I’ve been using this drive for 3 weeks with no problems via FireWire 800. Never mounted drive via USB. Yesterday, when booting up my computer it did not mount. It does not display in Disk Utility or WD Smartware, but does display in System Information → FireWire → “Unknown device” with the only other information being ‘Max Speed: 800 Mbps’.
When connected and powered up the drive does spin up and seems to be functioning normally (no weird noises, and all expected spin up sounds, etc.).
I tried connecting the drive via USB without success. Connected with USB not only does it not mount, but System Information does not list or detect the drive (nor as an unknown device) on any of the USB busses.
I’ve tried safe boot, single user mode, and I have run fsck with no errors. No joy.
Rebooted several times, etc… tried different cables, etc… Drive is not detected by “Data Rescue 3”.
I don’t know what to try next. None of my drive repair software seems to scan for drives and thus seem to be of no use because they require the the drive to be recognized by the OS, it seems, at least at some low level, which it does not seem to be detecting for some reason.
My wife did move my laptop and the drive, didn’t disconnect or power anything down, but I suspect she may have unintentionally grazed the power button on the back of the drive. Other than that there were no changes to my system configuration, settings, and no other software has been installed. Two weeks ago I did unplug the drive without first unmounting the volumes by accident, but it reconnected/remounted without any issue.
I’ve seen this same issue reported on this forum several times with various WD products as well as many postings to various sites (via google) but no posts with actual solutions. Please assist if you have an idea that could help. Thank you.
