I use a 2TB WD Easystore for backups via Carbon Copy Cloner. After not having a backup for 1 month and a half, I ran CCC this morning but my WD drive won’t mount. I attempted to fix it by repairing it with First Aid and updating macOS, but no dice. I’m now waiting for my new iMac to arrive so that I can migrate data on the WD drive to it. Hopefully, it will work on that Mac. What should I do now?
If you’re backing up with CCC, I guess your drive is either formatted with APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Both are native Mac formats that are supposed to mount properly. However, if it’s not mounting, it may be due to disk corruption or third-party software intervention. Since you’ve tried to repair it without success, I suggest you try the macOS Safe Mode. Check if your WD Easystore works in Safe Mode. If it is, try to disable or close programs that may interrupt the mounting process, such as antivirus.
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You’re backing up data on your Mac to the WD Easystore, right? If your source volume is formatted with APFS, I believe CCC will keep its snapshots by default. Go check in CCC to see whether there are snapshots and where they are saved. If you can find all the important data from it, reformat your external hard drive on Mac to make it mountable again. However, if there are no snapshots, use a professional data recovery app like iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac to recover files on the unmounted WD Easystore, and then reformat it.
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Some background processes like fsck can also cause your drive not to mount on Mac. Fsck is a disk-repairing process that may run automatically in the background, especially after the disk is improperly ejected. While it’s working, your drive can’t be mounted. Check if this process is running in Activity Monitor. If it is, you can wait until it finishes, or quit the process.