External drive not mounting

[squarepusher]

So once again in a sticky situation with another external dying (or dead) on me. This is a WD 2TB passport backup of random things from the last two years. I have not gone to it in at least a year (has been mounted now and then) so it is not a total loss, but thinking of losing it all without a try is niggling me.

The drive is not ticking (which is a first for a drive failed on me) and is visible in Disk Utility but cannot be mounted or repaired.

I scanned it with FileSalvage and it took about 2 days, found lots of file but could only see the file types till the scan finished (all my tiffs and mkvs where found) but it randomly shutdown on me. I am thinking of getting hold of some other software to try and grab some stuff off it if its at all possible. also thinking of giving Disk Warrior a go if anyone is familiar with it. it seems most of my data is their and its just a bad sector or w/e, i just need it mounting before it goes completely.

I am on OSX and have tried mounting it in windows to no luck, just wondering if their is anything else I can try?

 

[APM]

I hear spinrite can be good in situations like this but can't speak from experience as I've not used it myslf

 

[squarepusher]

well i gave it another go and it does not show in Disk Utility anymore so it is no where to be seen. still no clicking. i guess it conked out while it was scanning to salvage files and thats why it randomly shut down on me. I have taken it out of its enclosure and tried from inside my comp but no luck. bleh. is dead. i give up on hdd from now on ssd it is.

 

[squarepusher]

oops, spoke too soon, I unscrewed the torx screws off the actual board that sits on the hdd. so it is back.. still unmountable. going to take the usb board off again and see if it makes a difference. other than that I will buy a 2tb hdd and wait for any suggestions and read up on getting the data off this thing before it goes kaput for good.

Will installing and trying Ubuntu be worth a try?