Input/Output Error on External HD

[Graphorrhea]

My LaCie 320GB External HD Firewire/USB had some vague problems prior to this melt down. Now Disk Utility says it has an I/O Error. I got this when I tried to zero out the drive. I can't initialize through Disk Utility.

However, I can initialize it through Drive Genius, but it still won't show up on the desktop after restart. Also I was able to shred the entire drive without any I/O error in Drive Genius.

I presume this means my drive is toast?

If so, what external drive would you recommend for a backup drive? That was this drive's basic function. I also need to partition a drive for other files which need to be backed up separately.

 

[Yesurbius]

I can't be sure about your LaCie drive issue - you can check the console and see if you are getting a number of IO seek errors, etc .. they should give you better insight.

Its possible that when you zero'd it (depending on how you did it) you overwrote some specific drive parameters that assisted in Mac compatibility.

If it were me, I'd try mounting / reinitializing it from Terminal since it would give me the most amount of feedback as to why it was failing. If you are semi-familiar with the Unix side, you can consult the man pages for 'pdisk', 'newfs_hfs', and of course 'mount'. If your not that familiar with the Dark Side (Terminal) then you are probably looking for a third party tool such as DiskWarrior, although if it inits fine in DriveGenius, i'd be more interested in why it doesn't mount -- check console.

 

[Graphorrhea]

Forgot to mention that DiskWarrior doesn't even recognize the drive. It doesn't show up.

I've been smelling something strange over by my computer for about a week as well.

I unplugged and removed the drive and the smell is gone ... hmmm ...

The LaCie was warmer than usual. The power cord was warm too.