Question: I’m an assistant editor and today one of our 10 TB G-Drives stopped working. Light turns on but disk does not spin, not readable by computers. I happened to have an OWC bare drive dock in the office, so I disassembled the G-drive and mounted it in the dock via SATA. As soon as I connected the drive, I got this pop-up: “The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.” In Disk Utility, the drive shows up as “ASMT109x- Config Media” with a 104.9 MB capacity, SATA connection. This is obviously not the 10 TB volume that I’m trying to access.
DiskWarrior was not helpful, and I’m currently doing a scan with Disk Drill Pro.
Any hunches about whether I need to, for instance, replace the PCB? I’ve mounted bare SATA drives before, but that’s the most “advanced” stuff I’ve done with hard drives.
Mac OS 10.14.4
G-Drive 0G05016
Western Digital P/N: 0F27452
MDL: HUH721010ALE600
Answer:The drive does not have custom firmware, but the USB bridge might do the sector size adjustment on the fly. But, that would result in the drive showing 1/8 the capacity and not the 104.9MB that is showing. That suggests that the drive itself has failed and/or is failing.
Don’t go back to the manufacturer, unless you are only looking to get it replaced under warranty. They will not assist with the recovery of your files.
If you value your data, seek the assistance of a professional data recovery lab. But, be prepared for it to be quite expensive, if the heads need to be replaced. Your drive model (HUH721010ALE600) is a helium filled drive and not even supported by the majority of professional labs.