Wd External Hard Drive Not Working Mac

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External Hard Drive Missing After Big Sur Download. I installed Big Sur yesterday. Once installed, my external hard drive no longer showed up. I tried switching ports, restarting my computer, making sure external hard drive was selected in my preferences, etc. When I checked my utility disk, I don’t even see an external option. External hard drives, thumb drives, USB drives, Flash memory cards, and devices like iPod are examples of storage devices that you can connect to your Mac using Thunderbolt, USB, or FireWire cables, or connect wirelessly using Bluetooth. Storage devices (such as external hard drives) can also be available on your network.

“I have a 1TB WD Elements external hard drive and use it to store all my photos. Today, I connect it to my Windows 10 PC and will copy the photos from it to my PC, but the drive does not appear in This PC and I cannot access it. I reconnect it again and again, change to another USB port, try another USB cable, but still not work. Is there any any way to fix this issue? I really don’t want to lose all my photos.” - Cash

Actually, when you find your connected WD external hard drive won’t show up on your computer, you will change the USB cable, USB port and check the power adapter if it needs, etc. You also can check the software driver for the WD external hard drive. If it still can’t make your WD external hard drive be recognized by your computer, you can try the methods below to fix this issue. Of course, if you lose your files during the fixing processes, we will show you how to get the lost files back.

Page contents:

Fix 1. Create New Volume if it shows unallocated.

First of all, open Disk Management (Click This PC > Choose Manage > Click Disk Management) on your computer. If you find your WD external hard drives shows unallocated, just create a volume for it. Right click the Unallocated space and choose ‘New Simple Volume’, then follow the wizard to create a new volume. After that, open This PC (or My Computer) to check if the WD external hard drive is showing up.

Fix 2. Assign a new drive letter for your WD external hard drive.

In most cases, your WD external hard drive can’t be recognized by your computer is caused by drive letter conflict or having no drive letter. It is easy to fix this issue by adding a new drive letter for it. Open Disk Management, find the WD external hard drive and right click it, choose Change Drive Letter and Paths. If the device doesn't already have a letter, click Add and choose one. If it does, click Change and try another one.

Fix 3. Format the WD external hard drive using Disk Management.

If your WD external hard drive gets crashed or the file system of it is incompatible, you can format it so that it can be recognized by your Windows computer. Open Disk Management > Right click the WD external hard drive > Choose Format to format it.

Fix 4. Recover lost data from unrecognized or formatted/initialized WD external hard drive.

Data recovery software can help you recover files from your WD external hard drive whether you have formatted/initialized it or not. Now, follow the steps below to get all files back.

Step 1. Download a reliable WD data recovery program - such as Magoshare Data Recovery. It can help you find all existing files, hidden files, deleted/formatted and lost files from your WD external hard drive.

Step 2. Make sure the WD external hard drive has been connected to your computer and run Magoshare Data Recovery. Select the WD external hard drive to start data recovery.

Step 3. Click on Scan button, Magoshare Data Recovery will deeply scan the WD external hard drive and find every recoverable file.

Step 4. Once the scanning is completed, you can preview all recoverable files. Then select the desirable files and save them to your computer. Don’t save the recovered files to the WD external hard drive.

Fix 5. Repair crashed WD external hard drive with AweEraser.

AweEraser is a safe, powerful and easy-to-use data erasure & disk management program. If you have installed it on your computer, you can use it to help you repair your crashed WD external hard drive.

1. Open AweEraser on your computer and choose Disk Tools. If you can see the WD external hard drive in the drive list, just select it then click on Repair button. This tool will scan the crashed WD external hard drive and help you fix minor logical errors. Mostly, it will fix the errors by formatting it.

2. If you are going to sell, donate or trade in your WD external hard drive, you can use Erase Hard Drive mode to help you fix the crashed WD external hard drive and permanently wipe all data from it so that no data can be recovered by the next owners.

Open AweEraser, choose data erasure mode - Erase Hard Drive. This mode will help you wipe and format your WD external hard drive. After erasure, all data on the WD external hard drive will be erased permanently, can’t be recovered by any data recovery method.

Select the WD external hard drive and click on Erase button. AweEraser will format and wipe the WD external hard drive. 100% safe.

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Jul 01, 2012 Question: Q: iMac can't see my external hard drive I plug in a Toshiba 500 Gb External Hard drive and it doesn't show up on the desktop, in the finder window or in Disk Utility. It shows up in all those places on my work iMac and my son's laptop. I just got a new Mac and I can't see my external hard drive on my desktop like I'm used to seeing. How do I get it back? If your external hard drive icon is.

  1. Dec 26, 2016 Under “File Explorer” open the drive: WD My Passport (or name you gave it) WD backup.swstor the name of your computer Volume Users (select your user) finally, you should find the picture folder with all your pictures.
  2. Microsoft xbox 360 60gb hard drive reviews and ratings added by customers, testers and visitors like you. Search and read microsoft xbox 360 60gb hard drive opinions or describe your own experience.
  3. Nov 14, 2019 Apple (in the top toolbar menu) About This Mac Storage. See if the external drive shows up here. For more information, go to the same menu option, then select System Report. Mac not formatted to display external drives on the desktop. It could be that your Mac already recognizes the device.

Most of the time, when you connect an external hard drive to your Mac’s USB port, you soon see it mount on the desktop. Apple likes to ensure these are easy to find, so they also appear in the Finder in the left-hand column under Devices, since Mac’s treat them the same way as another computer.

However, sometimes, an external hard drive doesn't show up. It’s annoying, especially when you need to transfer something right then. And besides, there can be a risk that data on the external USB pen, hard, or flash drive is corrupt, which means you can’t transfer what you need between devices at all.

Corrupt data can be one reason your Mac won't recognize an external drive, but there are other reasons too. Let’s take a look why this is happening and how you can get an external drive to appear on your Mac and get recover data to access to your documents.

How to fix an external disk drive that won't show up on a Mac

Why an external disk drive is not showing up? There could be a few reasons why a USB flash drive isn’t making an appearance.

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Start with the basics:

  1. Check whether the drive is properly plugged in. It sounds obvious, but since this relies on a wire - either a USB cable or HDMI cable - if it’s not connected properly then it won’t appear on your desktop.
  2. Faulty cable. Assuming it’s plugged in correctly, not wobbly or loose, the cable could be at fault. Try connecting the same device with a different cable.
  3. Damaged USB or flash drive port. It could be a hardware issue with the Mac. If you’ve got another port, try connecting the device to that one.
  4. Reboot your Mac. Sometimes, if a USB disk won't boot, the cause is macOS issue. Hopefully, some data damage that can be fixed by restarting. Choose the Apple menu > Restart. Or press and hold the power button and, when a dialog box appears, click the Restart or press R. Restarting your Mac essentially clears your macOS’s memory and starts it up fresh.
  5. Incorrectly formatted drive. Not every external drive is optimized for Macs. It could be that you are trying to connect something only fit to interact with Windows devices. If you’ve got a PC or laptop, it’s worth connecting and seeing if you can access the files through another device. The best way to look for an incorrectly formatted drive is to go to
    Apple (in the top toolbar menu) > About This Mac > Storage.
    See if the external drive shows up here. For more information, go to the same menu option, then select System Report.
  6. Mac not formatted to display external drives on the desktop. It could be that your Mac already recognizes the device, but just isn’t showing its icon on the desktop screen. Even if that is the case, the drive will still appear in the left-hand column of the Finder menu under Devices. You should be able to access your drive that way, and, in the Finder menu under Preferences > General, you can check External Drives to ensure that from now on it shows up on your desktop too.
  7. Reset NVRAM. To do this, shut down or restart your Mac, switch it back on and immediately press these four keys together for at least 20 seconds: Option, Command, P, and R. It should look as though your Mac has started again; if it has, release the keys when you hear the second startup chime. Hopefully, the hard drive has shown up now.
  8. Check Apple’s Disk Utility to see if an external drive is showing up. Disk Utility is within System Preferences, or you can find it using Spotlight. 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.

Unfortunately, if none of those options has worked and the external drive still isn’t visible, then it could have crashed, or be well and truly broken. But there might still be a way you can recover the data on the external drive.

How to show connected devices in Finder

  1. Go to the Finder menu and select Preferences (Cmd+comma).
  2. From General tab tick External disks to ensure that from now on it shows on the desktop.

In the Sidebar tab you can choose which folders and devices will be shown in the left-hand column of the Finder window.

How to add cloud storages to Finder

You can also mount cloud storage as local drive on your Mac. By connecting Google Drive, Dropbox, or Amazon to your computer, you get more space for securely accessing and sharing files. For your ease, add cloud drives to Finder with CloudMounter app, so that you keep them close at hand. You can read detailed instructions on managing cloud storage as local drives here.

Repair the failed external drives with First Aid

If your drive is having problems, you can try to fix them yourself with First Aid and therefore get access to your files. First Aid tool will check the disk for errors and then attempt a repair as needed. It helps to verify and repair a range of issues related to startup HD and external drive problems. If you are able to fix the hard drive or SSD in your Mac (or an external drive) using Disk Utility you will hopefully be able to recover your files.

To run Fist Aid on an external hard drive: Microsoft office slow on mac.

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  1. Open Disk Utility. You can searching for it using Spotlight Search or via Finder > Application > Utility
  2. Check on your external hard drive, click the First Aid tab and select Run to start running diagnostics.

If First Aid successful in fixing errors, the external drive should be available to mount. If the utility unable to repair issues, your drive truly is broken or formatted using a file system that the Mac cannot read - in this way we suggest you follow the next steps to recover data from a damaged disk drive.

How to recover data from a crashed drive

Thankfully, there is an app for that. Disk Drill is the world’s premier data recovery software for Mac OS X. Powerful enough to retrieve long-lost, mistakenly deleted files from Macs, external hard drives and USB drives and camera cards.

Get a file recovery app

With Setapp you get a pack of professional tools for file recovery and Mac maintenance.

An easy way to recover lost files on an external hard drive

Providing you already have Disk Drill Pro version, which you can get automatically by downloading from Setapp:

  1. Connect your drive to the Mac.
  2. Quit all other applications on the Mac, especially those that may be trying to access the external drive (e.g. iPhoto, Words)
  3. Launch Disk Drill.
  4. Click on the external drive that you are trying to recover files from. If it has partitions, you will see all of them. If, however, you still don’t see any volume to the external drive then you may need to try some of the steps above again or read the Disk Drill Scanning FAQs.
  5. To avoid the external drive being accessed during the recovery process, click Extras next to the drive or drive partition or file, then select Remount Volume As Read Only. A padlock will appear, protecting the drive during the process.
  6. Now click Rebuild (or Recover) next to the file(s) you are trying to recover. Once the scan is finished - it may take some time if the files are large - a list of files will appeal.
  7. Next, click Mount Found Items as Disk button on the bottom-left below the scan results.
  8. Disk Drill “strongly suggest saving the files to a different drive than the one you are trying to recover files from. Saving to the same drive substantially lowers your chances of recovery.”
  9. A drive icon will appear, which once you double click will give you the option to open the files as you would do before they were lost. Drag them to another location, such as your desktop or a folder on your Mac.
  10. Open the files to ensure they have been recovered properly and safely eject the external drive.

Disk Drill does have other ways to recover lost files but assuming there aren’t complications, this method is the most effective. Disk Drill Pro recovery app is available from Setapp, along with dozens of Mac apps that will make your life easier. Never have to worry about a crashed or corrupted external drive again.

A few more tips on getting your files back

  1. Macs and third-party apps that look after Macs, such as Disk Drill and iStat Menus come with a S.M.A.R.T. (also known as Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) status monitor. If a SMART check reports errors, then it could mean the hard drive is at risk of failing completely. Within Disk Utility and Disk Drill, there are several solutions for this: Repair Disk Permissions and Repair Disk. If neither work, it’s recommended that you backup all of the data from the disk, erase, then run a SMART check again. The external hard drive should show up as Verified.
  2. Partitions can get lost within hard drives, temporarily hiding all of the information contained within. Disk Drill can help to identify and restore this information.
  3. Within Disk Drill, you can restore data when a hard drive is damaged or add formatting, which is also something Disk Utility can help with.
  4. CleanMyMac, another useful app available from Setapp, can help you identify external hard drive errors and repair them. It is an essential tool worth trying when you’re having external hard drive difficulties.

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Alternative ways to recover data from an external hard drive

Reset the System Management Controller (SMC) if your Mac shuts down when you plug in an external hard drive. Then use a different port to connect the external hard drive. If you’ve got a battery that you can’t remove:

  • Shut down and unplug the power adapter
  • Press Shift-Control-Option and the power button at the same time. Do this for 10 seconds
  • Release all keys
  • Plug the power adapter back in and switch your Mac back on

For Macs with removable batteries, you need to switch them off, remove the battery, then press and hold the power button for 5 seconds. After that, put the battery back in, plug in the power adapter and switch the power on again.

What’s your file format? One reason your Mac isn’t recognizing the hard drive is the file format. Windows uses NTFS file formats, while Macs, up until the introduction of Sierra, have used HFS+. Now, Apple has introduced the Apple File System (APFS) for newer operating systems. It is possible to format a hard drive so it can be read on Mac and Windows computers, providing you format using exFAT. However, if you’re having problems accessing the files and the issue is due to formatting, you will need to connect it to a device it can be read on, and then format the files correctly for the computer you are going to use it on next.

How to make Ext2/Ext3 drives readable on Mac

The common issue is Ext2- and Ext3-formatted drives are not readable on macOS. There are two ways to access such external drives on your Mac – via Linux OS or FUSE system. The easiest would be installing Linux to a secondary drive or virtual machine.

If you go with Linux installation, dual boot your Mac with Linux on another drive and use FAT32 as a transfer intermediary. If you don’t have a drive to install Linux to, use virtual machine as an interface for it. Transferring can be done the same way – with FAT32, or via network.

Another option for reading Ext2/Ext3 disks is mounting disk with Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE). Basically, it works as an extra interface enabling file system access via specially installed modules. Here’s how to mount drives with FUSE:

  1. Install FUSE for macOS or MacFUSE as well as fuse-ext2 module.
  2. Use the following Terminal command to enable Disk Utility’s debug menu and see all partitions: defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1
  3. Attach your Ext2/Ext3 drive and locate the device name via Disk Utility.
  4. In your user account, create a folder to be used as a mount point.
  5. Use the following Terminal command to mount the drive as read-only: fuse-ext2 /dev/disk2s2 /Volumes/mountpoint
  6. For write support, use the command: fuse-ext2 -o force /dev/disk2s2 /Volumes/mountpoint

And that’s not the only case where Terminal helps you access external drive.

Employ the handy all-powerful Terminal, which always comes forward with solutions for difficult problems. Especially if System Information does recognize the USB or hard drive, but continues to hide it from you, disconnect the drive and try to find it using the Terminal, which you can find in Applications > Utilities.

  • Once in the Terminal, type in the command diskutil list
  • A list with information about volumes and drives should appear
  • Look for a section labelled /dev/disk_ (external, physical)
  • Make a note of the whole line after the word disk
  • Now put the following command into the Terminal diskutil info disk followed by the number or digits assigned to that disk
  • Now you should see detailed information about the drive, therefore confirming that your Mac can and does recognize it
  • Eject using the Terminal by entering the command diskutil eject disk followed by the number or digits assigned to that disk
  • Physically remove the disk from you Mac
  • Plug it back in and your Mac should recognize it
Drive

Console is also reliable when it comes to solving tricky problems, although it isn’t always that easy to use. You can find Console under Applications > Utilities > Console. Console shows if an external drive or any error is detected under the Errors and Faults tab. If no errors show up, then the problem is not caused by the device.

To sum up, there are lots of potential solutions for a Mac not reading an external hard drive. If we were to pick one, Disk Drill seems to be the most well-rounded, offering plenty of customizations and power in an easy-to-use interface. Disk Drill Pro recovery app is available via Setapp, along with 150+ Mac apps that strive to make your life much much easier. At the very least, you’ll never have to worry about a crashed or corrupted external drive ever again.

'My 1TB WD external hard drive is not working on my Windows 10 PC and I can do nothing to the drive since it fails to show up in This PC.
I've changed the USB port but it still not working.
I don't know what reasons have made the drive not responding, and neither I know any solutions. I've saved quite a lot of important files inside the drive. If you have any methods to fix my issue and make the WD external hard drive work again, please help me. Thank you.'

Though it's no longer a new problem that external hard drive fails to work or suddenly fail to show up in PC. But it's still a tough issue for ordinary users when their external hard drive, USB or SD card etc devices suddenly become unrecognized, not working or responding in PC. Here below, you'll find 1 quick fix and 4 methods to fix WD external hard drive not working issue. If your external hard drive or storage devices are having this issue, relax and just follow to get your problem fixed right here now.

Quick fix WD external hard drive not showing up/unrecognized/responding error

1. Click Start > Type: devmgmt.msc in the Search box and hit Enter.
2. Open Device Manager > Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers.
3. Right-click on the USB Root Hub > Select Properties.
4. Go to Power Management and uncheck Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.

After this, reboot PC and reconnect WD external hard drive to your PC, then you'll be able to use the drive again.
If this quick fix doesn't work, relax and just follow below-offered methods to repair not working WD external hard drive or devices now.

Wd External Hard Drive Not Working Macbook Pro

Fix WD external hard drive not recognized error

Here you have two methods to follow and fix WD external hard drive not recognized or undetectable error in Windows 10/8/7:

Method 1. Reboot PC into Safe Mode to make WD external hard drive recognizable

  • Go to Setting > Update & security.
  • Tab on Recovery > Advanced Startup > Restart now.
  • PC will automatically boot into another Startup Settings screen.
  • Press F4 to initiate PC reboot into Safe Mode.
  • Then check whether the WD external hard disk can be detected or not.

Method 2. Change drive letter to make unrecognized WD external hard drive detectable

The other way is to change the drive letter with Disk Management tool so to make unrecognized or undetectable WD external hard drive to show up in PC:

  • Right-click on This PC/My Computer > Select Manage.
  • Go Disk Management > Find your external hard drive and right click it by choosing Change Drive Letter and Path..
  • Assign the drive with a new letter that doesn't exist in your PC and mark the Partition as Active.
  • Click OK.
  • Restart PC and your External hard drive will show up and work again.

Fix WD external hard drive not working/responding issue

When WD external hard drive, USB or other brands of storage devices are not working or not responding to any operations in your PC, don't worry. You can follow below-offered methods to get problems fixed right now:

Method 1. Update WD external hard drive driver to make it work

1. Click on Start > Type: devmgmt.msc in Search to open Device Manager by hitting Enter.
2. Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers > Right-click every USB device found there and select Uninstall.
3. Then check out whether any devices show up as unrecognized or not:

External Hard Drive Not Recognized Mac

  • If WD external hard drive shows unrecognized, go to drivers tab and delete/uninstall the driver; Then check out whether the external hard drive shows up in My Computer/My PC or not.
  • If it doesn't show up, reboot or restart PC;
  • If it shows up but disappears later, repeat above steps and go to Disk Management, change the drive letter of your WD external hard drive and reconnect it to PC to let PC detect it again.

Method 2. Repair corrupted system files/bad sectors on not working WD external hard drive

Corrupted system files or bad sectors on WD external hard drive or other storage devices would block your device from working or responding in Windows PC.

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Professional partition manager software from EaseUS will repair bad sectors and fix corrupted system files to make your WD external hard drive work again. Free download, install it and follow below guide steps to fix bad sectors and corrupted system files on your drive now:

Step 1: Open EaseUS Partition Master on your computer. Then locate the disk, right-click the partition you want to check, and choose 'Check File System'.

Step 2: In the Check File System window, keep the 'Try to fix errors if found' option selected and click 'Start'.

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Step 3: The software will begin checking your partition file system on your disk. When it has completed, click 'Finish'.

Extra Tip: WD external hard drive recovery

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Not

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After fixing not working external hard drive on your Windows PC, you may continue using it for storing fancy data again.
But if you lost files or valuable data on the drive, don't worry. Professional WD external hard drive recovery solution offered by EaseUS hard drive recovery software is what you exactly need. It will simply restore lost files from WD external hard drive within 3 simple steps on Windows 10/8/7 etc PC.
If you lost files after fixing WD external hard drive not working issue or cannot access saved data in your storage devices, just free download EaseUS hard drive recovery software and let it help now.