External drive crashed

[Kellie W]

Hi Brian, I have a MacBook running Tahoe 26.3.1(a) and an iMac running on Sequoia 15.6.1. I stored all my photos on a MyPassport Ultra for Mac by WD. I used the external on both machines interchangeably. After I edited the photos, I would make a photobook and upload the edited photos to the cloud. My external drive crashed. In all fairness it was my fault. I forgot one of Damien's golden rules about do nothing with your computer when you were transferring files. This is when it crashed. This hard drive has all my travel photos and all my other photos for the last 3 years on it. I was working on editing my photos from March 2025 to now. My external now takes all day to load the directories (even when I turn off screen saver, sleep etc) and then may or may not load the photos from the directory when selected. I contacted WD who told me to connect to the drive using the MacBook and run disk utility / first aid, which we did together 2x. It did not work. So he told me to shut down the computer and then unplug the directory. Then try on my older apple machine. After several hours, the iMac cannot even find the drive since I ran the first aid (it could prior).

I need to use some recovery software and was not sure which is the best to use. I don't need all the photos but there are some very important ones that I have not yet edited that I would like to recover. WD gave me a list of companies that maybe able to help; but I am sure some are better than others and better for apple. I have no experience in this and don't know what to do.

Are you able to help me? I am so sad.

[Brian]

On 4/8/2026 at 3:55 PM, Kellie W said:

I forgot one of Damien's golden rules about do nothing with your computer when you were transferring files. This is when it crashed.

Yep!

No Web Browsing, No Netflix, No Facebook, No E-mail. Sorry you had to learn this the hard ware.  

 

On 4/8/2026 at 3:55 PM, Kellie W said:

I need to use some recovery software and was not sure which is the best to use.

Often, it's paid software that does a better job. That said, it is a real PITA to recover files on a Mac. I accidentally deleted the wrong folder in 2009, and I never got 100% back. What concerns me, is WHY your HD failed. Data corruption is one thing, but if there is physically something wrong below the surface, that's another. The more you "Dork" around with the HD, the worse things get, and I'm very concerned about it not mounting correctly. 

What I would do, and the software that I default to, is Photorecovery Professional by LC Technology. This company is the ORIGINAL Data Recovery for flash based media, from the late 1990's. It's the software that Sandisk Uses / Includes with their higher-end products. What I would do, is first install the Recovery Software on the Mac that worked the last / best with your HD, then after it's installed / running, hook up the external HD that's bad. Hopefully it will mount. 

Now, part 2...

I would HIGHLY-HIGHLY-HIGHLY ADVISE YOU TO PURCHASE A NEW EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE. Not only to potentially replace the failing HD, but you will need a clean HD to restore the recovered images to, and it makes things WAY easier. The reason? Data Recovery isn't always clean. The software finds the bits and pieces and tries to assemble things. Think of putting together a 1000 piece Jigsaw Puzzle without a photo for reference. You could have 65 different files for the same single Raw File or .psd. Again, Data Recovery on a Mac is not pretty and I speak from experience. Now, my viewpoint is a bit dated, since I last did something like this in 2010 and software has improved. Still, I want you to purchase the Recovery Software and a new EHD.

Before you dive into this, drop me a note in this thread and I want to make sure that your new External HD is setup correctly. Often manufacturers will create a Partition called exFAT, which is a file format that works with both Windows and Mac. Sounds like a good thing, eh? But it's not...in fact, it's DEAD WRONG. You see, exFAT is one of those things that Microsoft Invented a long time ago, it was almost like a "Garage Project." They never made it mainstream. They still use NTFS, and the macOS uses their own file system. exFAT is unpredictable at best, and is easily corruptible without warning. To make matters worse, you might have to send out your EHD to a place for forensic recovery, as regular recovery software doesn't always work with exFAT. Plus, forensic data-recovery isn't cheap. exFAT is meant for people that have triple backups of everything, and are Advanced Users / Techno-Weenies like me. But even * I * do not use exFAT.  Of course, Manufactures use it, because it's free and makes the masses easily hook up to the EHDs. Drives me nuts because the common user has no idea of how unpredictable exFAT is. 

In reality...you need to pick a format, Macintosh --> OR <-- Windows. None of this going back-and-forth stuff, at least not without a whole other backup. 

So when you get a new HD, hit me up and we will make sure it's setup correctly. While we are at it, I want to use Disk Utility and see how the failing WD EHD is setup. Hopefully it will mount. I'm 99.9999% sure it's exFAT, which complicates things. If it isn't, and it's something like Mac OS Extended (Journaled) that gives me hope. 

Report back. 

[Kellie W]

HI Brian

I bought a new WD My Passport for Mac 5TB

I have a number of these drives and I do believe I was doing too much, including transferring too many files at once with the old one.

I downloaded the free trial for Photorecovery Professional v52.

I have not done anything else.

(BTW old external drive was about 20% full, so that was not an issue).

Thank you for your time.

 

 

I appreciate the help

[Kellie W]

I will be using this to recover:

[Kellie W]

old disk:

[Kellie W]

New disk:

[Kellie W]

We have hope! OS Extended (Journalled) old and new drives.

[Kellie W]

main directory on external drive loaded up in about 20 minutes. I have ejected it so I can use my computer.  Everything seems there at this level anyways.

[Brian]

6 hours ago, Kellie W said:

We have hope! OS Extended (Journalled) old and new drives.

YIPPPEEEEE!!!

There is hope. Phew!! I love it when I am wrong in situations like this. 

First, let's try something simple, like those .jpg files and two .pdf files that I see in your screen shot. Copy them over. Do not drag / cut the files. Copy only. Then paste. If that works, then we step things up to the next level by trying to copy the folders that you can not live without.  Copy / Paste these folders over to the new EHD. Then let your computer run overnight. Hopefully things will work. This will probably be slow, just let it run. 

[Kellie W]

The first jpg and pdfs copied over. 

Then I tried “frame new ones”. Result is attached. Not good.

I will try a couple more of the smaller necessary files and report back later this weekend.

I do have a questions about the folder: My Photos. It is a huge folder with many folders inside it. Eg 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026. Then within each year maybe 30 folders. (Eg. Granddaughter #1s birthday, #2s birthday, etc). The only necessary ones are 2025 and 2026. How do I approach this large folder?