Seagate hard drive auto ejecting

Hey guys! I'm having a bit of a problem with my hard drive. I use a Mac laptop and a 2 TB seagate external harddrive. The Seagate plugs in, the light goes on, it loads, and then auto ejects, only to be inaccessible for several hours. Anyone else experience this and how the hell do you remedy it? I can't access my photos. Mac thinks it's the output on my laptop, but I find it odd that it loads and then just... gives up.

Better try it on another machine before trying anything else.

How was the drive formatted? If it is Apple’s HFS+ or a FAT disk (or NTFS which is unlikely)? If FAT, you can try in on any windows PC. You can also read Mac formatted drives on Windows: https://www.howtogeek.​com …ed-drive-on-a-windows-pc/ and move data to other drives there.

It's formatted for Macs only, I believe, and of course none of my other friends have a Mac for me to use. I'll check that howtogeek link! Thanks!

Check this site as well...https://www.macissues.​com …andomly-ejecting-in-os-x/

Solid! the more I look into it, the more it sounds like it's the laptop. A trip to Apple may be needed!

Is the drive powered through the USB (or other?) port to the Laptop, or does it have it's own brick?

I ask because sometimes USB powered drives can't get enough juice from the laptop, though this is usually not a problem for commercial externals, but rather for ones that you build yourself with a 3rd party case.

I have seen more than my share of portable hard drives have a bad USB interface. If the drive is out of warranty,
you might want to plug the drive in another machine---MINUS the USB interface. Before I pushed the panic button,
I would verify that the drive itself was good/bad.

Hope this helps,

110yd

It is powered by the laptop. I wondered that too, but the light on the harddrive remains on and you can hear it spinning, so it's getting some sort of power.

Yuck to all of that. haha I'm taking both into the Apple store on Wednesday, and see if it's my laptop or the hard drive. I've had it be finnicky with flash drives too, so I'm leaning to the laptop

Multiple ways to try and isolate the problem. It could be the power supplied from the laptop is not sufficient. (USB specs say one thing, and laptop/PC manufacturers do things somewhat on their own--thus the spec works for the most part--)

A) If you have access to a USB externally powered HUB that would eliminate the laptop supplying the power issue.
B) remove the drive from the enclosure and connect it with the SATA port and Power on the drive itself to a like computer.

Regards,

110yd

Could be a loose USB port in Seagate or MacBook
Maybe even the cord could have a slight break, making and breaking connection.
Like you said, the best is to take both MacBook and Seagate to Apple and hopefully have diagnosis.

first step try a different cable or cables, try a short cable.