Backup disk corrupted

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    So I have an external WD Black drive thats 5TB. It's partitioned so that one partition is a normal APFS volume and the other is a 1TB partition for backups

    A few days after I got the drive (back in February), I got this message

    I thought it was a fluke and reformatted the drive and it worked fine. However, just earlier today, this message has come back up. There is nothing on the disk that is showing up, despite that there should be many backups

    I tried running First Aid in Disk Utility and this is what I got

    I could erase it and try it, but what's the point of having a backup disk if all the data on it is going to magically disappear. This drive is brand new, maybe a month old.

    I've never force ejected it before, I've always safely ejected it. However, the drive sometimes does make noise even after I've ejected it like stuff is still happening, but macOS showed no warnings or indications that it was still being used.

    This is what Disk Utility > Info has to say about the partition

    Any ideas?

  • Go to Best Answer

    I'd probably assume it's fucked at this point. If it's under warranty I'd send it back, some companies (think wd are one of them) have some level of data recovery as part of the warranty depending on the type of drive.

    From experience MacOS is a bit fussy and once the drive has any sort of damage like what yours seems to have it will never quite play nice again. Had a similar issue with my old macs boot drive.

    Wild1145

    Network Owner at TotalFreedom

    Managing Director at ATLAS Media Group Ltd.

    Founder & Owner at MastodonApp.UK

    @Telesphoreo#11416 that's very strange.

    Other thing to try is running first aid on the disk rather than the partition of you haven't already. Might give you something.

    Wild1145

    Network Owner at TotalFreedom

    Managing Director at ATLAS Media Group Ltd.

    Founder & Owner at MastodonApp.UK

    If the problem turns out to be with the partition table, you will only find it by checking the disk rather than the partition, as Ryan suggests. You might also try reading the S.M.A.R.T. status of the disk (not the partition) to check if it is in good shape physically.

    @StevenNL2000#11435 I have no idea how to. macOS Big Sur removed any hierarchy explaining how the disk works. Now it’s just a list of my partitions (or volumes or containers or however the hell APFS works)

    Edit: nevermind found it. I ran first aid on the drive itself and it reported no errors

    It says that it does not support SMART which is kind of odd if you ask me

    • Best Answer

    @Telesphoreo#11468 The only solutions I've been able to find are some rather interesting ones. Try running First Aid on the partition multiple times. There is apparently a known bug where the application will suddenly be able fix the problem after seemingly doing nothing the first few times. Another thing you can try that solved a similar issue for someone is adding a new APFS volume to the drive from Disk Utility.

  • wild1145 November 2, 2022 at 6:35 PM

    Selected a post as the best answer.