UKC

My Seagate portable HD has packed up after approx 6 months. It has simply dropped off the Mac and refuses to be recognised, probably overheated. My previous WD MyPassport lasted a year and I have heard that Time Capsule may pack up after 18 months. So is there a back up device out there that doesn't need replacing every year?

In reply to tlm

Hey i'd help ye hen but i haven't a bloody clue what your on about !

In reply to tlm:

Is there any way that you can connect the HD to another computer that is NOT apple and see if the drive is a dudd?

Other than that, I am all out of ideas, for apple stuff. I have only ever had one HD die on me that was not down to user stupidity.

In reply to tlm:

Dropbox (Business version).

In reply to tlm:

Have you tried Disk Utility or Disk Warrior to mount and restore, or at least ease and reformat the disk? This seems to be uncommonly unlucky, your rate of disk failure that is. Can you imagine if the HDs inside our computers failed so quickly. If this is critical then more sophisticated arrangement (RAID, Tape or disk rotation) would be better.

In reply to SouthernSteve: Investigated at bit this morning and the actual drive seems fine, it is the FireWire cable that appears to be the problem (or the port ). If I connect using the USB it is fine. Got it off Amazon so I will see if I can get a replacement cable

In reply to Gudrun:

Hrumphhh... by the way, that wasn't me. It was Duncan who was logged on as me on his ipod, which is a bit weird as I have never logged onto ukc with his ipod and he doesn't know my password. How did that happen, eh?

In reply to tlm:

I usually buy the cheapest one that I can find. My oldest is a freecom drive that I bought eight years ago.

Are you storing them in direct sunlight?

In reply to tlm:

You left yourself logged in.

As for the backup, unless you're storing insane amounts of movies or something, store your stuff on a flash drive instead of a regular external hdd. I've got documents stored on a 128mb stick that I had like 10 years ago and it's still fine, presumably because it's only ever running for a few mins at a time.

On the other side of thing I've got 3x 1tb drives that I've had for over 5 years that are still running just fine, though they are USB, don't know anyone that uses firewire for anything.

In reply to tlm: Depending on when you bought your Mac (whether you have the install discs or not) there should be a hardware tester on there. Try and use that to see if the FW port on the Mac is dead, if not, it's either the one on the drive or the cable.

Then you can change the cable to try and rule that out.

Someone mentioned Disk Utility - have you tried that? Even if it doesn't mount on the desktop it may still be visible by DU.

In reply to Removed User:
Hi it's me logged in as me now on the Mac.
Back up is mainly for multiple layered Photoshop files which tend to be quite large

In reply to Pwdr:
Tried the cable again today and it works. I think it may be an overheating issue. The FW port with the GoFlex is a sealed unit and quite pricey to replace however I am in communication with the supplier so I may get a replacement