Beware HHD's from Lazada

[lujanit]

Hi all,

 

I have been buying name brand HDD on Lazada.  Toshiba (1) and WD (3).  None of these HDD's were able to format to be used on a Mac using either Disk Utility (just hangs forever, I have to Force Quit, Command Q doesn't work) or Terminal (error -69877).  Also all three WD's were making clicking noises.  There must be a bad batch of HDD's currently in Thailand.  I have used WD in the past with no problems.

 

I know that formatting to exFat can be read by a Mac, yet it not suitable for Time Machine backups.

 

There was no problem returning them to the vendors and getting approved for refunds.

 

Can anyone recommend a name brand HHD with at least three years warranty?  TIA.

[Bruno123]

External? Internal? Cannot imagine that you would be buying internal HDD at this juncture.

[lujanit]

1 hour ago, Bruno123 said:

External? Internal? Cannot imagine that you would be buying internal HDD at this juncture.

Sorry, my bad.  External.  Thinking of going SanDisk SATA SSD and putting it in a case.  More expensive, I know SanDisk will format to Mac as I have recently replaced my internal HHD with a SSD on two of my macs.

[Bruno123]

SSD for external is a bit of a waste unless you intend to get the best out of it.

 

Are you buying the cheapest or what? Some detail would be good. Why not a quality internal, along with a caddy?

 

 

[sometimewoodworker]

50 minutes ago, Bruno123 said:

SSD for external is a bit of a waste unless you intend to get the best out of it.

 

Are you buying the cheapest or what? Some detail would be good. Why not a quality internal, along with a caddy?

Did you miss the point of the machine that it’s going to be in? While a few Macs can use a caddy it is only a few, so replacement of the internal for some and an external for others is needed.

 

for some machines, I have just assisted with one, an external SSD is the answer. The startup time went from several minutes (over 7 but I didn’t check how much more) to 70 seconds 

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

Was your Mac running Monterey?

 

I have had an issue formatting brand-new external HDDs for use with my Mac since upgrading to Monterey. I connected the HDDs to the Mac and started to format them for use with Time Machine. After a few minutes, the formatting stopped and an error message appeared. The disk was then unreadable by any machine, Mac or Windows.

 

I tried using Disk Utility to format them, but this did not work. Also used Disk Warrior, a third party program, and it failed as well.

 

I thought I had gotten a bad disk, so bought another of a different brand, and the same thing happened. I found some discussion of similar issues online which attributed this to Monterey. I bought a third disk and managed to format it using an old Mac running Catalina. Once formatted, the disk works fine on my Mac running Monterey. 

 

But I still have two unusable HDDs from my attempts to format them using my Mac running Monterey. Spent over an hour with Apple Support from Australia, but they were no help. They even connected remotely to my Mac and I walked them through the issue of trying to format one of the brand-new HDDs that was ruined by Monterey.

 

I'm at a loss on this now. Any useful suggestions welcomed.

Edited August 25, 2022 by Etaoin Shrdlu

[Bruno123]

50 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

Did you miss the point of the machine that it’s going to be in? While a few Macs can use a caddy it is only a few, so replacement of the internal for some and an external for others is needed.

 

for some machines, I have just assisted with one, an external SSD is the answer. The startup time went from several minutes (over 7 but I didn’t check how much more) to 70 seconds 

 

What are you talking? He didn't state that it was going to be IN anything. That's the point of an external drive; it's external. ???? Any Mac can use a caddy. 

 

 

[lujanit]

1 hour ago, Etaoin Shrdlu said:

Was your Mac running Monterey?

No, my iMac and one of the MBP's are running Catalina (although it can be upgraded to Monterey) and the other MBP is running High Sierra (this the last OS that can support it.

 

I notice on Youtube there are several videos how you can upgrade older Macs to Monterey using a software patch.

 

 

Eatoin what brand and size of HDD did you manage to format using Catalina?

 

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

1 minute ago, lujanit said:

No, my iMac and one of the MBP's are running Catalina (although it can be upgraded to Monterey) and the other MBP is running High Sierra (this the last OS that can support it.

 

I notice on Youtube there are several videos how you can upgrade older Macs to Monterey using a software patch.

 

 

Eatoin what brand and size of HDD did you manage to format using Catalina?

 

I successfully formatted a Seagate 2TB external HDD on a 2012 15 inch MBP running Catalina. Absolutely no issues. It formatted completely normally. 

[NE1]

5 hours ago, lujanit said:

I have been buying name brand HDD on Lazada.

I try and use this guy. ..https://www.invadeit.co.th/

[sometimewoodworker]

5 hours ago, Bruno123 said:

 

What are you talking? He didn't state that it was going to be IN anything. That's the point of an external drive; it's external. ???? Any Mac can use a caddy. 

The term caddy is used for the hardware used internally in computers. Some Macs, as I said, can use a caddy, most can not, that you don’t know this doesn’t change the meaning.

Hard Drive Enclosures are used for external drives. Though there are a verity of ways of mounting an external drive that doesn’t need an enclosure a caddy is not one of them.

 

5 hours ago, Etaoin Shrdlu said:

But I still have two unusable HDDs from my attempts to format them using my Mac running Monterey. Spent over an hour with Apple Support from Australia, but they were no help. They even connected remotely to my Mac and I walked them through the issue of trying to format one of the brand-new HDDs that was ruined by Monterey.

 

I'm at a loss on this now. Any useful suggestions welcomed.

I would try to see if a Linux or windows machine has any better luck.

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

6 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

 

 

I would try to see if a Linux or windows machine has any better luck.

Tried using my son's Windows machine. The disks are unreadable. Don't even show up as disks.

 

They worked fine out of the box until Time Machine tried to format the first one and then disk utility tried to format the second. After that, both disks unreadable.

[sometimewoodworker]

39 minutes ago, Etaoin Shrdlu said:

Tried using my son's Windows machine. The disks are unreadable. Don't even show up as disks.

 

They worked fine out of the box until Time Machine tried to format the first one and then disk utility tried to format the second. After that, both disks unreadable.

Apart from the point that Time Machine doesn’t format disks, it uses the disk utility SW to do that, though it may not tell you what it’s doing.

 

I would go to one of the many computer repair booths and ask them to do their magic. I can’t suggest where as you have not filled out your profile. They will have systems that can go beyond a standard Mac or windows format program.

 

It is possible that you may be able to use the terminal, if you know the correct incantations, but you can also make things worse if you don’t.

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

12 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

Apart from the point that Time Machine doesn’t format disks, it uses the disk utility SW to do that, though it may not tell you what it’s doing.

 

I would go to one of the many computer repair booths and ask them to do their magic. I can’t suggest where as you have not filled out your profile. They will have systems that can go beyond a standard Mac or windows format program.

 

It is possible that you may be able to use the terminal, if you know the correct incantations, but you can also make things worse if you don’t.

Thanks.

 

I've used terminal before, but I'm not much of a sorcerer, so I'll leave that to one of the computer repair wizards.  There are a number of shops in the basement of Seacon Square here in Bangkok, so I'll try there first.

 

[sometimewoodworker]

9 hours ago, Etaoin Shrdlu said:

Thanks.

 

I've used terminal before, but I'm not much of a sorcerer, so I'll leave that to one of the computer repair wizards.  There are a number of shops in the basement of Seacon Square here in Bangkok, so I'll try there first.

 

Ask them to do a “FAT”  or “ExFAT” format as they will know those and you can reformat later.

[lujanit]

I've used terminal before, but I'm not much of a sorcerer, so I'll leave that to one of the computer repair wizards.  There are a number of shops in the basement of Seacon Square here in Bangkok, so I'll try there first.

 

 

Really simple, this guy gives a clear explanation.  I think you have have the same result as me.  Error -69877 Could not open disk,

 

18 hours ago, Etaoin Shrdlu said:

I successfully formatted a Seagate 2TB external HDD on a 2012 15 inch MBP running Catalina. Absolutely no issues. It formatted completely normally. 

Thanks for the info re Seagate.

 

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

14 minutes ago, lujanit said:

I've used terminal before, but I'm not much of a sorcerer, so I'll leave that to one of the computer repair wizards.  There are a number of shops in the basement of Seacon Square here in Bangkok, so I'll try there first.

 

 

Really simple, this guy gives a clear explanation.  I think you have have the same result as me.  Error -69877 Could not open disk,

 

Thanks for the info re Seagate.

 

I have already tried to format the disks from the command line prompt and it also does not work.

 

Disk utility in Monterey really seems to have done a number on both the WD disk and Seagate disk I tried to format. Neither has responded to disk utility, command line instructions or Disk Warrior. There is something deeply wrong with Monterey and both the Seagate and WD drivers or controllers.

[Bruno123]

6 hours ago, sometimewoodworker said:

The term caddy is used for the hardware used internally in computers. Some Macs, as I said, can use a caddy, most can not, that you don’t know this doesn’t change the meaning.

Hard Drive Enclosures are used for external drives. Though there are a verity of ways of mounting an external drive that doesn’t need an enclosure a caddy is not one of them.

 

I would try to see if a Linux or windows machine has any better luck.

A caddy IS a hard drive enclosure. The term is interchangeable. Don't talk wet.

 

Hard drive enclosures are used for external drives?? That is not correct ????

 

A hard drive enclosure is used for internal drives. 

[fdsa]

this is an enclosure, used for external drives

 

 

 

 

 

this is a caddy, used for internal drives (for laptop in this example)

 

 

 

this is a caddy, used for internal drives in servers or NASs

 

 

what is an "enclosure for internal drives"?

[HappyExpat57]

In all fairness to Lazada, they're only the middleman and don't really scrutinize their sellers (though I wish they would!). Next time look at the stats of the seller. If they don't have a damned near 100% satisfaction rating, I don't buy from them.

[sometimewoodworker]

1 minute ago, fdsa said:

this is an enclosure, used for external drives

 

 

 

 

 

this is a caddy, used for internal drives (for laptop in this example)

 

 

 

this is a caddy, used for internal drives in servers or NASs

 

 

what is an "enclosure for internal drives"?

But unfortunately some people will never believe those who have been in the inception of computing and believe they are correct in saying that the sky is green and that grass is blue, not perfect analogies I know as both of those colours are actually possible.

[Bruno123]

6 minutes ago, fdsa said:

this is an enclosure, used for external drives

 

 

 

 

 

this is a caddy, used for internal drives (for laptop in this example)

 

 

 

this is a caddy, used for internal drives in servers or NASs

 

 

what is an "enclosure for internal drives"?

 

 

No, an external hard drive enclosure is for internal drives, that together create an external drive. An external drive already has a hard drive enclosure.

 

Caddy is also used to describe the same as above.

 

 

Whilst you are right about the naming principle in theory; caddy is also a term used for drive enclosures for creating external drives.

 

 

[sometimewoodworker]

3 minutes ago, HappyExpat57 said:

In all fairness to Lazada, they're only the middleman and don't really scrutinize their sellers (though I wish they would!). Next time look at the stats of the seller. If they don't have a damned near 100% satisfaction rating, I don't buy from them.

While it is possible that the drives are defective, unless they were suspiciously cheap, so being rejects, it is also quite  likely that there may be an incompatibility involved.

 

There are HDD cases that have limits on the size of the disks used, that hasn’t been invested as a possible cause.

[tomazbodner]

Just got WD and a Seagate external drives, as well as some internal ones in Orico and Ugreen enclosures - all 2/4TB models - and formatted them all without any issues on Macs with Catalina. They are for Time Machine and external backup. No issues. Bought from Lazada. Links to the 2 TB external drives I've recently purchased and work well:

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/wd-my-passport-2tb-usb-30-hdd-25-wdbyvg0020b-wesn-internal-harddisk-harddrive-i1682426316-s4728048746.html

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/seagate-2tb-one-touch-with-password-usb30-external-hard-drive-portable-stky200040x-i2518789230-s11316159800.html

 

[fdsa]

1 hour ago, Bruno123 said:

 

 

No, an external hard drive enclosure is for internal drives, that together create an external drive. An external drive already has a hard drive enclosure.

 

Caddy is also used to describe the same as above.

 

 

Whilst you are right about the naming principle in theory; caddy is also a term used for drive enclosures for creating external drives.

 

 

 

the only "caddy" on your screenshot is intended for an internal HDD, and all "enclosures" are for external ones

 

 

But now I understand what you mean -

1 hour ago, Bruno123 said:

No, an external hard drive enclosure is for internal drives, that together create an external drive.

- you call an "internal drive" what I and other people call just "drive", hence the confusion.

 

And I must note that some external drives that are already sold inside an enclosure very often could not be used as an internal drive because the inclosure uses a proprietary connection not a usual SATA port. So I would suggest buying a drive and an enclosure separately - this way you surely will be able to use the drive as both an internal or external one.

Edited August 26, 2022 by fdsa

[Bruno123]

Crazy isn't it? Over-complicating things just for the sake of it.

 

I suggested to the OP to place a good quality internal drive into a caddy/enclosure.

 

Then the pedants came along...

[lujanit]

On 8/26/2022 at 3:16 PM, sometimewoodworker said:

While it is possible that the drives are defective, unless they were suspiciously cheap, so being rejects, it is also quite  likely that there may be an incompatibility involved.

I never buy HDD's unless they have a minimum for three years warranty and a seven days return policy.  Served me well during this mess.

[lujanit]

After digging into the subject it seems that the HDD's were originally formatted to FAT32. 

 

I read one interesting comment that the cause can be switching the HDD between a Mac and a PC.  I was guilty of that.  I was trying to format the HDD into two partitions (one NTFS, one Mac) to backup photos and pics.  Most of these external HDD's cannot be formatted to NTFS and while trying to do so revert to RAW.

 

There are plenty of how to format RAW drives instructions (including videos); none of them worked for me.  A Windows program (free) from Diskpart.com seems to work sometimes. 

 

I took the latest Seagate drive to a computer shop at Seacon and he got the same results that I did on a Windows PC.

 

Tried the using the free version of Tuxera for Mac.  No good.

 

https://ntfsformac.tuxera.com/

 

At least Lazada accept returns within seven days.  Getting a refund takes much longer (15 to 30 days).