The MacBook crashed, which is why the backup mattered — and now he is "unable to open any files on the lacie hard drive" that held it. Two failures in quick succession is not bad luck so much as bad arithmetic: a backup that lives permanently plugged into the machine it protects is exposed to most of the same accidents. The important thing is that the LaCie has its own fault, quite separate from whatever stopped the Mac, and it gets diagnosed on its own terms rather than treated as part of the same incident. Most often a drive that mounts and will not open anything has damaged filing structures — the map is broken, the files are not — and that is a copy-and-rebuild job.
| Media | A LaCie external drive that held a backup of a MacBook, whose files can no longer be opened after the MacBook itself crashed. |
| Reported situation | LaCie external drive · held a Time Machine style backup of a MacBook · the MacBook crashed · the backup drive's files can now not be opened · recovery sought on the external drive. |
| Fault class | A fault on the backup drive itself, most commonly a damaged Mac filesystem so that the volume mounts or half-mounts and opens nothing, though a hardware fault is possible. The backup data is generally intact and is reached by imaging read-only and rebuilding the structure from the copy. |
| Equipment used | Read through a hardware write-blocker, PC-3000 UDMA driving it, drive health assessed first so a filesystem fault could be separated from a hardware one · copied to an image on DeepSpar, with clean-air work under laminar flow had the fault proved mechanical · the Apple filesystem read out in R-Studio from the image, the structure rebuilt, the backup contents carved and checked by rendering. |
The first thing to establish is that these are two separate events with one shared cause of exposure. Whatever crashed the MacBook — board, power, storage — has not reached across the cable and damaged the LaCie. What is far more likely is that the backup drive already had a problem, or acquired one during the same power event, or simply developed a damaged filesystem the way permanently connected drives do. Backups fail quietly, and nobody notices, because nobody opens a backup until they need it.
The specific symptom is encouraging. A drive that is present and will not open anything is usually reporting damaged catalogue structures rather than damaged hardware, and on a Mac that means the filesystem's own records of where each file lives have gone inconsistent. Time Machine backups are particularly susceptible because they are full of hard links and dense directory structures, so relatively small damage stops the whole thing being browsable while leaving the underlying data untouched.
The route back is the usual one, and the discipline matters more here than anywhere. Do not let anything repair it in place — First Aid on a Mac writes to the disk, and this drive is currently the only copy of everything. It is imaged read-only, and the rebuilding happens on the image. A word about the wider arrangement, since it will come up anyway: a backup drive that lives plugged into the machine it protects shares that machine's power supply, its surges and its accidents. One additional copy kept somewhere else entirely would have made this a dull afternoon instead of an urgent phone call.
It went on PC-3000 UDMA with a write-blocker wired in line and its health was assessed before anything else, precisely to separate a filesystem fault from a failing drive — an important distinction when the drive in question is the last copy. It imaged cleanly on DeepSpar. The Apple filesystem was read out in R-Studio from the image, the damaged structures rebuilt on the copy, and the backup contents recovered and rendered to confirm they opened before anything went onto fresh media.
Imaged read-only, the Apple filesystem rebuilt on the copy, and the backup contents handed back on fresh media. The diagnostic cost nothing; the figure that followed was fixed, written and inclusive of VAT. The drive itself was healthy and the fault was logical, so this ran on no fix, no fee. The LaCie was returned working, with the advice that it goes back into service as one of at least two copies rather than as the only one — which is the same advice that would have made this enquiry unnecessary.
Treat the backup as its own patient. It has its own fault, unrelated to whatever happened to the computer, and it needs diagnosing on its own terms rather than being folded into the same story. Since it is now very likely the only copy of everything, the rules tighten: do not run First Aid or Disk Utility repairs on it, do not let anything reformat or re-initialise it, and do not attempt to restore from it onto a new machine while it is in this state, because a failed restore can write to it. Image it first and rebuild from the copy. And when it is all back, put a second copy somewhere that is not plugged into the same computer — a backup that shares a socket with the machine it protects is only half a backup.
Every case file here is written up from a real enquiry handled for households and businesses across Norwich and Norfolk, anonymised so that nobody is identifiable. Each sets out the reasoning behind the diagnosis and the method used on that particular fault, with the equipment named.
The noise is the diagnosis — heads that can no longer read, and every retry costs you surface
He had already worked it out — a clicking drive has no way of announcing itself, so Windows is shown nothing whatever
The shutdown is the drive admitting defeat — it cannot ready its heads, so it stops trying and steps back
Diagnosis costs nothing and takes up to 2 working days from arrival, the quote is fixed in writing, and logical work runs no fix, no fee — start online or ring the freephone.