hey guys, i got a 1tb seagate hard drive...dont no why i bought seagate..i regret it now. i partitioned it, 1 side for my mac where i keep all my music then 1 side for fat 32 for films and pictures and stuff. i just plugged it in to my macbook pro to watch a film and the main mac partion with all my music wont show up. if i go to disc utility it shows up and says i can do the repair disc but im not sure if i do that it might erase all the data and i dont have a back up of it.....i have lots of music on there that i really dont want to loose. whats the best thing to do now? if i go get a better hard drive will i be able to back it up before i try to repair it??? thanks guys!

The partition may be damaged (which may be repaired when you run the disk repair), or sectors on the hard drive could be damaged, which is the reason for it not mounting. To be safe, I would recommend looking into an application like Drive Genius ([url]http://www.prosofteng.com/products/drive_genius.php[/url]). This application will be able to scan the hard drive for any defects, and then will try to repair the drive. There is always a possibility that data will be lost, so becareful One of the main reasons that backup is so important. Let us know if you have any luck.

thanks for the reply, so would drive genius be a better idea then doing the repair disc though my disc utility. i havent done that yet cause i was unsure weather it would erase it or not. yea i know i should be backing up more often, this drive was pretty new and was a back up of a previous drive i no longer have, i was going to get it backed up but never got round to it!!!

ps. as i no one of the partitions is ok would it be worth me getting a new drive and backing up the sound partition before i tried the disc repair?

Yes, you can backup the mounted partition onto a new drive as an extra precaution. You can try run the Disk Repair first. If you have no luck, then I definitely recommend Drive Genius. I had a drive that wasn't mounting. With Drive Genius I was able to mount it and copy the data onto a new drive. Luckily I did that, as a few days later the drive with the partition that wouldn't mount failed.

i tried the repair disk, it spent ages doing something then came back with a red message saying drive error and it had failed. i then tried to verify the disc and within seconds the drive popped up!! im currently backing up and am a very happy man. im also backing it up onto a mates harddrive so i have 2 copies :) thanks for you help!

Great. Definitely backup all your data ASAP onto a new drive. Sounds like the drive is on its way out. Well done on getting it back up.