What is wrong with my external HD?

[BBradshaw]

Hey folks,
I have and external hard drive that seems to be on the fritz lately. I tried to start up iTunes and my MacBook informed me that iTunes could not open because it was in already in use. I keep all my iTunes and media files on the external hard drive. So, I went to check out if any other programs were running, none were. I clicked on my external hard drive. I thought it may be a problem with iTunes, so I went to erase and format my external HD. I was told by disk utility that it couldnt complete the action because the external HD couldnt be unmounted and that it may be in use by another program. My folders appeared (iTunes, Music, and Videos) but when I clicked on them nothing was shown to be in the folders. The external HD is a 750 gb and when I click on the HD it tells me that i have 500 gb available (indicating that my files are still on the HD somewhere but for some reason won't open and are not visable to me) I have read where the files may be being "indexed"? I'm not really sure what that means, but I have I had the drive for about a year and it just started happening to me today. Any idea of what the issue with the HD is?

 

[Der-PC-Mann]

' First off, don't panic yet, and don't try to format the drive yet. The reason you couldn't format the drive is because the files were being in use by Windows, so it couldn't complete the process. Try simply restarting the computer with the HDD plugged in, and if you still have the same problem, run CHKDSK, a Windows utility that fixes problems similar or identical to this.

If I remember this right...

1. Press the Windows key and R, then type in "Command".
2. Type in "CHKDSK X:" X being the letter of your external HDD.
3. Let it do its thing; it will likely tell you to restart your computer for it to complete the process, which is OK.

If you still have problems, scan the HDD with Scandisk, and if that picks up nothing, then I am out of ideas based on the info I have, with the exception of a wrong setting on iTunes or something.

 

[BBradshaw]

' First off, don't panic yet, and don't try to format the drive yet. The reason you couldn't format the drive is because the files were being in use by Windows, so it couldn't complete the process. Try simply restarting the computer with the HDD plugged in, and if you still have the same problem, run CHKDSK, a Windows utility that fixes problems similar or identical to this.

If I remember this right...

1. Press the Windows key and R, then type in "Command".
2. Type in "CHKDSK X:" X being the letter of your external HDD.
3. Let it do its thing; it will likely tell you to restart your computer for it to complete the process, which is OK.

If you still have problems, scan the HDD with Scandisk, and if that picks up nothing, then I am out of ideas based on the info I have, with the exception of a wrong setting on iTunes or something.

I dont have windows on my MacBook, is there another solution?

 

[Rackmountsales]

Right click on Computer and choose manage
Then go to Disk Management
See if your hard drive is there then right click on it and choose Change drive letter and paths
Also see if your hard drive is online and not offline

 

[Der-PC-Mann]

Ah, sorry.. I know sweet FA about Mac, so you'll wanna either ask someone who knows about that OS, or simply Google "how to scan for errors on a Mac HDD" or something to that effect, although it's more the file system you're wanting to check. I really don't know, though... who knows what sort of problems may exist on a Mac. Sorry I can't be of any use to you.