Wd External Hard Drive Not Showing Up Mac

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Oct 29, 2020 The previous night, I copied some project files onto my External Hard Drive. It was all fine, today morning, its just not showing up. I have a NTFS reader installed on the Mac I did the reset PRAM. I checked both USB ports, and both are working fine. Other NTFS hard drives are all showing up without an issue on the mac.

“Hi all, I have 1TB WD external hard drive with lot of essential project files, pictures, videos and important movies. Definitely something has gone wrong without my knowledge; now my WD external hard drive is not showing up on my Mac machine. Is there any possible way to recover WD external hard drive not showing up on Mac? If yes, please suggest… I need my data as soon as possible. Thanks in advance.”

  1. I just bought a 2TB WD Elements Hard Drive, and I had plugged it in but it hasn’t appeared on my computer. I have a Mac 10.6.7 which is compatible with the hard drive but it is not working, nor is it coming up on in the Disk Utility so I can’t reformat it either. If someone could please help me because I really need it to work!
  2. This video will introduce 6 effective solutions on how to fix the external hard drive not showing up on mac issue. Text tutorial for reference: http://bit.ly.

Obviously, you use external hard drive to keep essential data on it. Now, you are really in panic situation. Actually, above mentioned behavior occurs when the WD drive is corrupt. Moreover to avoid this kind of fateful thing with your WD external hard drive follow below given simple tips.

How to manage WD external hard drive carefully?

  • Keep your WD portable drive as write protected to inhibit unauthorized access
  • It is suggested not to frequently format WD external drive
  • Do not use WD drive in multiple device running on different OS
  • Don’t repeatedly perform Read/Write operation on your WD external disk
  • Do not forcefully pull out external devices when it is in use

Now you got to know how to maintain your WD external drive safely to avoid any kind of damage issues. Unfortunately, many times you may encounter issues like undetected drive even after careful maintenance. In such case you need to go for efficient data recovery tool to retrieve data from WD external hard drive on Mac.

Choose reliable program to get back unreadable WD drive data:

Now it is time to know about professional data restoration tool named Yodot Mac Data Recovery. It is built with advanced scanning technique to achieve WD portable hard disk restoration with ease. It also helps you in Seagate external hard drive recovery as well as from HP, Transcend, SanDisk, LaCie Fuel, Samsung and many other external hard drive brands in any scenarios. Along with unreadable drive this tool will also regain data from missing, deleted, formatted, reformatted and crashed devices formatted with HFS+, HFSX and FAT file system. In addition to external hard disk this utility support you to recover data from unrecognized memory card, USB flash drive, iPod, system volume and other portable devices. This tool is compatible to work with Mac OS based machines like Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard), Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion), Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion), Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) and Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite).

How to implement Yodot Mac Data Recovery tool?

  • After complete download, run Yodot Mac Data Recovery application on your Mac machine
  • On main screen you can see options like “Volume Recovery” and “Formatted/Reformatted Recovery”
  • Click on “Volume Recovery” button it will automatically move to next screen
  • Here you can see all available drives along with externally connected WD portable drive
  • Select WD external drive and click on “Next” button
  • Later, mark file types which you want to recover or else click on “Skip” to initiate scan process
  • After successful scan, sort recovered files either in “Data View” or “File Type View”
  • Finally, “Save” your data in desired destination after purchasing license key.

Recommended suggestions:

  • Always keep backup of vital data
  • Properly eject external drives when it is in use
  • Terminate the computer in an appropriate manner in any situation

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Macs are pretty solid computers that provide reliable service in almost any situation; they’re typically workhorses, pushing onwards in situations that would get a blue screen of death on a Windows PC. However, while rare, issues can and will happen; it’s inevitable, where technology is concerned.

These issues are all the more frustrating because of their rarity, and they may need a little work to figure out. One of the more frustrating issues you can I came across is an external hard drive not showing up on a Mac. Even when you’ve completed all basic troubleshooting tips, it may not appear. In this article, we’ll explain how to get your external hard drive to appear.

How to Connect Your Hard Drive

Let’s first ensure that you’ve properly connected your external hard drive, and walk through some basic setup steps. The steps may vary depending on your software version so if we’ve missed a step check out Apple’s article here. We’re using Catalina and Sierra, but the instructions are all fairly similar.

External drives are a cheap way to expand storage without having to replace the internal hard drive. All you need to do is connect the external hard drive to your Mac or Macbook. You can use the Thunderbolt, USB, or even the USB-C port depending on the model you’re using.

From here, Finder should open showing your external drive. If it doesn’t show up in Finder, though, it will surely show up in the Disk Utility within Utilities.

This is a sub-folder within the Applications folder, with a crossed screwdriver and wrench on the folder icon, while Disk Utility looks like a hard drive being examined with a stethoscope. Both of them will be referenced a lot.

If you have trouble finding it, simply open Finder (the icon that looks like a blue and grey face) and click on ‘Applications’ on the left-hand side. Then, use the search bar in the upper right-hand corner to search for your Disk Utility.

How do i fix my wd external hard drive not showing up on my mac

From there you can troubleshoot the problem and usually fix it.

If your external drive still doesn’t appear, we have a couple of simple troubleshooting tips to fix an external hard drive not showing up on Mac.

First, we will check the basics, and from there we make sure that macOS is set up to display external drives, can mount the drive, and that the drive has no errors on either the disk itself or its file structure.

Troubleshooting

Let us check all the basics first. Get into the habit of doing this with any computer issues, as it can save time, money, and hassle in the long run. After all, no one wants to waste half a day because they didn’t realize something just wasn’t plugged in properly.

  • Check that the cable from the hard drive to your Mac is connected properly.
  • Check that the external hard drive has power if it needs it.
  • Check the condition of the cable and swap it if you have a spare.
  • Change the hard drive power cable if you have a spare.
  • Try a different wall outlet if there is one nearby.
  • Reboot your Mac to see if it was an open program or app stopping the drive from being detected.
  • Make sure the drive has been formatted. Some imported drives come completely empty, and while macOS should detect and offer to format them, it doesn’t always work.
  • Try attaching the external drive to another computer to see if it works on that one to rule out damage to the drive itself.
  • Make sure your drive doesn’t have or use a power-saving or sleep function. Turn it off if it does.
  • Check that the drive is receiving enough power. A USB cable carries 5V and if this is the sole power source for the drive, it may not be enough. Use a USB power cable if you suspect this to be the issue.

Depending on what you find here, you can troubleshoot either the drive or your Mac.

Why Is My Wd External Hard Drive Not Showing Up

First, make sure Finder will display drive icons. By default, it doesn’t display much and the setting to not show external disks may be enabled.

  1. Open a Finder window.
  2. Select Preferences and the General tab.
  3. Make sure the box next to External disks is checked.

If the box is checked, move on to fix the external hard drive not showing up on Mac.

Mount the Drive in Finder

If you think the drive works fine, let us see if we can manually attach it to macOS. For that, we need to mount it. This should be done automatically when macOS detects the drive, but it doesn’t always work.

  1. Attach the drive if it isn’t already connected.
  2. Open Utilities and Disk Utility.
  3. Make sure the disk is listed in the left window. It should be labeled External Disk.
  4. Check for a volume if the disk is present. If a volume is present but not mounted, it should be grayed out here.
  5. Highlight the volume and select Mount. The volume should shift from gray to normal to signify it has been mounted.
  6. Open Finder and navigate to the drive in Devices.

If this doesn’t work, you may need to use the Verify Disk utility to make sure everything is working as it should.

  1. Open Utilities and Disk Utility.
  2. Highlight the grayed out volume.
  3. Select First Aid in the top center.
  4. Select Run to perform disk diagnostics and fix any issues.

Running First Aid on an external disk is a useful way to make sure the format or file structure doesn’t contain any faults or issues. If there are any, First Aid will fix them and macOS should then mount the disk without any further hassle.

Frequently Asked Questions

Macs, as easy as the interface seems to be, can be quite complicated for an OS. That’s why we’ve included some more information you may need to know here.

My Disk Utility says ‘Corrupt Disk,’ what does that mean?

Wd External Hard Drive Not Showing Up Mac Operating System

If you see your external hard drive but receive the ‘Corrupt Disk’ error, solutions are plentiful. Your first issue may be that the external hard drive isn’t formatted properly to work with your Mac. You can reformat the external drive using the Disk Utility.

Simply follow the instructions above to access the drive and click on ‘Erase’ (yes you need to erase the drive to reformat it). Click on the dropdown for format and select ‘ExFat.’ Click erase. Now your external hard drive should appear properly.

I don’t want to erase my external hard drive to fix it. Is there a solution for this?

As we’ve discussed, sometimes you simply need to erase and reformat your hard drive to get it working properly. If you’ve navigated through the steps above and have yet to get your external hard drive working together, you should transfer the content of that drive to another device (such as a Windows PC) if possible.

This way you can off-load any important files, then use your Mac to reformat the hard drive and get it working properly.

Got any other ways to fix the external hard drive not showing up on Mac? Tell us about it below if you do!