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External Hard Drive Not Showing Up on Mac – What to Do

External Hard Drive Not Showing Up on Mac – What to Do Macs are generally dependable machines that offer dependable service in practically every circumstance. They are usually workhorses, continuing in circumstances where a Windows Computer would display the blue screen of death. Nonetheless, although they are uncommon, problems can and will arise; this is a fact of life in the world of technology.

Due to their rarity, these problems are all the more difficult to resolve and may take some time. The failure of an external hard disk to appear on a Mac is one of the more aggravating problems that might occur. It could not show up even after you’ve tried all the simple troubleshooting steps. We’ll go through how to make your external hard disk visible in this article.

How to Connect Your External Hard Drive to a Mac

Let’s check your external hard drive’s connection first, then go over some fundamental setup procedures. If we missed any steps, please refer to Apple’s post here. The steps may differ depending on the software version you are using. The instructions are all quite identical, however we’re using Catalina and Sierra.

A affordable alternative to replacing the internal hard disk is to add external drives. How to attach one is shown here.

 

1. All you need to do is connect the external hard drive to your Mac or MacBook. You can use the Thunderbolt, USB, or even the USB-C port, depending on the model you’re using.
2. From here, Finder should open, showing your external drive. If it doesn’t show up in Finder, though, it will surely show up in the Disk Utility within Utilities.
3. This is a sub-folder within the Applications folder, with a crossed screwdriver and wrench on the folder icon, while Disk Utility looks like a hard drive being examined with a stethoscope. Both of them will be referenced a lot.
   
4. If you have trouble finding it, simply open Finder (the icon that looks like a blue and grey face) and click on Applications on the left-hand side. Then, use the Search bar in the upper right-hand corner and search for Disk Utility.
   

From there, you can troubleshoot the problem and usually fix it.

If your external drive still doesn’t appear, we have a couple of simple troubleshooting tips to fix an external hard drive not showing up on Mac. First, we will check the basics, and from there, we make sure that macOS is set up to display external drives, can mount the drive, and that the drive has no errors on either the disk itself or its file structure.

Troubleshooting an External Drive with a Mac

Let us check all the basics first. Get into the habit of doing this with any computer issues, as it can save time, money, and hassle in the long run. After all, no one wants to waste half a day because they didn’t realize something just wasn’t plugged in properly.

• Check that the cable from the hard drive to your Mac is connected properly.
• Check that the external hard drive has power if it needs it.
• Check the condition of the cable and swap it if you have a spare.
• Change the hard drive power cable if you have a spare.
• Try a different wall outlet if there is one nearby.
• Reboot your Mac to see if it was an open program or app stopping the drive from being detected.
• Make sure the drive has been formatted. Some imported drives come completely empty, and while macOS should detect and offer to format them, it doesn’t always work.
• Try attaching the external drive to another computer to see if it works on that one to rule out damage to the drive itself.
• Make sure your drive doesn’t have or use a power-saving or sleep function. Turn it off if it does.
• Check that the drive is receiving enough power. A USB cable carries 5V, and if this is the sole power source for the drive, it may not be enough. Use a USB power cable if you suspect this to be the issue.

Depending on what you find here, you can troubleshoot either the drive or your Mac.

First, make sure Finder will display drive icons. By default, it doesn’t display much, and the setting to not show external disks may be enabled.

1. Open a Finder window. At the top left of the screen, select Finder > Preferences… > General, and make sure the box next to External disks is checked.

If the box is checked, move on to fix the external hard drive not showing up on Mac.

Mount the External Drive in Finder

If you think the drive works fine, let us see if we can manually attach it to macOS. For that, we need to mount it. This should be done automatically when macOS detects the drive, but it doesn’t always work.

1. Attach the drive if it isn’t already connected.
2. Then, open Utilities > Disk Utility and make sure the disk is listed in the left window. It should be labeled External Disk.
   
3. Check for a volume if the disk is present. If a volume is present but not mounted, it should be grayed out here.
4. Highlight the volume and select Mount. The volume should shift from gray to normal to signify it has been mounted.
5. Open Finder and navigate to the drive in Devices.

If this doesn’t work, you may need to use the Verify Disk utility to make sure everything is working as it should.

1. Open Utilities and Disk Utility, highlight the grayed-out volume, and select First Aid in the top center.
   
2. Select Run to perform disk diagnostics and fix any issues.

Running First Aid on an external disk is a useful way to make sure the format or file structure doesn’t contain any faults or issues. If there are any, First Aid will fix them, and macOS should then mount the disk without any further hassle.

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