You might insert an external hard drive into your Mac, but it won’t show up. Do not panic! You can repair and repair any external hard drive that shows no problem with the Mac. Not sure where to start? We’re here to help.
Let’s get started on why your external hard drive or flash drive isn’t showing up on your Mac device. Part II: Reasons For Disk External Hard Drive Not Showing Up On A Mac Device. There are cases wherein you plugged your external hard drive or flash drive on your Mac and the device cannot recognize it. Why Your External Hard Drive Isn’t Showing Up. If your external hard drive isn’t showing up, many things could be causing the issue, including problems with your computer, a hard drive that.
Make it easy yourself and follow our guide to checking your connections, macOS settings, and, as needed, the external hard drive itself. The external hard drive will then reappear on the Mac. First, let’s see why the external hard drive doesn’t show up.
Sometimes the windows and Mac users face the issue of the Hard drive, not showing in their PC. It may be a hardware or software issue on which we will acknowledge you all the possible reasons behind the issue and we will also guide to resolve the Hard drive not showing problem at your own. Reasons why hard drive is not showing up in Windows. There is a variety of reasons why Windows or BIOS cannot detect the presence of your hard drive. Here is a list of possible causes of the problem, and you can refer to these factors: Connection issue. In some cases, storage device is not properly connected to computer and it cannot be.
Why is the External Hard Drive Not Showing up on Mac?
Most of the time, Macs don’t recognize the external hard drive due to hard drive failure and incorrect connections. Other factors can make external hard drives invisible on your Mac.
The reason external hard drives, pens, and SD cards don’t show up on a Mac differs from case to case. You are:
1. The USB cable is damaged.
2. USB port not working.
3. The USB adapter is not working properly.
4. The external hard drive is not formatted properly.
5. Hard disk driver hardware and software need updating.
6. The file system on the external hard drive is damaged.
As a result, you plug in an external hard drive to your Mac, but nothing happens. Mac cannot read your external hard drive. Hard drives do not appear on the desktop or in the Finder. However, that doesn’t mean your Mac won’t recognize the hard drive.
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Guide to Fix External Hard Drive Not Showing up on Mac
What if your external hard drive isn’t recognized by your Mac? Just follow our step-by-step guide to find and access this external hard drive on your Mac.
External hard drives such as Buffalo Ministration, WD, Samsung, Seagate, and Lacie connect to Macs using USB cables and connectors. However, if the connection fails, your external device will not appear on the Mac.
If your Mac doesn’t see your external hard drive, use the steps below to make sure the external hard drive is properly connected.
Step 1: Check the power connection
External hard drives require electricity to light, play, and transfer data. If the external hard drive runs out of power, it won’t appear on your Mac. You can do these things to check the power supply.
For external desktop hard drives such as Seagate Backup Plus and WD Elements Desktop, ensure that the external hard drive is connected externally to a power outlet.
For a portable USB external hard drive, ensure that the USB port is not blinking, dusty, loose, or deformed. If the USB port is not working and is not getting enough power, you can try another USB port.
Look at the Mac external hard drive with the correct USB connection
When working on a MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro, there are two things to note.
First, make sure your Mac isn’t in sleep mode. The external hard drive will not work if the USB port is not sufficiently charged.
Then make sure the USB hub and USB-C adapter work if your Mac uses a Thunderbolt port. 3. While the actual USB Type-C adapter is better, you’ll run into problems plugging Thunderbolt directly into the Mac portable hard drive on your Mac.
Check for incompatible applications with the external hard drive
Some programs may stop loading your external hard drive. These incompatible programs could be USB security applications, encryption programs, or anti-virus software that was recently installed. If so, you can try restarting your Mac in Safe Mode, which will only run the basics of macOS.
Step 1: Restart your Mac (some Macs will play a startup sound).
Step 2: Immediately hold down the Shift key and release the Shift key when you see the progress bar.
Step 3: After restarting, reconnect your external hard drive to the Mac and see if it is recognized. If the external hard drive is recognized by macOS in Safe Mode, you will need to start your Mac in normal mode and then remove the suspicious program you just downloaded.
Make sure the external hard drive is installed in Disk Utility
If an external hard drive is found in Disk Utility, it means that your external hard drive has been recognized by your Mac. However, since you won’t be able to see and open the hard drive, as usual, we need to confirm more information that will appear in Disk Utility.
Expand the Display options and select Show all devices.
Find and select the external hard drive that doesn’t appear on your Mac.
Select Mount in the top menu bar.
You may not see the partitions in Disk Utility, but the manufacturer’s names are WD and Seagate. This means that the partition table (the data unit that describes hard drive partition information) is damaged or missing. As a result, macOS can’t recognize the external hard drive. In this situation, we recommend that you first recover important data and then reformat this hard drive.
Windows Boot Problems
Laptop Boot Problems
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by Anna SherryUpdated on 2020-06-28 / Update for Windows Tips
Sometimes the windows and Mac users face the issue of the Hard drive, not showing in their PC. It may be a hardware or software issue on which we will acknowledge you all the possible reasons behind the issue and we will also guide to resolve the Hard drive not showing problem at your own.
Why Is My External Hard Drive Not Showing up Windows 10/Mac?
In this section we will enlist all the possible reasons that can be the reason for the External Hard drive not to display in the computer running Windows 10 or Mac OS.
Windows 10 and Mac users may not be able to see External Hard drive because of following reasons.
Reason 1. Check if the hard drive is turned on in the Bios settings
Every computer manufacturing has its own bios menu style and functioning. However, the general way to open bios settings is to press f2, f10, or f12 key at the time of booting. Once you get to the bios settings, you can check if the hard drive is showing there and turned on.
Reason 2. Device Driver issue – especially if the hard drive is installed for the first time
Open the Device Manager by right clicking on This PC > Properties > Device Manager and check under Storage devices, if your hard drive is enlisted there and it has proper drivers installed.
Reason 3. External Hard Drive Letter Conflict
Letter conflicts arises upon installing a new drive. We will discuss its solution in the next section.
Reason 4. Corrupt or bad/dirty sector Hard Drive
Some sort of virus or malware can cause dirty bits or form bad sectors in the hard drive. It can be resolved by formatting the drive discussed in the next section.
Reason 5. Hard drive physical Connection Cable issue
External Hard Drive Not Showing Up Mac
It is possible that the wire connecting the drive with the PC is faulty. In this case you can try another cable to confirm and replace if the drive shows up upon changing the cable.
How to Fix Computer Not Recognizing External Hard Drive Windows 10/8/7
Method 1. Check the External Hard drive in Disk Management
Open the disk Management utility in Windows 10 by searching in the start menu search or by typing diskmgmt.msc in the RUN.
Now check, if your external hard drive is located there. If you hard drive is external, most likely it will display as Removeable storage.
Right click on the Removeable storage and click on Create partition and assign a new drive letter
This will also resolve the drive letter conflict if it was the reason for the external hard drive not showing up in “This PC”.
Method 2. Format the Drive
It is described above that corrupt data or virus can be the reason of External Hard Drive not recognized by PC. In this case, follow the instructions below.
Open the disk Management utility in Windows 10 by searching in the start menu search or by typing diskmgmt.msc in the RUN.
Now check, if your external hard drive is located there. If you hard drive is external, most likely it will display as Removeable storage.
Right click on it and click on Format. Check the box saying “Quick Format” and start the formatting. If the problem persists, try to uncheck Quick Format.
Method 3. Reinstall or Update External Hard Drive Drivers
If the computer is not recognizing external hard drive, playing with drivers can be handy. Follow the steps below in order to reinstall or update drivers.
To Update drivers
Open This PC properties. Go to Device Manager from left menu.
Under Storage Devices, find your external hard drive and right click on it.
Click on Update Drivers and select to Update Drivers Automatically from the internet.
To reinstall drivers
Right click on your drive under Storage Devices and select properties. Go to Driver tab and click on Uninstall Device. Now, unplug your external hard drive and plug it again. If the drivers were the issue then the PC will install drivers again and recognize the external hard drive.
Tested Method to Troubleshoot External Hard Drive Not Showing up Mac
Method 1. Check The Finder Settings
Go to Finder window.
Go to Preferences > General
Check if the External disks option is marked
Method 2. Mount An External Hard Drive on Mac
Go to System Preferences and then go to Disk Utility
Check that if the external hard drive is listed in the left sidebar
Select your hard drive and select Mount
External Hard drive should now appear under devices section in the Finder.
Method 3. Use First Aid Utility on An External Hard Drive
Go to System Preferences then go to Disk Utility
Select your external hard drive and click on “First Aid”
Click “Run” to start the utility. Allow Mac to fix any issues automatically
Method 4. Repair disk permissions
Go to Maintenance from the left sidebar menu
Check the box saying “Repair Disk Permissions”
Click on Run
Why Is My Hard Drive Not Showing Up On My Mac
Recommended Tip. How to Recover Lost Data on External Hard Drive
Keyboard maestro 6 4 8 – hot key tasking solution. In this section, we will represent you Tenorshare 4DDiG for Windows Data Recovery software for the recovery of deleted data.
What is UltData recovery software? Transfer vcr to mac.
This software is made compatible with almost any type of storage media such as Internal or External Hard Drive, SSD, Digital Camera, Media Player, Pen drive or USB Drive. It support recovery of data of any data type such as music, video content, Documents, Compressed files etc.
How to use UltData?
Select the location where you want to perform recovery operation and get back deleted files.
Start scanning the Drive with deleted files or data.
Select the location where you want to save the recovered files. Make sure you have enough space to store that. Click “OK”.
Frequently Asked Questions on Hard Drive
Q1. What is the problem if the hard disk is not detected?
The problem can be of two types, related to the hardware or related to the software. As far as the software type is concerned, it may be due to some driver, settings, or data issues. Hardware problems are related to the connecting wire or the internal circuit of the hard drive.
Q2. Can a hard drive be repaired?
Mac Hard Drive Not Detected
The answer is almost NO, because today’s hard drives are reduced in size and are built using advanced technology like flash storage or SSDs. These drives are complex to understand their internal circuitry, hence making them impossible to be repaired.