1. Wd My Book Not Showing Up On Mac
2. Wd Easystore Not Showing Up On Mac
3. Wd Easystore Not Showing Up On Mac
4. Wd Elements Not Showing Up On Mac

Summary: This post shows how to access a WD hard drive that's not recognized by Mac. To avoid data loss when fixing the unrecognized WD external hard drive, you'd better recover data with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac first.

Just like Seagate external hard drive not recognized on Mac, WD hard drive not recognized is a question frequently asked by Mac users in Apple related forums. It happens to WD My passport, WD My Book, WD Elements and Easystore, etc.

More often than not, an external hard drive doesn't show up on Mac simply because your Mac's USB cable or USB port is bad. But the following factors may also contribute to WD not showing up. Latest macOS update. Wd My Passport Not Showing Up On Windows For Mac Do You; Wd My Passport Not Showing Up On Windows Software Allows You. First power up your Mac. Look for your WD My Passport drive on Your Desktop 3. Start up the Disk Utility application. Pick your WD My Passport in the external hard drive list. Look to the top of your Disk Utility window.

If you are one of those who are wondering:

• Why Mac won't recognize my WD hard drive?
• How can I make the WD hard drive detected and work on Mac again?
• Can I fix WD hard drive that not showing up on Mac without losing important data?

You are in the right place to make the WD hard drive recognized by:

• 1. Trying six quick checks and fixes
• 2. Showing the external hard drive in Finder & Desktop
• 3. Updating related WD Apps with WD Discovery for Mac
• 4. Checking if the WD hard drive is password locked
• 5. Repairing the unrecognized WD hard drive with First Aid
• 6. Use WD Drive Utilities to check the unrecognized WD hard drives
• 7. Reformatting the WD hard drives when it's not working

Get files off the WD hard drive that not recognized on Mac

As the data on the unrecognized WD hard drive is inaccessible, it can't be copied and backed up now. To avoid permanently data loss after trying some ways to fix the unrecognized WD drive, it is recomended to restore files from the drive first.

If you have a backup of the WD hard drive, you can feel relax to try the following fixes. If no, recovering data with some data recovery software, such as iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery. After it has scanned the data on your unrecognized WD hard drve, you can have a preview and click the Recover button to get all the files back.

First, See How Mac Recognizes a WD External Hard Drive

The process of Mac recognizing an external hard drive is a little complicated even though you can't see it. Specifically, when you plug a WD hard drive into a Mac computer, macOS would be notified. Then macOS will call all related hardware and software to read, recognize, and show this hard drive on the Desktop and in Finder, so that finally you can access your data on the drive on your Mac computer.

So, we usually simplify this process in 4 steps:

1. The WD hard drive is supplied with power, so that Mac can detect this storage device.
2. macOS reads partition information of the WD hard drive.
3. macOS recognizes the file system of each volume.
4. Users access data on the WD hard drive.

However, if any part of this process goes wrong, hard drive problems like Mac won't recognize your WD hard drive would occur. As a consequence, you can't access, copy, write to or transfer data stored on it.

Now, Fix WD hard drive not recognized issue on Mac

So, based on the process of Mac recognizing a WD hard drive, we need a thorough check to know which part makes the WD hard drive not working on Mac, and then fix it.

1. Try Quick fixes when WD hard drive is not recognized by Mac

A proper connection is the most basic condition that Mac can access the WD hard drive. Or else the external hard drive would not even show up in Disk Utility. When your Mac can't recognize an external hard drive, you can always do the following quick fixes at the very beginning.

• Make sure the WD hard drive is externally plugged into a wall outlet if it's a WD desktop hard drive like WD Elements Desktop and My Cloud.
• Connect the WD hard drive directly to the computer and do not use a USB Hub.
• Try a different USB cable and port for power and data supply, especially if the My Passport external hard drive is not showing up in Disk Utility.
• Try a different USB-C adapter to connect the WD hard drive if your Mac only has the Thunderbolt 3 port.
• Try to connect the WD hard drive with a different Mac computer to check if the WD hard drive can be recognized on that Mac.
• Try to plug the WD hard drive in to a Windows PC to check if the file system of the WD hard drive is not compatible with Mac.

The WD hard drive lights on but is not recognized by Mac still?

Wait! Do you allow your Mac to show the recognized WD hard drive in the Finder and Desktop?

2. Show the WD hard drive in the Finder and Desktop

Sometimes, you think WD hard drive is not recognized by Mac because the WD external hard drive isn't showing up on Mac, neither in Finder nor on the desktop. However, the fact is that the WD hard drive is detected by macOS but it is not set to show up on Mac.

In this case, you can show the WD hard drive by changing the preferences:

• Step 1: Go to Finder > Preferences > General, make sure the 'External disks' option is ticked. This will make the recognized WD hard drive show up on the Desktop.
• Step 2: Select Sidebar tab on the top, make sure the 'External disks' option under Locations is also ticked.
• Step 3: Go to Desktop/Finder and check if your WD hard drive is showing up. If not, download, install iBoysoft Data Recovery on your Mac and then check if your WD hard drive is recognized by iBoysoft Data Recovery.
• Step 4: If your WD hard drive is recognized by iBoysoft Data Recovery, follow the wizard to recover data and then format WD hard drive.
  If your WD hard drive is not recognized by iBoysoft Data Recovery either, send it to an expert for reparation.

3. Update incompatible WD Apps with WD Discovery for Mac

WD Discovery is a desktop software for Mac and Windows for delivering WD software, updates and notifications for WD external hard drives.

When WD hard drive is not recognized, you can download WD Discovery for Mac to update WD Drive Utilities, WD Security, WD Backup, etc. Possibly, your Mac doesn't recognize the WD hard drive because the WD software is not compatible with your macOS.

4. Check if the WD hard drive is password locked

If you are using WD hard drives like My Book Drive and it is not recognized by Mac now, you can check if the hard drive is password protected. macOS can't read the partition information and mount the volumes if the WD hard drive is password locked. You can download and install WD Security to unlock the WD hard drive if a password has been set to protect the hard drive.

The WD hard drive is not encrypted? Then the reason for Mac not recognizing the WD hard drive is that macOS fails to access the partition and file system information. It could be a problem when WD external hard drive used on PS4 extended drive but not recognized.

5. Repair the unrecognized WD hard drive in Disk Utility

Disk Utility is a built-in disk management and repair tool on Mac computers. When a WD hard drive is not recognized or not working due to inner disk errors, you can try to repair the unrecognizable WD hard drive with Disk Utility.

Note: If the WD hard drive is recognzied in in Disk Utility but not mounted, you can select the Mount option first then the WD hard drive will be mounted on the Desktop.

• Step 1: Go to Applications > Disk Utility.
• Step 2: Click 'View' and choose 'Show All Devices'.
• Step 3: Select the unrecognized WD hard drive from the sidebar.
• Step 4: Click on First Aid on the top. Wait while First Aid verifying and fixing possible errors of the WD hard drive.

If First Aid can't repair the external hard drive, it is time to download, install iBoysoft Data Recovery on your Mac and then recover data from WD hard drive. After recovering data, just reformatting WD hard drive and make it working again.

6. Use WD Drive Utilities when WD hard drives not working on Mac

WD Drive Utilities for Mac is a specialized utility for WD hard drives to run drive diagnostics (fix potential drive failures, slow disk performance, and bad sectors), Manage RAID configuration (For RAID supported models), Erase and format WD hard drives, etc.

If a WD hard drive won't work normally on a Mac due to bad sectors or other parameter errors, you can download WD Drive Utilities for Mac to have a diagnosis of what happens to your hard drive.

• Step 1: Install WD Drive Utilities on your Mac and then launch it.
• Step 2: Plug the unrecognizable WD hard drive into the Mac.
• Step 3: Click on 'Diagnose' and choose 'Run Quick Drive Test' to check the WD drive completely.

7. Fix the unrecognized WD hard drive by reformatting

If the unrecognizable WD hard drive can't be repaired by WD Drive Utilities, the file system of the WD hard drive might be seriously damaged or corrupted. In this case, you have to reformat or erase this WD hard drive.

Before that, it's necessary to recover lost data from unrecognized WD hard drive with a data recovery software, like iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac, to avoid data loss.

iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is professional in external hard drive data recovery on Mac. It supports Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, Samsung, and hard drives of other manufacturers. This data recovery software can recover lost data when hard drive is unrecognized, unmountable, unreadable, corrupted on Mac. Besides, it can recover lost data from Macintosh hard drive and various storage devices like USB drives.

Tutorial to recover lost data from unrecognizable WD hard drive with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac

Step 1. Download, install, and restart your Mac. Then launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.

To recover your important photos, videos, music, documents, emails from this unrecognizable WD hard drive, you can free download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on your Mac.

Step 2. Scan for lost data on the WD hard drive.

When the data recovery software is launched, you will see your unrecognizable WD hard drive in the interface. You need to select this corrupted WD hard drive and then click the 'Scan' button to scan for data on this drive.

Step 3. Preview and recover files.

When WD hard drive is corrupted, you can't access your data on this drive. But you can use iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac to preview the data on the drive, which will help you make sure your files are not corrupted before you finally click 'Recover' to recover them.

Tutorial to reformatting WD hard drive that is not recognized by Mac

• 1. Go to Disk Utility and select the unrecognized WD hard drive from the sidebar.
• 2. Click on Erase on the top.
• 3. Follow the instructions to finish the reformatting process.

After reformatting WD hard drive process finished, you will hopefully see the WD hard drive recognized and showing up on Mac correctly.

However, if the external hard drive is not showing up in Disk Utility at all, the great chance is that the WD hard drive is physically broken. As a result, Mac can't read and recognize it. In this case, we advise you to check if the serial number of the WD hard drive is still in warranty so that you can ask for a repair or replacement service.

WD provides no-limited warranty unless your WD hard drive was purchased from an authorized distributor or authorized reseller like Amazon. So, if your WD hard drive is dead for disk corruption, please feel free to contact their support team for warranty status review and product replacement.

Conclusion

In the issue of WD hard drive not recognized, be it on Mac or Windows, data rescue should come first. This is also important when USB flash drives, SD card, or other external hard drives that are not showing up on Mac.

You can recover data from the unrecognized hard drive with data recovery software like iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac. Then, you can fix the error in different ways without worrying about data loss.

External hard drives are not only renowned for their data storing capability but also for their portability function. Whenever you connect your external hard drive to the USB port of your Mac computer, it shows up not only on the desktop but also in the Finder menu on the left-hand side under Locations or Devices.

Due to various reasons which are mentioned below, you might find your external hard drive not showing up on Mac. If you have saved all your crucial backup on the external drive, MacBook not recognizing external hard drive can lead to a data loss scenario.

In this article find out:

Why is my external hard drive not showing up Mac?

• External hard drive corruption.
• Physical damage to the external hard drive.
• Faulty USB connector.
• Problem with Mac USB ports.
• Hidden external drive.
• Improper formatting on the external hard drive.
• Recent macOS Big Sur or Catalina update issue.

Before you move on to find proven ways to troubleshoot external drive not showing up on Mac, let us first know how to recover data from it.

How to Recover Data from External hard drive not showing up on Mac?

Download Remo Recover Mac, a user-friendly tool to recover data from internal and external storage devices like external HDD, SSD, USB, SD card, etc. The tool supports recovery of more than 300 file types such as photos, videos, PDF files, audio files, raw images, Office files. Using this tool, you can easily restore data from MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, WD MY Passport, Seagate external hard drive, and many more.

Steps to Recover data from External hard drive not showing up on Mac:

Download and install Remo Recover (Mac/ Windows)> Launch the tool and click on Recover Volumes/ Drives option > Choose Volume Recovery and select the external hard drive that is not showing up on Mac to restore data from it > Click on Advance Scan button to start data recovery process > After scanning completes, select the files which you want to recover from your external hard drive not showing up Mac > Finally, click Save button to restore the selected files to any location of your choice.

How to Fix External hard drive not showing up on Mac?

1. Connect the External Hard drive Properly

The first and foremost thing to do if your external hard drive not showing up on Mac is to check if the external hard disk is properly connected or not. Once, it is confirmed that the external hard drive is properly connected to your Mac device, then your Mac should easily recognize the external hard drive and the data saved on it.

If your Mac not recognizing external hard drive due to any hardware issues, you can plugin the unrecognized external hard drive into a different USB port of your Mac. It might look like child's play but inserting an external hard disk to another or healthy USB port can help you understand whether the issue is pertaining to the hard drive failure or USB cable.

2. Fix issues with the USB cable

Your external hard drive not showing up on Mac can be due to the USB cable or HDMI cable connecting the external hard drive to your MacBook Pro or Air.

• Accessing data from an external hard drive on Mac is dependent on the USB cable. If the USB cable is not properly connected to your device then, Mac won’t recognize the external hard drive.
• If your USB cable is damaged, then fixing it becomes a priority to access your external hard disk on Mac. Hence, make use of a different USB cable to connect the external hard drive to a Mac computer.

Quick Note: If your MacBook is having USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 ports, then use USB-C to USB adapter to connect the external hard drive to your Mac.

3. Reset Mac computer

Resetting a Mac machine can reboot a few system settings to its default and ensure any issue with respect to it is resolved. This can also help you fix the external hard drive not booting issue due to Mac operating system. To Restart your Mac;

Go to the Apple menu and click Restart. (or) Press and hold the power key until a dialog box displays and hit the Restart or press R key.

4. Change Preference Settings

One of the reasons why the external hard drive does not show up on Mac is due to Preference settings. If you have not allowed your Mac to access the external hard disk in the preference setting, then Mac won’t show up external hard disk on the desktop. To allow your Mac to show up the external hard drive, edit the preference setting using the below steps;

• Open a Finder window.
• Go to Preference and select General.
  
• Under “Show these items on the desktop”, check the External disks option.
  

In most cases, this method will resolve your issue of external hard drive not showing up on Mac desktop or Finder menu.

If your Mac not recognizing external hard drive despite performing the above steps or if this preference setting is already set up, then move down to the below section.

5. Use different Mac or Windows PC

If you still find your Mac not recognizing hard drive then, try connecting the external hard disk to a different Mac system, sometimes there might be a problem with your Mac computer itself.

Connect your external hard drive to a different Mac to find out whether it is mounting on it or not. If the external HDD is mounting on the new or different Mac, then the problem is with your old Mac. In case, if the external hard drive not showing up on both Mac devices, then connect it to a Windows computer.

Quick Note: If your external hard drive is accessible on Windows 10 but not on Mac, then the external hard disk is formatted for Windows computers and not for Mac systems. Check out this article on how to make an external hard disk compatible with Mac.

6. Use Disk Utility

Once you find out that the Mac device is not responsible for the external hard drive not showing up issue. Follow the below steps to run the first aid utility to fix external hard drive corruption.

• Navigate to Go > Utilities > Applications > Disk Utility
  
• If your external hard drive appears in the Disk Utility, right-click on the drive and select Mount. This will make your external hard drive option available on the desktop and in the Finder menu. Thus, you can access all your files present on the external hard drive.
  
  (Note: If the Mac has already mounted your external hard drive (volume) then, the option Unmount will be displayed.)
• If the drive is not accessible then, the Mount option will be greyed out.
  
  (Note: To repair your inaccessible or not showing external hard drive Run First Aid.)
• Now, choose the First Aid option and click Run.
  
  
• After running the First Aid, if the Disk Utility detects any issues or errors on the external hard drive then, click Repair Disk.

Wd My Book Not Showing Up On Mac

Using this method, you can easily repair minor corruption and access an unrecognized external hard drive on Mac. In case, if the first aid utility fails to repair the external hard drive or SSD, this indicates the following 2 reasons;

A) Your external drive is severely corrupt or broken: If First Aid Disk Utility fails to repair the drive, it could be due to the RAW or broken drive. The file system registry that holds the information of the data present on the drive gets broken or damaged then, Mac does not recognize the external hard drive.

B) The external hard drive file system is not compatible with Mac: External hard drive or USB is formatted using a file system that your Mac cannot read. For example, if an external hard drive is formatted using the NTFS file system then, no Mac computer can read or write the external hard drive. In the same way, if the external hard drive or USB is formatted with the HFS+ file system then, no Windows operating system can support it.

ExFAT and FAT32 are the two most common file systems that can be easily supported by both Windows and Mac operating systems.

Now, the last thing to do to fix the external hard drive not showing up on Mac is to format it using the compatible Mac file systems like exFAT, FAT32, HFS+, or APFS.

7. Format unrecognized External hard drive

Wd Easystore Not Showing Up On Mac

Formatting the external HDD on Mac leads to a data loss scenario. Before you format your external hard drive to exFAT, Mac OS Extended (Journaled), FAT, or APFS file system, it is suggested to recover data from it using Remo Recover Mac.

Remo Recover (Mac/ Windows) is designed with advanced scanning algorithms to effortlessly recover files from corrupt, unrecognized, formatted, or inaccessible external hard drive on Mac. This tool is compatible with all the versions of Windows and Mac operating systems including the latest Windows 10 or Mac Big Sur.

To format external hard drive not showing up on Mac:

Wd Easystore Not Showing Up On Mac

1. Navigate to Disk Utility
2. Select the external hard drive not showing up on Mac and click the Erase option
   
3. Now, give a new name to your external hard drive (optional)
4. Click the Format button to choose the format type you want to perform on it. (Select exFAT if you want to make sure it's compatible with PC and Mac, otherwise, Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is probably the best option)
   
5. Click on the Erase optionand wait until the Disk utility function removes all the files present on the external hard disk and then reformat it with the selected file system.

Conclusion

Wd Elements Not Showing Up On Mac

In most cases, editing the Preference setting to show the external hard drive on the desktop fixes the issue. However, if the external hard drive is corrupt then, you should repair it using First Aid utility or format it with compatible Mac file systems like exFAT or APFS.