MP 1,1-5,1 Western Digital G-Drive 2TB SSD drive not mountable now

[epcpnuke]

What I'm about to explain is something I do a lot of, so I'm really
perplexed how it turned out a few days ago!

I attached the drive via usb, and the disk image appeared in
the upper right corner of the screen. I accessed the drive and
then right-clicked the image on the screen and clicked eject.
The image disappeared from the right corner of the screen and
I pulled out the usb cord. After about 2 or 3 seconds some kind
of error message appeared in the upper right corner of the
screen telling me the drive was improperly disconnected, or
something to that affect.

I have never had that happen before!

When I went to reconnect the drive, it does not show up on
the screen and hasn't the many times I've tried since then.
I guess I should mention this is on a 2008 MacPro 3,1
running Mac OS 10.11.6 (but it's also got Mac OS 10.6.8
and Linux). So, then I thought I'd try connecting the drive
on the Mac OS 10.6.8 system, and it does not mount on
that system either. However, it does mount on my Linux
system, which it has done many times in the past.

I called Apple support, and all he would say was: "I have
no idea what is causing the problem." He did make an
odd statement though, which I thought was crazy (but I
did not tell him that), and that was that maybe the OS
reformatted the drive to something that Mac OS cannot
mount. I know the drive was originally formatted in
Mac OS Extended Journal. However, when I mounted
the drive on Linux, and using the utility Disks, it said
the drive was formatted exFAT.

Anyway, has anybody experienced this? If so, what
did you do to get the drive to mount again on Mac?
If not, does anybody have any ideas what caused
this and how to repair it? Any/all help would be
appreciated!

Ron

 

[fatTribble]

Do you have another computer where you can plug the drive into?
You could check to see if it’s operating okay and the formatting. 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

[Thirio2]

I would look for something mechanical on a machine that old. Perhaps an intermittent connection on the computer or drive or cable. The fact it works on another system means the drive controller still works. I have had that problem with multiple WD external drives.

 

[epcpnuke]

fatTribble: No, I do not have another computer.

Thirio2: It has nothing to do mechanically or with a loose connection. I have another 4TB G-Drive SSD that I hooked
up with the same usb cable and it mounts fine on Mac. Boy was I afraid when it came time to eject it! I waited a full
minute after ejecting it before I pulled the usb cord.

Today I reconnected the problem drive for what must have been the 15-20th time since the problem started 6-7 days
ago, and it FINALLY mounted! I don't understand what's going on, but if it mounts I'm happy!!! As an aside, I thought
the 2TB SSD drive was formatted Mac OS extended journal BECAUSE the 4TB SSD drive was formatted that way (I
checked when I just connected it), but I have to believe the 2TB SSD drive was always formatted exFAT, because I
just don't believe Mac OS would reformat it when disconnecting it (like the Apple support guy thought might have
occurred).

 

[Bigwaff]

macOS most likely performing file system check on drive when first connected. That why drive not mount immediately.