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How To Find The External Hard Drive On Mac



Your Mac not recognizing an external hard drive can be cause for panic. But try to remain calm — it’s unlikely that anything has happened to your files. All of your data will still be on the hard drive, it just that, for whatever reason, you can’t access it.

  1. Then follow the next step to perform external hard drive data recovery on a Windows or Mac computer. Select The External Hard Drive. Connect your external hard drive to the computer, select it while the disk is detected on the program. Scan The Hard Drive.
  2. If the box is checked, you need to get other solutions to fix external hard drive not showing up on Mac. Mount the external hard drive. If the external hard drive connected to your Mac is still not showing up in Finder but visible in Disk Utility, it might not be necessarily mounted.

Just so that you worry not about losing data, get Disk Drill. Available via Setapp, the app is the best tool that will rescue your files.

If your external hard drive is read-only on your Mac due to its NTFS file system, you can fix it by reformatting the device to a Mac-compatible format with Mac Disk Utility. Before that, remember to back up your external hard drive quickly with data backup software since the formatting will erase all the files on the device.

Download Disk Drill Free

Fortunately, there are ways and means of getting the hard drive back up and running. Let’s get into some of them right now.

Why a flash drive is not showing up on Mac?

If you’ve plugged in a flash drive or USB drive and it’s not showing up on your Mac at all, it could be down to a faulty cable or USB port.

Before you try any system troubleshooting tips, start with the basics.

  • Check that the drive is probably plugged in.
  • Check the USB connector — does it look damaged or misshapen in any way?
  • Check the cable — is it frayed or are there any wires exposed?
  • If the external hard drive is plugged into a wall outlet, try a different outlet.
  • Try a different USB cable — even cables with no visible defects can fail.
  • Try connecting the hard drive to a different USB port — it could be a hardware issue.
  • Try the drive in another Mac — if it works there, the problem is with the USB ports on your Mac.
  • Test the hard drive on a PC — it could be formatted for PCs and not readable on Macs.
  • Reboot your Mac — a simple on and off is sometimes all it takes.
  • Reboot USB drives by shutting down your system and restarting it, holding Command+Option+P+R as you do. When you hear a sound and see the screen flash, release the keys and let your Mac boot up as usual.

If you’ve carried out visually inspections, tested your hard drive with different cables and power outlets, and tried different systems with no luck, it’s time to put your Mac to work.

1. Change the Finder settings

One of the most common reasons for Mac not recognizing external hard drives is due to the system not being set up to display hard drives on the desktop. There’s a simple fix for this:

How to find the external hard drive on macbook pro
  1. Open a Finder window.
  2. Go to Preferences > General.
  3. Check that the External disks option is enabled.

If your Mac is not recognizing a USB or external hard drive after this, you’ll have to try mounting it manually.

2. Mount an external hard drive on Mac

If Mac isn’t automatically recognizing your external hard drive, it’s time to force it to. Install google chrome for mac os x 10 6 8. Connect your hard drive and follow these instructions:

  1. Go to System Preferences > Disk Utility.
  2. Check that the external disk is listed in the left sidebar.
  3. Highlight your hard drive and select Mount. It should now appear under devices in the Finder.

If the hard drive still isn’t playing ball, the next step is First Aid.

3. Run First Aid on an external hard drive

Mac’s built-in First Aid tool is designed to verify and repair a range of issues related to corrupted files and apps, startup issues, and, crucially, external hard drive problems.

If your issue has to do with wanting to know how to open a flash drive on Mac that’s displaying but not allowing you access to files, First Aid might be able to help. Easy cad program for mac.

  1. Go to System Preferences > Disk Utility.
  2. Highlight your external hard drive and click on First Aid.
  3. Select Run to start running diagnostics and prompt Mac to automatically fix any issues.

If First Aid is successful in repairing any faults, your hard drive should be available to mount. If not, you’ll need to try the next option.

4. Delete potentially conflicting apps

How recent is the problem? If a flash drive not showing up on Mac was completely fine a few days earlier there could be an app causing conflict. If you’ve downloaded any new apps recently, uninstall them one at a time, connecting your hard drive after each uninstallation to see if the issue is resolved.

You can delete apps using the Launchpad or by dragging them to the Trash, but neither method is recommended in this situation. You see, while an app might appear to be deleted, associated files will be left on your system — files that could be preventing access to your external hard drive.

Instead, let CleanMyMac X take care of it. CleanMyMac X has an Uninstaller tool that can define your installed applications and associated files and remove every trace of an unwanted app.

And it couldn’t be easier to use.

  1. Download CleanMyMac X (for free).
  2. Launch the app and select Uninstaller.
  3. Click on View All Applications and select a recently installed app.
  4. Click Uninstall.

If you’ve worked through all recently installed apps and are still no further forward, your hard drive may have crashed or, worse, be completely broken. In this case, you’ll need a heavy duty tool like Disk Drill to rescue files.

5. Repair disk permissions

Disk permissions keeps your files secure. Every file and folder has an associated set of permissions. Unfortunately, these can get messed up without you realising it, which can cause serious problems. You can fix these two ways. Either manually, as we mention in this article, or using CleanMyMac X, which is far easier.

All you need to do is:

  1. Click on Maintenance from the left sidebar menu.
  2. Check the box next to Repair Disk Permissions.
  3. Click Run.

The program will scan and fix any it finds that are broken or faulty. Your Mac should be running as good as new.

To prevent an external hard drive not showing up on Mac turning into an all-out disaster, always backup files on your system hard drive and in the cloud. Anytime you use an external drive, unmount the disk properly and store it safely. And finally, use CleanMyMac to uninstall apps and run regular Maintenance on your system to prevent applications conflicting with hard drive performance.

These might also interest you:

By default, after connecting an external drive to a Mac, it automatically appears somewhere on the desktop, in the left column of the Finder and in the left column of Disk Utility. If nothing happens after connecting the external hard drive to the Mac, this article will help you find possible solutions for displaying the drive correctly.

Check Disk Utility

When problems arise with a disk, regardless of the internal disk or removable disk, Disk Utility is the first place you need to check. If you are new to Disk Utility, it is highly recommended that you learn more about it if you continue to use the Mac. This is a built-in application with which you can mount, unmount, erase, partition, and restore volumes. But before you can perform any of the actions mentioned above, the drive must be listed in the left pane. If you don’t even see that the external hard drive is listed in Disk Utility, the computer has not yet detected the drive.

Now you can verify that the USB port and cable to which the hard drive is connected are working. A damaged or dusty USB port or cable may cause macOS to not detect the USB drive.

If the external hard drive is finally detected, but looks gray, it means that it is not mounted and, as a result, will not be displayed on the desktop or in the Finder. You cannot open the drive and access the files on it. Do not worry. Here are the methods you can try to mount on your hard drive.

Use the mount option in Disk Utility

MacOS automatically mounts the inserted drive by default as soon as it detects the drive. https://torrentsusa.mystrikingly.com/blog/good-paint-program-for-mac. However, if somehow macOS fails to mount the drive, you can also mount the drive yourself.

  1. Select the external hard drive in the left list in Disk Utility.
  2. Click on the “Mount” button on the toolbar.

If you are unable to mount the drive manually, try the following method.

How To Find The External Hard Drive On Mac And Pc

Run First Aid in Disk Utility

Mount failures can be caused by corrupted drive mount information so that macOS cannot recognize the drive. First Aid in Disk Utility - a handy utility that is used to fix minor errors on the disk. Many complain that it does little, but we think it's worth a try.

  1. Select the external hard drive in the left list in Disk Utility.
  2. Click “First Aid” on the toolbar.
  3. Click “Run”.
How to find the external hard drive on macbook

If you see a message that First Aid could not restore the disk, you have one last chance to fix the problem.

How To Find The External Hard Drive On Mac Drive

Format external hard drive

Formatting a disk will delete all stored information and assign a new file system to the disk, which can fix almost all disk errors that make the disk not working properly. However, this is the least requested method if people (possibly including you) do not have the latest copy of their sensitive and important files.

Here is an iBoysoft data recovery tool for saving files from a not working external hard drive on a Mac.

iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac (compatible with newest macOS 10.15) is one of the leading data recovery tools on the market. The tool is very effective in recovering images, documents, videos, music, email files and other files. You can recover data from external hard drives, Mac Macintosh HD, Pen drives, SD cards, and other media. Even if the storage device is corrupted, unreadable, not mounted, or completely formatted, the tool can also help to extract information from the disk.

The English-version interface contains only a few simple English words, and most people will not have problems using it.

The following are simplified instructions for using software to recover files from an external hard drive:

  1. Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac (or other data recovery software that you trust).
  2. Select an external hard drive in the drive list.
  3. Check “Deep scan” and press the “Scan” button.
  4. Filter found files and view recoverable files.
  5. Select the files you need and click the “Recover” button.

Once you have returned all your important files, you will not have to worry about formatting the external hard drive.

  1. Select an external hard drive in Disk Utility.
  2. Click “Erase” on the toolbar.
  3. Define the name, format, and layout of the external hard drive.
  4. Click on the “Erase” button.

How To Find The External Hard Drive On Machine

After formatting is complete, disconnect and reconnect the external hard drive. By now, the disk should be able to work.

If you have the same problem with an SD card, pen, or other storage devices, the solutions in this post may also help. https://oelg.over-blog.com/2021/02/descargar-google-chrome-para-windows-10-pro.html.





How To Find The External Hard Drive On Mac
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