Are you facing trouble with the external hard drive not showing up on Mac? Don’t worry! Here, in this article, we will tell you to fix the hard drive not showing up on the Mac issue.
Normally, once you connect your hard drive to your Mac, it will be clearly visible to you on the desktop. You can also find out the drive in your Finder under the Locations tab.
If you are having an older version of Mac, you can find it in devices of macOS. Normally this problem arises when your Hard drive is faulty or corrupted. In this blog, we will learn how to access the hard drive on your Mac, and what is the main reason behind that. There might be a problem with the drive itself.
So, let’s just not waste more time and find out how to fix hard drive not showing up on Mac issue.
How to Fix External Hard Drive Not Showing up on Mac?
Not just one, there might be many reasons why your hard drive is not showing up on Mac. The main reason behind this is that the drive may be corrupted, or it is not formatted properly or the cable is probably faulty, etc. Given below are the methods by which you can find and fix the problem of your drive not showing up on your Mac:
1. Edit System Preferences
This one is really an easy fix if your drive is not showing up on Mac. Follow the steps given below to resolve your problem:
- Click anywhere on the desktop screen. You will Finder Menu on the top. Click on Finder. A drop-down menu will appear. From here, you need to click on Preferences.
- Go to General Tab and make sure you have a tick on the checkbox of the External Disks.
That is it, this is how you can solve the hard drive not showing up on Mac problem without looking for some complicated solutions. There might be another problem that is causing the issue if it’s already done.
Keep on reading to find other solutions to fix the external drive not showing up on Mac issue.
2. Is Cable Fine that came with your External Drive?
Some of the time there are no issues with your devices or the computer you are connecting with. In this case, you should check whether the cable is working fine or not?
One of the most common causes for an external drive failing to mount is that it isn’t getting enough power. If the drive is supplied by a USB-A cable, make sure that enough power is being supplied to the drive.
In order to give enough power to the drive, very old Macs may require a USB power cable, which is a cable that divides into two USB ports that must both be hooked into your Mac. Similarly, check to see whether the drive has an external power supply that it should be using.
Make sure there’s no problem with the cables. To check that, try using a different cable with the external drive. Similarly, if you’re using a USB port via a hub, be sure that’s not the issue.
Also, make sure your Mac’s port isn’t the issue. If that doesn’t work, try plugging into a different port.
There’s a problem with the external drive cable or one of your Mac’s ports, you can get a new one from the market. If you are certain that everything is fine, you should better check our below solutions to fix the issue.
3. Connect External Device to Another Mac or PC
In the above steps, we checked that Preferences settings are fine. We have no problem with any of our Mac’s ports and the cable is working fine. We would suggest you plug your external drive into another Mac. If it does not work on the other Mac too then the reason is clear. The problem exists in the external device only. If it shows up, then the problem is with your Mac you are connecting your external device in the first place.
Assuming the above step fails, try to plug in your external device to Windows PC. Is the drive connecting to a PC? If yes, then we can assume that your external drive is formatted for PCs and Mac won’t be able to read it.
4. Access Using Disk Utility
If the various checks above indicate that the disc is bad, you can access the disc with Apple’s Disk Utility tool and potentially rectify whatever is causing the problem. Here’s what you should do to use Disk Utility to access the external drive:
- Click on Applications on the Dock Bar.
- Once you are in the Applications folder, click on Utilities folder.
- From here, you need to click on Disk Utility app to move further.
- Alternatively, to open the Disk Utility app, you can open Spotlight by typing cmd+Spacebar on your keyboard. Input Disk Utility and press Enter to launch the app. Check the left-hand column to see if the hard drive is listed.
- Check for Volume underneath the external hard drive name in Disk Utility. Right-click on Volume and choose Mount option if it is present. If the external hard drive has already been mounted on your Mac, the option Unmount will appear instead.
- To solve the external hard drive not showing up on Mac, you have three options which are as follows:
– First Aid: This option will scan the disc for faults and, if necessary, repair it.
– Erase: Removes all data from the external hard drive.
– Restore: This allows you to wipe the drive’s contents and replace them with data from another location.
If the data on the disc is important to you, don’t choose Erase or Restore. - Tap on First Aid to check if there’s any default in your external hard disk.
- A pop-up will flash on your screen. Click on Run to continue.
Running First Aid option will identify the faults in your external hard drive. You may see the Repair Disk option if the faults can be fixed. If that’s the case, go ahead, click on First Aid and make the repairs.
This will hopefully fix the external hard drive not showing up on the Mac issue. If not, check a few other resolutions that we have for you to fix the problem.
5. Make Changes in the Drive’s Format
If your Mac can’t repair the disc, it’s either formatted with a file system that the Mac can’t read. Apparently, the drive is in good working order, but the drive’s format is incorrect. Here’s some background information about file formats:
- Windows PCs use NTFS Format.
- Prior to Sierra, Mac computers were using the HFS+ file format.
- Apple launched a new file system called Apple File System in High Sierra (APFS).
- Windows and Mac systems can read exFAT or the older FAT32 file formats.
To ensure that your drive can be accessed by both Macs and PCs, format it with exFAT or the older FAT32 file system. We’ll show you how to accomplish it down below.
It is indeed possible that the hard disc was configured using a separate file system than the one you’re using (i.e. on a Windows PC). If you need to access the data on the drive in such instance, connect it to a Windows PC that recognizes it and copy the data before proceeding to the next step.
After retrieving the data from the drive using a PC, you can reformat the disc and re-add the data. Follow the below steps on how to reformat your hard drive so that it will work with both Windows and Mac:
Please Note: It will erase the data on your external hard drive. Only choose this option if you are OK with that.
- Open the Disk Utility. To open the app, you can follow Steps no. 1 to 4 from the above method.
- Click on Erase button from the top of the screen.
- A confirmation pop-up will appear. Here you need to choose the format of the external drive. Choose either exFat or FAT32 by clicking on Format option. Click on Erase button to do the needful.
- You can choose the format. exFAT is usually what everyone goes for as it is compatible with both Mac as well as PC. Or else, you can use Mac OS extended option.
This method will erase the data and format it according to the option you choose. Connect it once again, and hopefully, it will fix the external drive not showing up on the Mac issue.
Just by selecting erase the Mac will erase the data of the drive and will reformat it.
6. Eject your External Hard Drive Properly
You have to unmount the external hard drive properly after use to prevent it from any sort of damage in the future. You are not just supposed to disconnect the USB cable.
Make sure you eject the external hard drive properly once you are done with it. To do so, right-click on the hard drive name on the desktop and choose Eject “Device Name” from the drop-down menu.
The majority of drive problems appear to be triggered when the disc is removed without being properly ejected.
7. Go for the Data Recovery App
Tried every solution and still faced the external hard drive not showing up on Mac? It is advisable to use data recovery apps.
There are many data recovery apps available that you can use if your hard drive is not showing up on Mac. Some of these best Mac data recovery apps are EaseUs Data recovery for Mac, WonderShare Recoverit, DiskDrill that you can use.
Conclusion
That’s it, these are all the solutions to fix the external hard drive not showing up on the Mac issue. I know it could be very frustrating when you face such a problem. But, hopefully, following the above methods will help you to resolve the problem.
You may try any of the methods above and access your external drive to Mac. If there’s any confusion, do let us know in the comments section below and we will try to fix the problem as soon as possible.
