WD My Passport not showing up on Mac. If you are having a similar issue that WD My Passport external or internal hard drive not showing up on Mac, you can try the following tips as listed here for help: （Some are similar as shown on this page) #1. Reconnect WD Passport to Mac #2. Change WD Passport drive letter #3. Remount WD Passport to.
- Why Is My Wd External Hard Drive Not Showing Up
- Why Is External Hard Drive Not Showing Up Mac
- My Passport External Hard Drive Not Showing Up Mac Download
- Open My Passport
WD My Passport not showing up. I had a backup on my hard-drive which I wanted to delete (300GB), so I moved to the trash. Deleting most files seemed to be okay, however, it then got to the applications folder and other system related stuff. This took forever and kept freezing my macbook, which I needed for work. Why Is My WD Passport Not Showing UP. There is a lot of reasons that will cause your external hard drive not showing up or not detected on Windows PC. Check the following list, you may find the exact cause that makes your WD Passport Ultra external not recognized error: 1. A faulty USB port/cable, or a damaged USB hub on PC; 2. Apr 21, 2021 There is a lot of reasons that will cause your external hard drive not showing up or not detected on Windows PC. Check the following list, you may find the exact cause that makes your WD Passport Ultra external not recognized error.
External hard drives are not only renowned for their data storing capability but also for their portability function. Whenever you connect your external hard drive to the USB port of your Mac computer, it shows up not only on the desktop but also in the Finder menu on the left-hand side under Locations or Devices.
Due to various reasons which are mentioned below, you might find your external hard drive not showing up on Mac. If you have saved all your crucial backup on the external drive, MacBook not recognizing external hard drive can lead to a data loss scenario.
In this article find out:
Why is my external hard drive not showing up Mac?
- External hard drive corruption.
- Physical damage to the external hard drive.
- Faulty USB connector.
- Problem with Mac USB ports.
- Hidden external drive.
- Improper formatting on the external hard drive.
- Recent macOS Big Sur or Catalina update issue.
Before you move on to find proven ways to troubleshoot external drive not showing up on Mac, let us first know how to recover data from it.
How to Recover Data from External hard drive not showing up on Mac?
Download Remo Recover Mac, a user-friendly tool to recover data from internal and external storage devices like external HDD, SSD, USB, SD card, etc. The tool supports recovery of more than 300 file types such as photos, videos, PDF files, audio files, raw images, Office files. Using this tool, you can easily restore data from MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, WD MY Passport, Seagate external hard drive, and many more.
Steps to Recover data from External hard drive not showing up on Mac:
Download and install Remo Recover (Mac/ Windows)> Launch the tool and click on Recover Volumes/ Drives option > Choose Volume Recovery and select the external hard drive that is not showing up on Mac to restore data from it > Click on Advance Scan button to start data recovery process > After scanning completes, select the files which you want to recover from your external hard drive not showing up Mac > Finally, click Save button to restore the selected files to any location of your choice.
How to Fix External hard drive not showing up on Mac?
1. Connect the External Hard drive Properly
The first and foremost thing to do if your external hard drive not showing up on Mac is to check if the external hard disk is properly connected or not. Once, it is confirmed that the external hard drive is properly connected to your Mac device, then your Mac should easily recognize the external hard drive and the data saved on it.
If your Mac not recognizing external hard drive due to any hardware issues, you can plugin the unrecognized external hard drive into a different USB port of your Mac. It might look like child's play but inserting an external hard disk to another or healthy USB port can help you understand whether the issue is pertaining to the hard drive failure or USB cable.
2. Fix issues with the USB cable
Your external hard drive not showing up on Mac can be due to the USB cable or HDMI cable connecting the external hard drive to your MacBook Pro or Air.
- Accessing data from an external hard drive on Mac is dependent on the USB cable. If the USB cable is not properly connected to your device then, Mac won’t recognize the external hard drive.
- If your USB cable is damaged, then fixing it becomes a priority to access your external hard disk on Mac. Hence, make use of a different USB cable to connect the external hard drive to a Mac computer.
Quick Note: If your MacBook is having USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 ports, then use USB-C to USB adapter to connect the external hard drive to your Mac.
3. Reset Mac computer
Resetting a Mac machine can reboot a few system settings to its default and ensure any issue with respect to it is resolved. This can also help you fix the external hard drive not booting issue due to Mac operating system. To Restart your Mac;
Go to the Apple menu and click Restart. (or) Press and hold the power key until a dialog box displays and hit the Restart or press R key.
4. Change Preference Settings
One of the reasons why the external hard drive does not show up on Mac is due to Preference settings. If you have not allowed your Mac to access the external hard disk in the preference setting, then Mac won’t show up external hard disk on the desktop. To allow your Mac to show up the external hard drive, edit the preference setting using the below steps;
- Open a Finder window.
- Go to Preference and select General.
- Under “Show these items on the desktop”, check the External disks option.
In most cases, this method will resolve your issue of external hard drive not showing up on Mac desktop or Finder menu.
If your Mac not recognizing external hard drive despite performing the above steps or if this preference setting is already set up, then move down to the below section.
5. Use different Mac or Windows PC
If you still find your Mac not recognizing hard drive then, try connecting the external hard disk to a different Mac system, sometimes there might be a problem with your Mac computer itself.
Connect your external hard drive to a different Mac to find out whether it is mounting on it or not. If the external HDD is mounting on the new or different Mac, then the problem is with your old Mac. In case, if the external hard drive not showing up on both Mac devices, then connect it to a Windows computer.
Quick Note: If your external hard drive is accessible on Windows 10 but not on Mac, then the external hard disk is formatted for Windows computers and not for Mac systems. Check out this article on how to make an external hard disk compatible with Mac.
6. Use Disk Utility
Why Is My Wd External Hard Drive Not Showing Up
Once you find out that the Mac device is not responsible for the external hard drive not showing up issue. Follow the below steps to run the first aid utility to fix external hard drive corruption.
- Navigate to Go > Utilities > Applications > Disk Utility
- If your external hard drive appears in the Disk Utility, right-click on the drive and select Mount. This will make your external hard drive option available on the desktop and in the Finder menu. Thus, you can access all your files present on the external hard drive.
(Note: If the Mac has already mounted your external hard drive (volume) then, the option Unmount will be displayed.) - If the drive is not accessible then, the Mount option will be greyed out.
(Note: To repair your inaccessible or not showing external hard drive Run First Aid.) - Now, choose the First Aid option and click Run.
- After running the First Aid, if the Disk Utility detects any issues or errors on the external hard drive then, click Repair Disk.
Using this method, you can easily repair minor corruption and access an unrecognized external hard drive on Mac. In case, if the first aid utility fails to repair the external hard drive or SSD, this indicates the following 2 reasons;
A) Your external drive is severely corrupt or broken: If First Aid Disk Utility fails to repair the drive, it could be due to the RAW or broken drive. The file system registry that holds the information of the data present on the drive gets broken or damaged then, Mac does not recognize the external hard drive.
B) The external hard drive file system is not compatible with Mac: External hard drive or USB is formatted using a file system that your Mac cannot read. For example, if an external hard drive is formatted using the NTFS file system then, no Mac computer can read or write the external hard drive. In the same way, if the external hard drive or USB is formatted with the HFS+ file system then, no Windows operating system can support it.
ExFAT and FAT32 are the two most common file systems that can be easily supported by both Windows and Mac operating systems.
Now, the last thing to do to fix the external hard drive not showing up on Mac is to format it using the compatible Mac file systems like exFAT, FAT32, HFS+, or APFS.
7. Format unrecognized External hard drive
Formatting the external HDD on Mac leads to a data loss scenario. Before you format your external hard drive to exFAT, Mac OS Extended (Journaled), FAT, or APFS file system, it is suggested to recover data from it using Remo Recover Mac.
Remo Recover (Mac/ Windows) is designed with advanced scanning algorithms to effortlessly recover files from corrupt, unrecognized, formatted, or inaccessible external hard drive on Mac. This tool is compatible with all the versions of Windows and Mac operating systems including the latest Windows 10 or Mac Big Sur.
To format external hard drive not showing up on Mac:
- Navigate to Disk Utility
- Select the external hard drive not showing up on Mac and click the Erase option
- Now, give a new name to your external hard drive (optional)
- Click the Format button to choose the format type you want to perform on it. (Select exFAT if you want to make sure it's compatible with PC and Mac, otherwise, Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is probably the best option)
- Click on the Erase optionand wait until the Disk utility function removes all the files present on the external hard disk and then reformat it with the selected file system.
Conclusion
In most cases, editing the Preference setting to show the external hard drive on the desktop fixes the issue. However, if the external hard drive is corrupt then, you should repair it using First Aid utility or format it with compatible Mac file systems like exFAT or APFS.
Why Is External Hard Drive Not Showing Up Mac
'I have a WD My Passport external which is not recognized on Mac, but I have stored many files on this external HDD. So can anybody tell me how to recover data from an unreadable external hard drive for Mac? I have some important excel files on this external, so I would appreciate it very much if anybody can recommend useful excel recovery software.'
WD My Passport external hard drive is able to work on Mac and Windows PC for data transferring or backup. If a WD My Passport external hard drive is not recognized by Mac OS, you had better make it clear if the problem is caused by external HDD error or Mac OS crash.
Windows? -> [5 fixes] how to fix wd usb disk not showing up on Windows 10
Here are 4 fixes for you on MAC for fixing the wd disk not showing up problem.
#1 - Try it on another mac machine
You can connect the WD My Passport to another computer to see if it can work normally. Once you are sure that the WD My Passport is corrupted and becomes inaccessible, you had better stop performing any further data writing to this external.
#2 - Recovering files from WD My Passport that Is Not Readable on Mac
For an unreadable external hard drive data recovery, you need to rely on a professional data recovery program. Free mac data recovery tool such as Lazesoft Data Recovery for mac is a good solution for data recovery from any storage media including WD My Passport when it is not detected by Mac OS or other PC.
Also read: 5 free file recovery software for mac
Option: Recovering data from wd external hard disk with free data recovery software on Windows 10 - iCare Data Recovery Free.
#3 - Fix WD My Passport Not Showing UP on MAC with Disk Utility
Also read: 5 free ways to repair usb disk on mac
#4 - Check Finder preference
Check wether the disk is selected under finder preference under General, and Sidebar.
My Passport External Hard Drive Not Showing Up Mac Download
Also read: 5 free ways to repair usb disk on mac
Possible Reasons Why WD My Passport Does Not Work on Mac
Everybody knows that the most important thing is to restore all lost data when a WD My Passport drive is not recognized on Mac, but many people still like to know the reasons why an external hard drive stops working on Mac. Here are some possible reasons:
Open My Passport
- WD My Passport external contains too many bad sectors
- The WD My Passport is infected with virus or Trojan
- WD My Passport portable HDD file system is corrupted
- WD my passport external hard disk is formatted wrong or needs updated drivers
- More other reasons
Solution When WD My Passport Is Not Recognized due to Incompatibility issue
An external hard drive might not show up on a computer when it is formatted improperly. As you know, when you buy a new external hard drive, it usually has FAT32 or NTFS file system. Both of file systems are able to be recognized by Windows OS, but it might become unreadable when you plug an external hard drive that has FAT32 or NTFS file system to a Mac computer. Therefore, if a WD my passport external hard drive is not recognized by Mac OS, but it is able to be compatible with Windows OS, you only need to format it to HFS+ file system which is able to be recognized by Mac OS.
WD My Passport Does Not Show up due to Virus Attack
As mentioned above, an external hard drive must be formatted properly so that it can be detected by Windows or Mac OS. However, sometimes, virus infection might corrupt the file system of WD my passport external hard drive and make it not show up when you connect the external to your computer. In this situation, you can recover all inaccessible data at first and then you can run antivirus software to scan the external hard drive and finally format the external into proper format.
WD My Passport External Is Recognized on Mac but becomes Inaccessible
Another situation is that the WD my passport portable hard drive can show up on Mac OS when you plug it to your computer, but the problem is that you are unable to access any data stored on this disk. In this situation, you can also check whether the external hard drive file system is compatible with Mac OS. If WD my passport external HDD has unknown file system, you can use iCare Data Recovery to recover files from inaccessible drive and then try to format the WD my passport external hard drive to HFS+ file system. If you want to use your external hard drive in Windows PC, you can connect it to a Windows PC and format RAW to NTFS file system.
It does not matter why a WD My Passport external HDD is not recognized, you have chance to recover files from WD portable hard drive which is not detecting as long as it is not physically damaged or overwritten.
Last updated on Aug 30, 2021
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Last updated on Aug 30, 2021
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