Couldnt think of an eye catching title to summarize the issue but here's what's been going on cause I'm losing my mind.
\- Originally was transferring a video on my external HDD (Western Digital 4TB). All of a sudden the last 2 videos I was tranferring aren't transferring. They're moving at a very slow pace. KBs per minute almost. So I was confused but thought it was the video length.
\- I cancel video transfer, but notice the music off my hdd is taking forever to buffer but it loads up slowly. I try to unmount my hdd (but am told the HDD is in use and cannot be unmounted? Never seen this before) so I restart mac. I try to use disk utility and its failing cause it can't unmount. I unplug the hdd (also was using HDD with a standard usb to usb c adapter cause apple). One thing to mention the HDD when it gets unplugged makes a click sound.
\- I try plugging HDD back in but now the mac won't read it. However disk utility does, it mounts and unmounts it and says repair successful, but since then the hdd won't even show up in my disk utlity or mac. However the HDD is running, the blue light is blinking and there isn't any clicking. I try changing cables nothing.
\- My sister has the standard usb port so I plug the hdd into it. At first same issue, HDD isn't being read by mac but disk utility does read it and then it shows back up on my mac. So I figure best way of approach let me drag and drop the files. It takes foreverrrrrr to prepare the files (because of these weird slow speeds) and then it says its going to take multiple days (okay fine lets see) and it does copy some for a bit eventually failing after several hours to due "error -36" on the mac and then it cancels the entire copy and paste process. And sometimes the HDD randomly disconnects and reconnects. I can try to copy and paste the folders one by one but this is going to take months and if the HDD is failing, its risky to wait. On back ups, had a backup drive but that also failed.
\- Any time I try to unmount on the Mac, it gives the error the HDD is in use. Always that only disk utility can sometimes unmount it or pulling out the cable. I tried to see if I can change the enclosure maybe that's the is the issue but stupid western digital apparently has the port attached to their HDDs smfh and idk if there is even an alternative.
Been searching all over for answers on this but can't really get a proper answer, hoping someone knows what's going on here?