Some MKVs Will Not Play from FW800 External HDD in Mac, Works in Windows

[encodedprocess83]

I have an external FW800 drive that holds all of my movies. I have quite a few HD MKV files on there, but three in particular crash VLC whenever I play them from the external. However, the same exact files play flawlessly from the internal hard drive, while all the other MKVs (of comparable resolution, length, bitrate, etc.) play right off the external without complaints. This only occurs in Mac-- if I reboot into Windows, everything works nicely.

Does anyone know what is going on and what can be done so these files work?

Here is my original thread: https://forum.videohelp.com/topic360769.html#1916509

Note: I realize this is a repeat post, but I am posting it again because it is directed to Mac users as I recently found out it works in Windows.

[terryj]

If the files are copied to the Internal Drive and play fine,
but do not play off of the external drive, I would suspect
the external drive as the culprit.

If SOME of the files copied to the Internal Drive play fine,
but these SPECIFIC files do not play off of the external drive,
I would STILL SUSPECT the external drive as the culprit.

How long has it been since you reconditioned the external drive?
meaning, copied everything off, wiped the drive, zero'd out,
and then copied media back on? Hard Drive platters being what they are,
bad sectors happen to even the most reputable of Hard Drives.
And constant read / writes, copying, deleting and copying again
can wear out drives.

Not knowing the age or length of service you've had this drive in use
( and even then that doesn't mean it's not suspect),
I would simply start by ruling out the drive.
Two ways of doing it: If you have another external drive, copy the
"problem" files to it, and try to play it off of the new external.
If successful, then I would look at reconditioning the previous external.
or
if you have a robust disc tool like TechTool Pro, Drive 10 or SMART utility,
then I would run the advanced suite and check for things like disc integrity,
sector integrity, etc.