HDD not read by Mac

[WindowsNMac]

My external HDD may have fallen onto the floor last night from a height of ~2 foot
now my girlfriends's Mac can't read it, tried searching through disk utility and this was the response

Verify and Repair disk “Elements”
** /dev/disk1s1
** Phase 1 - Read FAT
** Phase 2 - Check Cluster Chains
** Phase 3 - Checking Directories
Unable to read directory (Input/output error)
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit


1 non HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error


I tried verifying and repairing but it failed, I don't want to format it if I don't have to.
I'm going to take it to my home desktop (PC) and try booting it through there if I can, or access it in some way.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Nude_Lewd_Man]

Hi, and WELCOME TO TECHIMO...!

There is a possibilty that parts of the drive have been damaged in the sudden stop that would have accompanied/followed the fall, but it could also be that the drive has a format that it can't read.

While I'm not a Mac user/tech, I seem to remember hearing something about the ability of a Mac to "see" NTFS, which could be the "1 non HFS volume checked" message you got above. Having said that, I think that it should be able to work with the FAT file system, which was mentioned before that - and also, it seems that some of the latest Mac flavours are able to read/write with NTFS. Whether they need any additional plugins/whatever to do this, I can't say....

It could also be that there is nothing wrong with the actual drive, but the controller may have been damaged when it hit the floor, maybe a connector isn't connected any more...

I would definately try it in another computer and see what happens before you worry about anything else.......