Snack's 1967
HomeBlogAbout Me

External Hard Drive For Mac Not Mounting



  1. Disk Not Mounting Mac
  2. External Hard Drive For Mac Not Mounting Tool
  3. Wd External Hard Drive Not Recognized Mac
Home > Mac Recovery > How to Fix Mac Not Detecting External Hard Drive in Sierra or High Sierra

https://bestrfiles742.weebly.com/meta-1-9-5-esv.html. Summary: There are several reasons why your Mac won’t recognize external hard drive. If you are experiencing external hard drive not mounting in macOS Sierra or High Sierra, read on this post to get potential solutions to this problem. In addition, you can also learn how to recover lost external hard drive data on Mac computer.

Note- there are plenty of options you will find on internet for this issue, e.g.1. Safe mode unmount 2.repair ext. Hard drive in disk utility 3. Note: Safely remove and connect Mac hard drive that is not mounting to healthy Macintosh computer as external hard drive after installing this tool. At first download Yodot Mac Data Recovery software and install it to your Mac computer; Upon installing, run it to begin the recovery of files from Mac hard drive that wont mount. Last but not least, there may be problems with the drive itself, which can be caused by a number of issues including power or connection interruptions without properly unmounting the drive (a frequent occurrence for external drives). For information on how to tackle partition and volume problems,see this article. Hope this will be helpful. We show you how to work out whether the reason the external drive is not mounting on your Mac up is due to a problem with the drive itself, the cable or the port, and how to resolve the problem.

You plug in your external hard drive to Mac computer and try to create a Time Machine backup, only to find it refuse to mount and doesn’t show up in Finder. You may feel very confused because everything seemed all right the last time you used it. Relax, you are not alone. There are a lot of users have the same issue of external hard drive not showing up in macOS Sierra or High Sierra. How to fix this issue? Here are several tricks you can try to troubleshoot external hard drive not mounting problem on Mac.

How to External Hard Drive Not Showing up in Sierra or High Sierra

1. Check your Finder preference

First of all, you need to make sure your Finder preference setting to correct. Go to Finder > Preferences > General and ensure that “Hard disks” and “External disks” are selected.

Mac Won’t Recognize External Hard Drive – How to Fix

2. Check the USB hub

Also need to make sure your external hard drive is plugged into the USB hub properly, or it may not receive enough power to mount. You can try connecting the drive to another USB hub or plug it into a self-powered USB hub.

3. Run Disk Utility

If your external hard drive doesn’t show up in Fifer, open Disk Utility to see if it appears here. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities and run Disk Utility. If your drive shows up here but isn’t mounted, click Mount. If your drive fails to mount, click First Aid to find and correct minor errors with your drive.

4. Install the latest drivers for your drive

If your Mac won’t recognize external hard drive after High Sierra update, the possible reason is that your drivers for external hard drive are not up to date. You can visit the related website to download and install the latest drivers for your drive.

5. Reset NVRAM

Resetting NVRAM (nonvolatile random-access memory) can be a general troubleshooting step for many Mac issues. To reset NVRAM, Shut down your Mac firstly. Next, turn on your Mac and immediately press these four keys together: Option, Command, P, and R. Hold those keys down until your Mac reboots again and you hear the second startup chime, then release the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Other External Hard Drive Problem on Mac

People usually back up important files to external hard drive to keep the files safe. But what if your external hard drive files get lost due to virus attack, accidental deletion, file system corruption or other reasons? If you unfortunately come across data loss with your external hard drive, you can use Stellar Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery, an effective data recovery tool to help you salvage external hard drive files on Mac.

Worked on Mac computer, Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery software is able to access and recover data from various storage devices and different file systems including HFS, HFS+, FAT, ex-FAT, or NTFS.

Disk Not Mounting Mac

Here are steps to retrieve files from external hard drive with Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery:

Step 1. Install Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery on your Mac and plug in your drive.

Step 2. Open the software and select file types to recover. Then click Next to continue.

Step 3. Cod the mac. Select your external storage device and click Scan.

How to Recover Lost Files from External Hard Drive on Mac

Step 4. After the scanning process completes, select the files you want to recover and click the Recover button to save the files to destination.

How to Recover Files from External Hard Drive on Mac

Note: The free trial version only supports scanning & previewing lost files in your external hard drive, to completely recover your files, you need to purchase the full version of Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery. Buy it now >

This entry was posted in on Dec 12, 2017 by Judy.
Get a data lifeguard for Mac
Disk Drill brings deleted files back from the dead.

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.

Open an External Drive Not Showing on Mac

Get a huge set of top utilities for troubleshooting external hard drives not mounting on a Mac

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:

  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

External Hard Drive For Mac Not Mounting Tool

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.

Recognized

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.

Try all these apps for free

Wd External Hard Drive Not Recognized Mac

Get a huge set of top apps for keeping your Mac in shape. Best utilities in one pack, give it a go!

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.

Adobe photoshop cc 2020 21 0 25. 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

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.

Setapp lives on Mac and iOS. Please come back from another device.

Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.

Read on

Sign Up

Setapp uses cookies to personalize your experience on our website. By continuing to use this site, you agree to our cookie policy.




External Hard Drive For Mac Not Mounting
Back to posts
This post has no comments - be the first one!

UNDER MAINTENANCE