder. I also tried to erase it again but it does not work anymore. Disk Utility shows there is no more volume under it.

What can I do to fix this disk? I don't want to buy a new disk.

Some screenshots:

Imgur links:

http://imgur.com/yMWe4L2

http://imgur.com/3LEEZd3

http://imgur.com/ah2NoUT

http://imgur.com/RrywEjm

 

[Shirasaki]

Try to use your Windows laptop to format the disk into FAT32, or NTFS. And then format it under Mac again?

 

[pisaradotme]

Hi Shirasaki. The problem is that Windows does not recognize it too. It is seen as a device but cannot be seen in Windows Explorer. I tried to troubleshoot it and it says there is no issue.

 

[Shirasaki]

Hi Shirasaki. The problem is that Windows does not recognize it too. It is seen as a device but cannot be seen in Windows Explorer. I tried to troubleshoot it and it says there is no issue.

Hmm. There are several lower end disk format software you can use to troubleshoot, in Windows.
Diskgenius is one I used before and it was pretty good. But I am not sure if the free version of this software could solve your problem.
Other methods like using Mac terminal to examine the disk and format may help, but I don't know much about it.

 

[pisaradotme]

Hmm. I'll try that on Windows. I did try on Terminal but an error says the disk is not mounted.

 

[richard2]

I'm afraid the Disk Utility logs indicate that the disc drive is faulty. You should return the disc drive for a replacement or refund if possible.

 

[iamtheonlyone4ever]

if you have a windows machine download media four mac drive, the trial is good for 5 days try to repair the drive using mac drive or you can format the drive or create a new partition using mac drive even if the drive is in mac format because that is what app is for, to access hard drives that are in mac format file system, you can also take the drive out of the enclosure and put it in a pc, then use a windows installation disk to delete the partition and leave the drive unallocated,after that you can put the drive back in the enclosure and create a new partition, if you want to share the drive for mac and windows without using third party apps simply create the partition using exfat format

also if you don't want to take the drive out the enclosure you can use Active@ Kill Disk in windows , that will zero write the drive , deleting all partitions and giving you a brand new hard drive , then all you have to do is create a new partition

 

[pisaradotme]

I'm afraid the Disk Utility logs indicate that the disc drive is faulty. You should return the disc drive for a replacement or refund if possible.

That is sad. It's five years old.

 

[iamtheonlyone4ever]

you can also use softraid for mac, not the lite version that one doesn't include the tools, install the 30 day trial, and reinitialize the drive, this app works for non raid drives too, the good thing about this app is that inmediatly will show the current status of the drive , if it shows a red dot then you have a bad drive, probably bad blocks or a smart disk error, if it shows a blue or green dot then the drive is good, you can use these app to try to fix the drive

also you can use the latest version of Tuxera for mac and use Tuxera Disk Manager to check or repair, you can also format the drive using that app, the trial is good for 15 days

so i gave you a few options in OS X and in windows, if you have any doubt about how to use the app or you need help, just tell me.

 

[iamtheonlyone4ever]

Hi Shirasaki. The problem is that Windows does not recognize it too. It is seen as a device but cannot be seen in Windows Explorer. I tried to troubleshoot it and it says there is no issue.

go to run type
diskmgmt.msc
look for the hard drive and delete the volume or partition
after that you can create a new partition right there
make sure this time you choose exfat