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Wd Hard Drive Not Showing Up Mac

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While the external hard drive connected to the Windows computer or Mac, and the device did not show up. How to fix external hard drive not recognized? Don't worry, in this guide we will show you the best solution to fix the hard drive not recognized problem. Basically its yoru normal leopard install screen but when click continue, usually the drive you want to install the OS to will show up, but theres nothing. I go to disk utility and there is the optical drive with the leopard install disk and not the drive. I go to system profiler and i go to the sata option and it shows the drive there. The best external hard drive and SSD to buy for 2020: Mac, PC, PS4 and Xbox. Show more (4 items). WD My Book desktop drive is available in up to a 14TB configuration, but the 8TB is the best. As you said 'There are several reasons why Mac won't recognize a drive. If disk already mounted and system goes to sleep, it also powers down ports, including USB ports. When you wake your Mac up, for whatever reason, your external drive does not wake up'. It is right because generally sometimes an external hard drive doesn't show up on.

  1. External Drive Not Recognized Mac
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  3. Wd Hard Drive Not Showing Up Mac

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Summary: WD My Passport for Mac is not showing up Mac? Follow the tutorial in this article to fix WD My Passport not working issue and recover data from unrecognized WD My Passport.

Everything has flaws. At times, WD My Passport won't show up when you connect it to your Mac computer, the WD My Passport is greyed out in Disk Utility, or WD hard drive's light is on but not working. Even worse, it may become unreadable on your Mac. In either way, your important data on this drive will become inaccessible.

If the WD My Passport is not showing up on Mac desktop, Finder or Disk Utility after connecting to your Mac, how to find it and make it work? If you can't see files from WD external hard drive on Mac, how to access data? You'll get answers here.

Table of contents
1. Troubleshoot WD My Passport not showing up on Mac issue
2. How to fix My Passport not showing up on Mac issue?
3. What to do if My Passport drive is not recognized?
4. Understanding why My Passport drive not showing up on Mac
5. Bonus tips

Troubleshoot WD My Passport not showing up on Mac issue

As mentioned above, malfunctioned USB port or Mac computer, the broken USB cable and some hardware problems can also make WD My Passport not showing up. You can do some basic checks to troubleshoot whether this issue is resulted from those factors.

1. Safely remove the WD My Passport and reconnect it to the USB port. Try quickly plug and slowly plug, sometimes it just works for no reason.

2. Check whether the USB cable or USB port is bad by connecting other hard drives to this USB port or cable and see if that makes a difference.

3. Reboot your Mac computer to see if your WD My Passport drive is not showing up in Disk Utility/Finder or not.

4. Connect the WD My Passport to another Mac computer or Windows PC, which will find out if it is the incompatible file system of the drive that makes this WD My Passport undetectable.

How to fix WD My Passport not showing up on Mac issue?

If the WD My Passport for Mac still does not work or not show up on Mac after the basic checks, go ahead to try out the solutions as below to make it show up on Mac.

Solution 1: Check Finder Preferences

If your WD My Passport is not showing up in Finder and desktop, it's possible that the configuration of the Finder Preferences is stopping your WD My Passport drive showing up. In other words, you didn't allow the connected hard drives showing up in the Finder or on the desktop.

Now, follow the guide below to set Finder Preferences and make the WD My Passport for Mac show up in Finder or on the desktop.

Step 1: Go to Finder > Preferences > General tab.

Step 2: Tick the 'External disks' option to show the WD My Passport for Mac on the desktop.

Step 3: Go to Sidebar tab, tick 'External disks' under 'Devices' to show your WD My Passport for Mac in Finder.

Solution 2: Check My Passport for Mac in Disk Utility

If the WD My Passport for Mac drive is still not showing up in Finder or on the desktop, you can see whether it is showing up in Disk Utility or not.

When checking WD My Passport in Disk Utility, you could have two results:

Case 1: Your WD My Passport drive is detected and showing up in Disk Utility, but it is greyed out or not mounting.

Case 2: Your WD hard drive is not recognized, so it's not showing up in Disk Utility at all.

Here, we'll show you solutions to case 1.

Method 1: Mount WD My Passport for Mac in Disk Utility manually

Sometimes, hard drives cannot be automatically mounted in Disk Utility, even though Mac has detected the hard drive. So it's possible that you'll see the WD My Passport for Mac drive not mounting in Disk Utility. In this situation, you can manually mount the hard drive.

Step 1: Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.

Step 2: Click 'Show All Devices' in View option at the left corner of Disk Utility.

Step 3: Virtualbox mac. The creator 7 0 2 download free. Select your WD My Passport for Mac drive from the left sidebar and click the Mount button on the top of Disk Utility window.

Instead, you can also click on the mount icon beside the drive to mount it immediately.

Method 2: Repair WD My Passport for Mac drive with First Aid

If you can't mount the WD My Passport for Mac manually, there should be some file system problems in this drive. But don't worry. There is a native repair tool called First Aid in your Mac computer's Disk Utility, which is able to analyze and repair basic hard drive problems especially with file systems and catalogs, extends, volume bit maps. You can follow the instructions to fix this problem.

Step 1: Go to Disk Utility.

Step 2: Select the WD My Passport for Mac.

Step 3: Click First Aid on the top of the Disk Utility window.

Step 4: Click Done when the reparation finishes.

Solution 3: Erase/Reformat My Passport for Mac

If First Aid was unable to fix the errors in the WD My Passport, which is quite common, the file system of this drive could be seriously corrupted and you have to fix the WD My Passport for Mac not showing up on Mac problem by reformatting.

The situation is, reformatting will assign a new file system but will erase your data on this drive as well. To avoid the loss of important data, please make sure you have a backup copy of data. Without a backup? It's not necessarily the end of the world. You can at first recover lost data from the WD My Passport for Mac with professional Mac data recovery software, like iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.

iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is free hard drive data recovery software for Mac that is able to recover deleted files on Mac, recover lost data from formatted, inaccessible, corrupted, unmountable, unreadable hard drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, memory cards, etc. It's compatible with macOS Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra/Sierra 10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.

Recover lost data from My Passport for Mac with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac

Step 1: Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on Mac.

Step 2: Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.

Step 3: Select My Passport for Mac and click 'Next' button to scan all data on this drive.

Step 4: Preview the searching results, choose files you need, and click 'Recover' to get them back.

Reformat My Passport for Mac in Disk Utility

After recovering data from this drive, you can now courageously proceed to erase your WD My Passport for Mac drive with no fuss.

Step 1: Go to Disk Utility.

Step 2: Select the WD My Passport for Mac drive in the left sidebar.

Step 3: Click Erase on the top of the Disk Utility window.

Step 4: Complete the information for your drive (such as new format, partition scheme, and so on) and click Erase.

What to do if the WD My Passport drive is not recognized/detected?

If My Passport for Mac hard drive is not showing up in Disk Utility at all, it means the WD hard drive is not recognized. Very probably, your My Passport for Mac may have some hardware problems. It's better to send it to a local reparation center.

Understanding why My Passport drive not showing up on Mac

Sometimes, an external hard drive not showing up on Mac just because the USB cable or the USB port on your Mac is bad. In addition, the following reasons may also lead to WD My Passport for Mac not showing up or not working. Microsoft office word 2010 free. download full version for mac.

  • Recent macOS update issue
  • System failure
  • Virus infection
  • Motherboard issue
  • WD My Passport drive damage or corruption

Bonus Maintenance Tips for WD My Passport drives for Mac

Apparently, most hard drive not showing up issues are caused by unsafe ejection and sudden power outrage. In order to maintain your WD My Passport for Mac in good condition, you should pay attention to:

  • Make sure that your WD My Passport doesn't become physically damaged.
  • Always safely and properly eject the WD My Passport for Mac drive after using it.
  • Don't just unplug the USB cable, on the contrary, unmount your drive by right-clicking (control-click) on the icon on the Desktop or in the Finder and choose Eject.
  • Properly use WD software like WD Drive Utilities, WD Backup software ( to back up important files to your My Passport drive), and WD Discovery ( to organize and share your files to the My Passport drive to backup your online social life).

Summary :

Sometimes, when you connect an external hard drive to your computer, it might not show up or get recognized. Best audio editor software for windows. This problem occurs frequently in Mac/Windows 10, and could lead to data loss.

There are some useful fixes to the external hard drive not detected issue. Please read this page to know how to access the drive without data loss.

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External Hard Drive Not Showing Up PC

Whether you're plugging in a new hard drive or an old one to your computer, it is possible that you can't see it. Some people even reported that the external hard drive is showing up in devices but not in my computer. This is not a rare issue; it has ever happened to many people and will be happening to more.

What are the possible causes for external hard drive not showing up on computer issue?

  • Insufficient power supply
  • Lack of drive letter
  • Outdated drivers
  • File system issues
  • Partition problems
  • Dead USB port

In the following content, I'll mainly discuss external hard drive not showing up/recognized on Windows 10 in 2 different situations. After that, I'll tell you what do I do if my hard drive is not detected.

External Hard Drive Not Showing Up in File Explorer

Seagate external hard drive not showing up.

I know there are a million posts about this issue, but I haven't come across one that fixed my issue and I really don't want to have to shell out a ton of money recovering my data. Running Windows 10 on an Asus K55N and connecting a Seagate Free Agent Go Flex Desk 2TB external drive. When I connect the drive, it shows in Disk Management and the Safely Remove Hardware icon, but I can't get it to populate in File Explorer. I have not tested on another computer, but I have tested with a different USB cable and was able to connect two other external drives. I did the trial of the Seagate Recovery Suite and was able to see all my files listed, I was just hoping to not have to pay to recover the data (if that's what it boils down to, so be it).- said Corey_23 on Tom's Hardware Forum

It's easy to find that an external hard drive doesn't appear in File Explorer after you connected it to a Windows 10 computer. You should go to open Windows Disk Management to check whether your disk shows up there. If you find the external hard disk showing up in Disk Management as unallocated/not initialized/offline, it would be easy to fix the external hard drive not recognized problem. This is what people described as external hard disk detected but not showing in My Computer.

Please read Recover Data From Disk Shows As Unknown Without Damaging It to learn how to fix this.

Tip: If Seagate external hard drive not showing up on Windows 10, can you access data in it? Please read Exciting News: Seagate Hard Drive Data Recovery Is Simplified and learn how to finish Seagate external hard drive recovery.

External Hard Drive Not Showing Up in Disk Management

WD external hard drive not recognized Windows 10.

Case 1:

I have a WD My Passport portable USB hard drive which one of my computers can't detect when plugged in. It doesn't show up in My computer, Device Manager or Disk Management. The only way to get the device recognized is to reboot the computer with it connected, enter BIOS (and do nothing), and reboot again. The drive works fine on my other computer. It has the WD Unlocker Software built in.- posted by Lagnaetti on Windows 10 Forums, Drivers and Hardware

Obviously, Lagnaetti finds that his external hard drive is not being detected by My computer, Device Manager or even Disk Management. He wants to know how to fix the external hard disk not detected issue. In fact, there are some cases in which an external hard drive doesn't show up due to it being broken physically. Yet, there are still chances that the unrecognized hard disk can be repaired.

Tip: The WD external hard drive is used widely by people throughout the world. And I advise you to recover data from WD external hard disk which is not detecting. To know 'how do I fix my WD external hard drive not showing up on my computer', please read the next part of this article.

In addition, there are also some people who said their PS4 external hard drive is not recognized or Xbox One external hard drive is not detected/not showing up. I suggest that they connect the external hard drive to the computer and check.

How Do I Get Windows 10 to Recognize My External Hard Drive

  1. Change a USB port.
  2. Check the drive in Disk Management.
  3. Run the Troubleshooter.
  4. Update/uninstall/roll back driver.
  5. Reinstall USB controllers.
  6. Enable legacy USB support in BIOS.
  7. Update system to the latest version.
  8. Disable USB selective suspend setting.
  9. Update motherboard chipset drivers.
  10. Fix the system built-in drivers.
  11. Kill virus on the computer and external drive.

There are many useful workarounds for fixing the external hard drive not being detected in Windows 10 (how to repair hard disk not detected in Windows 7 is basically the same).

Method 1: Change a USB Port

The most direct reason why an external hard drive is not detected by computer is a broken USB port. You should try to connect the hard drive via another USB port or on another computer. If the USB device not recognized problem is solved, it is the USB port that should be blamed.

Additionally, the USB drive not showing up Windows 10 may also occur when the power supply of a USB port is not sufficient. In this case, I advise you not to use USB hubs because some of them are not able to provide enough power supply to the external hard drive.

Method 2: Check & Fix the Drive in Disk Management

Sometimes, an external hard drive not showing in Windows Explorer could appear in Disk Management. How to open Disk Management:

  1. Press Windows + X keys.
  2. Click on Disk Management option from the pop-up menu.

Glyphs 2 4 – dependable and intuitive font editor. What prevents a drive from showing up:

  • External hard drive Unallocated
  • External hard drive Not Initialized
  • External hard drive Offline
  • No drive letter

How to fix the problem in the above 4 cases:

Case 1: create a new volume.

  1. Right click on the unallocated space.
  2. Choose New Simple Volume (or other volume types you need).
  3. Click on the Next button in the New Simple Volume Wizard Welcome window.
  4. Specify the volume size and click Next.
  5. Finish Assign Drive Letter or Path and click Next.
  6. Finish Format Partition and click Next.
  7. Click on the Finish button in the New Simple Volume Wizard Completing window.
  8. Wait for the operation to complete.

Watch how to Create Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Case 2: Initialize Disk:

  1. Right click on the unknown, Not Initialised disk.
  2. Choose Initialise Disk from the context menu.
  3. Choose a partition style from MBR and GPT and click on the OK button to confirm.
  4. Wait for the operation to complete.

Use MiniTool Partition Wizard to Initialize to MBR Disk or Initialize to GPT Disk.

Case 3: set Online:

  1. Right click on the disk which shows Offline.
  2. Choose Online from the pop-up menu.
  3. Wait a second.

Case 4: Change Drive Letter and Paths:

  1. Right click on the disk partition which has no drive letter.
  2. Choose Change Drive Letter and Paths from the context menu.
  3. Click on the Add button in the pop-up window.
  4. Assign a drive letter to the partition and click OK to confirm.
  5. Wait a second.

Change Drive Letter more easily with MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Do you want to recover your files from external hard drive not detected? If yes, please read the following tutorial.

How to recover files from external hard drive not detected?

Step 1: download MiniTool Power Data Recovery. Then, install and launch it. (To recover files from external hard drive not showing up on Mac, you need Stellar Data Recovery for Mac.)

Step 2: Choose Removable Disk Drive from the main window and select the external hard drive.

Step 3: click on the Scan button to scan the selected external hard drive.

Step 4: browse the scan results during the scan. Alternatively, you can wait until the end of the scan and then select the files you want to restore.

External Drive Not Recognized Mac

Step 5: press the Save button and choose another drive with enough free space to store the recovered files.

External drive not recognized mac

Step 6: press the OK button to confirm the selection and start external hard drive file recovery.

At last, you can check the recovered files to put an end to the recovery work.

Please read this page if your external hard drive seems dead and you need to recover important data from it:

If you are stuck in finding ways to recover files from dead external hard drive efficiently, this passage will be very helpful.

Method 3: Run Troubleshooter

For USB device not recognized in Windows, there is a useful tool to help: Hardware and Device Troubleshooter.

How to run Hardware and Device Troubleshooter:

  1. Open Settings the way you like.
  2. Choose Update and Security from Windows Settings panel.
  3. Go to the Troubleshoot tab.
  4. Scroll down to choose Hardware and Devices from the right pane.
  5. Click on the Run the Troubleshooter button.
  6. Wait for the detecting to complete.
  7. Once the scan is completed, Windows will list the found issues.
  8. You should choose the issue you want to fix and click Next.

Method 4: Fix Device Driver Problems

You can open Device Manager to check and fix the issue.

  1. Press Start + X keys on the keyboard.
  2. Choose Device Manager from the pop-up menu.
  3. Expand Disk drives option.
  4. Right click on the problematic drive.
  5. Choose from Update driver, Uninstall device and Properties.
  6. Finish the rest steps by looking at system prompt.
  • The Update driver feature helps to fix the USB drive not recognized problem due to a corrupted/outdated device driver.
  • The Uninstall device feature is used to uninstall your USB external hard drive with the issue. After that, you should remove the USB device from the computer and then reconnect it after at least 1 minute. This is useful when your USB driver has become unstable or corrupt.
  • The Properties feature will help you further diagnose the problem by looking at the error Besides, you can choose to Roll Back Driver by shifting to Driver tab after clicking Properties.

Method 5: Reinstall USB Controllers

Also, you should open Device Manager using the above method or other ways you like. Then, finish the following steps:

  1. Find and expand Universal Serial Bus controllers.
  2. Right click on a device and choose Uninstall device from the context menu.
  3. Click on the Uninstall button in the pop-up window.
  4. Repeat step 2 and step 3 to uninstall all devices under Universal Serial Bus controllers.
  5. Restart your computer and Windows will install the USB controllers automatically.

Method 6: Enable Legacy USB Support

Sometimes, you may find your hard disk not detected in BIOS. This may be caused by the disabled Legacy USB Support.

How to enable USB support:

  1. Restart your PC.
  2. Press the corresponding button to enter the BIOS utility.
  3. Shift to Advanced tab.
  4. Choose USB Configuration.
  5. Select Legacy USB Support and set it to be Enabled.
  6. Exit and save changes.
Note: the process will be a little bit different on different computer motherboards.

It's not an easy task to recover data from a hard disk that is not detected in BIOS especially when the disk is an internal one. The good news is MiniTool Power Data Recovery bootable edition provides an easy way to recover data when the PC won't start. As for how to recover data from undetected internal hard disk step by step, please read:

Wd Elements Mac

If you're stuck in the data recovery from corrupted internal hard disk, the solutions and software provided here will be of great help. Webcam app on mac.

Method 7: Install the Latest Windows Updates

This method has the same functionality as the Update driver.

  1. Type Windows Update into the Cortana search box.
  2. Select Check for updates from the Best match.
  3. Click on the Check for updates button and wait.
  4. Finish the rest operations according to prompts.

If you find some files get lost after Windows Update, please use MiniTool Power Data Recovery to recover data at once.

Method 8: Disable USB Selective Suspend Setting

  1. Type power plan into the Cortana search box.
  2. Select Choose a power plan from the search result.
  3. Click Change plan settings next to the plan used currently.
  4. Click Change advanced power settings.
  5. Find USB settings and click on the + button to expand it.
  6. Click on the + button to expand USB selective suspend setting.
  7. Change Setting to be Disabled.
  8. Click on the Apply button to confirm and click on the OK button to close.

Method 9: Install the Latest Chipset Drivers for Motherboard

  1. Look for the documentation of your computer to find the name of the motherboard manufacturer.
  2. Visit the website of the manufacturer.
  3. Find the drivers proper for your motherboard and install it on your computer.

Method 10: Repair the System Built-in Drivers

  • Press F8 or another button to enter the safe mode during the boot process; select restart or shut down the computer and power on it later to enter the normal mode (to repair the registry).
  • If the problem persists, please enter safe mode again to choose System Restore in order to restore your system to an earlier point when there's no such problem.
  • If the problem persists, please use the system disk to repair; open the command prompt, enter SFC / scannow, press Enter and insert the original system disk to repair the system
  • If the problem persists, please set the CD-ROM as the first boot device in the BIOS; then, insert the system installation disc and press R key to select repair installation.
  • If the problem still persists, I advise you to reinstall your OS.

Method 11: Run Anti-virus Program

If your PC is attacked by virus, unfortunately, any external hard drive connected to this PC will be affected. The virus may cause the external hard drive not showing issue. Please run anti-virus software to kill the virus and get Windows 10 to recognize your external hard drive.

RECOMMENDATION:

To recover data from virus infected external hard drive, you can try using MiniTool Power Data Recovery because of its excellent performance, high security, and simple operations. How to recover files after virus attack:

I feel glad to share solutions with users to help them recover files deleted by virus attack quickly and safely.

How to Fix: External Hard Disk Detected But Not Opening

There are also some people saying that their external hard drive could be detected by Windows, but can't be opened. The most direct reason is the file system problem.

When the file system of your hard drive is not supported by Windows, you won't be able to access the drive. For instance, Windows gives no support for the ext4 file system (designed for Linux) and the HFS + file system (designed for Mac).

After clicking on the drive, you'll be asked to format the disk before you can use it.

  • If you choose Format, you should know that all your data saved here will be lost.
  • If you choose Cancel, you will see the message: The volume does not contain a recognized file system.

Actually, themost common causes are:

  • The file system is damaged.
  • The file system is not supported.
  • The drive becomes RAW.
  • The parameter is incorrect.
  • The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.

2 Methods for Solving External Hard Disk Detected But Not Opening

  1. Run CHKDSK in Command Prompt.
  2. Reformat the drive by using MiniTool Partition Wizard.

There are two useful methods for fixing the external hard drive detected but not opening error: run CHKDSK and format the drive.

Method 1: run CHKDSK.

Wd Hard Drive Not Showing Up Mac

  1. Type cmd into the Cortana search box on the taskbar (what if Windows 10 taskbar is not working?).
  2. Right click on Command Prompt from the search result.
  3. Choose Run as administrator from the context menu.
  4. Choose Yes in the User Account Control window.
  5. Type chkdsk /r * (* stands for the drive letter) and press Enter.
  6. Wait for the stages to complete.

Method 2: format the drive.

  1. Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard.
  2. Select the drive with an unsupported file system.
  3. Choose Partition from the menu bar and choose Format from the submenu.
  4. Choose NTFS or FAT32 as the new file system.
  5. Click on the OK button to confirm.
  6. Press the Apply button in the main software window.
  7. Choose Yes in the pop-up window to apply pending changes.
  8. Wait for operations to complete.
  9. Click on the OK button in the Successful window.

Click to see Format Partition Tutorial.

Conclusion

Though it may seem strange, it is not a rare problem that the external hard drive is not showing up/recognized/detected. There are many factors that could lead to this problem. When you find that your external hard drive is not showing up in your computer, please use the methods mentioned above to help your computer recognize the hard drive. You can also refer to this post to learn how to recover data from your external hard drive in different ways.

External Hard Drive Not Showing Up FAQ

? What do I do if my external hard drive is not detected?
First of all, you should go to open the Disk Management tool on your computer. Then, browse all the drives in the list to check whether the target hard drive is displayed here. If the external hard drive is found, please format it properly to make it show up.
According to study, the USB drive could disappear due to a lot of reason. The root reason for causing that is the driver of USB is tool old, missing, or corrupted somehow. You'd better make use of the Device Manager to check the status of USB driver.
The reason why a hard drive is not recognized in computer BIOS is not so complex. Once the connection between hard drive and PC is incorrect or the data cable is damaged, you can't find it in BIOS. The SATA cables can fall out of their connection easily.
There are many factors to cause external hard drive disappear from the computer. So the corresponding solutions are diversified. For instance, you can change a USB Port, run the troubleshooter, or update the driver of the external hard drive to try to make it appear.




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