Tech Tips

How to fix: external hard drive not showing up on Mac

If you are a Mac user and you have noticed that the external hard drive is showing up in Disk utility, but not in devices, don’t worry, this is an issue that has affected other users as well. The issue is more likely to appear after a macOS update, but here we will go through the options that you can try to get it resolved or you can have a read of the article from iBoysoft.

Fix 1

If the external hard drive is connected to your Mac via the USB hub, take a look at the USB hub first to make sure there are no issues there.

Fix 2

Go to Settings, then to Finder Preferences. Select External drive in “Show these items on the desktop” under the General tab. Now you should see the external drive.

Fix 3

Go to Disk utility and select the external drive from the left sidebar. Select the option that says “verify disc”. This will identify and fix minor errors.

Fix 4

Open Disk Utility. Check the external USB drive has faded and it is greyed out and can’t be mounted. If that is the case, connect another external drive or Pen drive to the computer. If that drive is also unrecognized, eject it from the Finder window list. Then restart the computer and connect the external drive.

Fix 5

Select the option that says “Go to Finder” from the Finder menu. Then type the external drive path that appears under Disk Utility.

Fix 6

If the drive doesn’t appear in Finder, but you can see it in Disk Utility, go to Finder window and check below the favorite list. If the drive is greyed out, select it. This may make it visible.

Fix 7

Turn off your Mac and unplug the power cord.
Unplug all USB connections and allow at least 30 seconds and up to 5 minutes before plugging it back. Switch on your Mac and then plug the external drive to the USB port only. Open Finder and take a look at the drive.

Fix 8

Install and run Onyx. This is a maintenance freeware. You can also run Kext_Utility.app.v2.6.1 and restart the Mac.

Fix 9

In some cases, the issue is caused due to the unsupported drive format. You need to install Fuse for Mac, Fuse wait and NTFS-3G for Mac OS X. Then restart the computer and take a look at the issue.

If you are still unable to get the issue resolved. you can try to install fresh the latest macOS. Connect the external drive or WD passport to a Windows PC and then delete the partition and connect again to MacBook Pro.

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