Well, one of the best ways to get back lost data from hard drive that wont mount on mac is utilizing time machine backup. The upper level drive shows up in disk utility, but the partition of the disk i would like to mount the only partition on the drive is greyed out. I have 2 6 tb wd my book duo connected to my 2011 imac 27, using. Two perfectly fine external hds now unmountable, even in terminal using disk utility. Fix wd my passport for mac not showing upnot working on mac. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows.
In this article, well show you how to solve an external hard drive not showing up. You can searching for it using spotlight search or via finder application utility. It works on my other windows laptops now but it didnt used to work on them. West digital hard drives, such as wd my passport for mac, wd elements portable, or wd easystore, are trusted by a large number of users to store the massive amounts of photos. If disk already mounted and system goes to sleep, it also powers down ports, including usb ports. When you are in disk utility, look in the upperleft corner and find the view. If disk utility is not working to reformat the drive, this command will work for you. How to move iphone back up on mac to external hard disk.
When you connect an external hard drive on mac, it will show up on desktop, finder, and disk utility. How to fix wd my passport for mac hard drive not mounting. I could not mount my hard drives and it would not let me repair, erase, nor partition them, an old and a new one. Wd mypassport external hard drive wont mount to my. To verify, click on the apple logo in your screens top left corner and select about this mac. Check apples disk utility to see if an external drive is showing up. It sounds obvious but one of the main reasons why drives fail to mount is if the drive isnt receiving enough power. Mybook essential just wont mount external drives for. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. I was working in my surface with the external hard drive. If not, return to disk utility and select your external drive from the left sidebar.
It also shows up on disk utility but i cant select it, then it disappears. Ive been using a wd mybook external hard drive to back up using time machine but suddenly the it wont mount. The my book studio edition ii that ive been using for 5 months only suddenly wouldnt mount on my powerbook g4 mac osx 10. How to fix an external disk drive that wont show up on a mac. Since updating to macos sierra, my seagate 1tb harddrive isnt being read or. It will treat it as an uninitialized drive because the first sector will no longer. Select the storage tab and see if you drive appears here.
Check apple s disk utility to see if an external drive is showing up. Frends pc worked fine with that drive, and also my lcd tv mounted that drive. Ive tried reinstalling drivers and everything several times allready, it just wont mount. External wd hard drive wont mount macrumors forums. Next day when i turn the pc on, does not recognize any more the hard drive. How to solve an external hard drive not showing up in 2020. External hard drive not mounting 282361 views 71 replies. If you buy a new external hard drive, you may notice that working between mac and pc is an often difficult but it doesnt need to be. When i plugged in my external hard drive it showed up in my drive in disk utility but it was grayed out. It will scan all system files, dlls and registry keys that have been damaged by security threats. If you receive this message from disk utility after replugging an external drive that wasnt successfully ejected or unmounted, it could be that the os is already busy performing the repair in the background. Recently the hard drive fell from desk and now only one of the volumes mounts. Mac doesnt recognize external hard drive, how to fix. Go to finder preferences general and make sure that there is a tick beside external drives.
However, if this external hard drive is corrupted, the mount button will. First of all, if your wd external hard drive is listed on the lefthandside menu of disk utility, you can make sure it doesnt have any hardware. Dont click the format disk button or windows will erase the contents of the drive click cancel. When you connect a macformatted drive to windows, youll be informed that you need to format the disk in drive x. How to force external hd to mount on mac os x desktop youtube. Make sure your mac is set to show mounted drives on the desktop. If you are having a similar problem on your wd my passport ultra hard drive or other brands of external hard drive or devices, dont worry. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Can i cancel a mac disk utility 7 pass erase mid way. Disk drive format your my book drive is preformatted as a single ntfs partition for compatibility with all updated windows operating systems. Guides to fix mac files wont copy to external hard drive. Disk wont format external drives for mac wd community. External hard drive not showing up on mac what to do. Mac or macbook doesnt recognize external drives appletoolbox.
Before you restore a volume, copy any files on the destination. If it is visible, then click the option to mount, which should make it visible on the desktop and in the external drives option in the finder menu. Solved wd external hard drive wont mount on mac iboysoft. Operation failed dont understand the space issue and since the disk is unmounted ii am unable to do. List of all wd firmware and software available for download. Macos external drive not showing not reformatting fix. When i plug my external hard drive into my macbook it flashes its white light and begins to stay solid, but doesnt show up on my desktop. I opened up disk utility and it said it was not mounted. The best external hard drives for mac in 2020 pcmag. Resolve a couldnt unmount disk error in disk utility. Check on your external hard drive, click the first aid tab and select run to start running diagnostics. Heres how to access the contents on a usb drive that wont open on your mac. Heres what you need to know, along with our toprated apple friendly drives.
Im trying to access some files for a client on a western digital external firewireusb drive on my macbook pro. If you cant back up or restore your mac using time machine. And partition table or partition map records the necessary partition information of the external hard drive. To mount a drive, open disk utility and look for the drive in the list. It appears in disk utility but not in finder or on the desktop. Hopefully there is a really easy fix to get the hard drive to mount on. Disk utility is within system preferences, or you can find it using spotlight. Password protection the my book drive s builtin 256bit aes hardware encryption with wd security tools helps keep your content private and safe. I disconnect it several times, restart the pc, remove the hard drive power and usb.
Wd my passport greyed out in disk utility and unrecognized in. Check if the wd mac hard drive is showing up in disk utility. A misaligned or malfunctioning cable may be the cause of the problem, especially if you also have errors when trying to read from the external disk. The guy at the mac store told me i could reformat my external hard drive by going into the disk utility option, changing the volume format to msdos fat.
I tried using disk utility and i could see the drive and the icon is dim. Wd mybook wont mount apple ios os help fix mac iphone. Normally when you plug in an external hard drive to your macs usb port. Following site procedures for reformatting to mac os extended journaled and erasing the disk using mac disk utility, i received the message unmounting disk mediakit reports not enough space on device for requested operation. I purchased a new mybook essential a couple of weeks ago. As you said there are several reasons why mac wont recognize a drive. Wd mypassport external hard drive wont mount to my macbook pro. Mac wont read the external hard drive further once the partition table is damaged, lost, or corrupted. Wd passport ultra cant mount on mac, flashing lights, but can be. If first aid successful in fixing errors, the external drive should be available to mount. How to open an external drive thats not showing on mac. When the ext hd would not mount on my macbook, i did check to see if it would mount on the imac but it would not show up on the desktop or the disk utility. How to fix external hard drive not recognized on mac.
You can turn time machine back on after your drives. It is right because generally sometimes an external hard drive doesnt show up on. External hard drive not mounting mac apple community. I tried opening up disk utility on my mac, but it just spins forever trying to mount the external hard drive. I decided to click on the view button at the top right corner of my disk utility app and i had show only volumes selected. Why is external hard drive not showing up on my computer.
Finder, and disk utility when the drive gets plugged into macs usb port. View and download western digital my book user manual online. I formatted it to work with my macs per your telephone support instructions. We show you a special command you can use to quickly and easily fix your external hard drive if it is not showing or can t be reformatted on your mac computer. Open a finder window to see if the drive is mounted or not. Wd external hard drive such as my passport are suitable and trusted devices. Restore a disk using disk utility on mac apple support. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Mbp would mount the drive month later when tried again. I have tried reformatting it and starting from scratch.
External hard drive not mounting apple developer forums. When you restore from one volume to another volume, an exact copy of the original is created. Mac files wont copy to external hard drive how to fix. Macbook pro wont mount external hard drive ask different. Looking to add storage, or for a smart way to back up your mac. That particular external hard drive or usb stick is perfectly good since it works ok under linux. If you do not have the habit of running time machine on time, then relying on data recovery software is the last and best option left for recovering data from mac hard drive. Note there are plenty of options you will find on internet for this issue, e. Great fix for sd cards, flash drives and all other external hard drives that are not working with your mac. If that doesnt work, we have a couple of simple troubleshooting tips to fix an external hard drive not showing up on mac. It shows up on the system profiler connected to the usb, but it will not mount no matter what i try. Get setapp and receive a free copy of the ultimate mac user book. To check an external drive connected to your mac, open disk utility from the utilities folder of your applications folder.
Try switching to the partition level and click the mount button again. Ok i guess i done this right, i have taken lion osx from dvd dragged it to usb stick. Then use the first aid feature in disk utility to verify your disk. If you can see the hard drive in disk utility check underneath it for a volume. My microsoft surface does not recognize the external hard. I had a mac system volume not showing up in disk util any more.
Macbook pro refuses to mount an specific external hard drive or usb stick, after being able to do so with no problem before, and usually after the operating system disconnects it suddenly. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. 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. I copied all my data from the external drive to the mac upgraded to a clean installation of hs. When you restore one volume to another, all the files on the destination volume are erased. The wd my passport for mac is not showing up in finder nor in disk utility.
Follow the tutorial in this article to fix the issue and recover lost data from not showing upnot working wd hdd without data loss. Equipped with wd backup software for windows and apple time machine compatibility for mac, the my book desktop hard drive can back up your photos, videos, music, and documents. When you wake your mac up, for whatever reason, your external drive does not wake up. The wd driver manager also showing the drive in good status. When i clicked mount it still wouldnt mount, the drive is still showing dim. Well show you everything you need to know about the. Here in the below, well show you how to fix and repair not detectable or unrecognized wd my passport or other brands of the. Your mac will not be able to mount the disk until after the automatic checks are complete. Fix and repair wd my passport ultra not detectedshowing. Unable to mount external hard drive on mac solved youtube. Youve plugged in an external usb hard drive and it doesnt show up automatically on your desktop. Please help, i have asked friends and nobody can find a solution i have a western digital my book external hard drive that will not mount to mac or pc machines. It mounts the first time, but when i unplug it and then plug it back in to the same mac or a different one, it does not mount.
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