Why does my external hard drive say no media?
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asell87
R2D2_WD
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R2D2_WD
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R2D2_WD
Apr 14, 2016 at 09:47 AM
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Apr 14, 2016 at 09:47 AM
Hi Asell87,
It is possible that you may need to reformat the drive in order to be used with one of the Windows formats. Do you know what file format it used to have when you were using it on the Mac? Sadly, if you format the drive you will lose all the data stored on it. I think you should wait ant test the drive back on the Mac laptop. Just in case, try using the drive with another USB cable.
If the external is not recognized or the data cannot be accessed even on the Mac, then you may need to try using some data recovery tools in order to save the information. Have in mind that in many cases the No Media error is an indication for a hard drive failure. I would try accessing the files with a Linux Live version, which can be freely downloaded. Make a bootable USB and boot from it. Connect the drive and try to access the data.
Hope this helps
It is possible that you may need to reformat the drive in order to be used with one of the Windows formats. Do you know what file format it used to have when you were using it on the Mac? Sadly, if you format the drive you will lose all the data stored on it. I think you should wait ant test the drive back on the Mac laptop. Just in case, try using the drive with another USB cable.
If the external is not recognized or the data cannot be accessed even on the Mac, then you may need to try using some data recovery tools in order to save the information. Have in mind that in many cases the No Media error is an indication for a hard drive failure. I would try accessing the files with a Linux Live version, which can be freely downloaded. Make a bootable USB and boot from it. Connect the drive and try to access the data.
Hope this helps
Apr 14, 2016 at 10:18 AM
I just double checked and I guess that I made a mistake. When I plug in my hard drive, it actually doesn't say no media... that is listed above it and I guess it applies to something else... what it does say is this...
Disk 2
Basic
232.89 GB
Online
200 MB
Healthy (EFI System Partition)
232.57 GB
Healthy (Primary Partition)
128 MB
Unallocated
Apr 15, 2016 at 02:56 AM