Normally when you plug in an external difficult drive to your Mac'southward USB port yous will encounter information technology announced on the desktop (aka mount on the desktop). You tin can as well encounter it in the Finder in the left column under Locations (or Devices on older versions of macOS). If the drive is not showing upwardly on your Mac chances are it has not been formatted correctly, has been corrupted, or is faulty.

We testify you lot how to piece of work out whether the reason the external drive is not mounting on your Mac up is due to a trouble with the drive itself, the cablevision or the port, and how to resolve the problem and access information on your drive.

This article assumes y'all accept an external bulldoze that connects to your Mac via the USB-A, USB-C, or a Thunderbolt port. If you have a NAS drive that connects over the network then yous should read this article most connecting to a NAS bulldoze.

How to fix a drive that won't show up on a Mac

In that location are a number of reasons why your difficult bulldoze, wink drive, USB drive, or SSD might non exist showing up. It may have been formatted incorrectly, it may be corrupted, it may have a faulty (or inadequate) cable, or there could exist something else.

If you run though the following steps y'all should hopefully be able to identify the cause and fix the problem that is stopping your external drive from opening on your Mac.

1: Edit your preferences

Hopefully there is a really easy prepare to go the difficult drive to mountain on your desktop. Try the following to brand certain your Mac is set to evidence mounted drives on the desktop.

  1. Open up the Finder.
  2. Click on Finder in the menu at the pinnacle of your screen.
  3. Choose Preferences > General and make sure that in that location is a tick beside External Drives.finder mount drive

If it was already gear up so that the external bulldoze would announced on the desktop and so continue to follow the steps below.

2: Check the cable

The offset port of call is e'er to check that information technology'southward plugged in, just we are certain y'all take done that. The problem might be with the cable though.

One of the main reasons why drives fail to mount is if the drive isn't receiving plenty ability. If the drive is powered via a USB-A cable yous need to check that adequate power is being delivered to the drive. Very former Macs may require a USB ability cable, a cable that splits into ii USB connectors that demand to both be plugged into your Mac, in social club to deliver enough power to the bulldoze. Similarly, brand sure that the drive doesn't have an external power supply it should exist using.

On the subject of cables, make sure that information technology's not at fault. Try using a unlike cable with the bulldoze to encounter if that fixes the problem. Similarly, if you are using a USB port via a hub cheque that'south not what's causing the trouble.

Also bank check that the port on your Mac isn't the problem. Attempt plugging into a different port. Or if you only have the 1, plug some other device in and see if that works ok.

3: Try some other Mac and so try a PC

The next step is to try plugging the drive into some other Mac. If it as well fails to mount there you will know that there is a trouble with the bulldoze while if information technology does mount then the problem is with your Mac.

The next step is to try plugging the drive into a PC. If the drive mounts on the PC it's probable that you have discovered what the problem is: the drive is formatted for PCs and tin can't be read by your Mac.

4: Use Disk Utility to access the bulldoze

If the various checks above suggest that the disk is faulty and then y'all can utilize Apple tree'south Disk Utility plan to access the disk and potentially gear up whatever is causing the issue. Hither's what to do:

  1. Find Disk Utility by opening Spotlight (cmd+Infinite-bar) and get-go typing Deejay Utility, press enter to open the plan.
  2. Look in the column on the left to meet if the difficult drive appears there.
  3. If you can see the difficult drive in Deejay Utility check underneath it for a book. If it is there click on it and select Mount. If your Mac has already mounted the bulldoze the pick Unmount volition be displayed instead. (If there is no volume listed your Mac is not able to access the bulldoze. The Mount selection volition be greyed out.)Disk Utility Mount Hard Drive
  4. Your options are First Assistance, Erase and Restore. First Aid volition check the disk for errors and so repair the disk if necessary and this is the pick to choose. (Restore allows yous to erase the contents of the drive and replace that with data from somewhere else. Erase deletes all the data stored on the bulldoze. If y'all need the data on the bulldoze do non cull Erase or Restore!)
  5. Click the Showtime Aid tab and select Run.Run First Aid Mac
  6. If subsequently running First Assistance the Mac finds errors you could gear up you may see the option to Repair Disk. If you do, go ahead and run the repairs.

v: Alter the bulldoze format

If your Mac is unable to repair the disk if is likely that the bulldoze is either formatted using a file organisation that the Mac cannot read, or it is well and truly broken - if information technology's the latter nosotros suggest you follow this tutorial about recovering data from a damaged disk.

Hopefully though the bulldoze is fine but the format is wrong. Here's a chip of background on file formats:

  • Windows PCs apply NTFS file format.
  • Mac computers, prior to Sierra, used the HFS+ file format.
  • In High Sierra Apple tree introduced a new file system chosen Apple File System (APFS).
  • exFAT or the older FAT32 are formats that can be read by Window and Mac computers.

To make certain your bulldoze can be read by Macs and PCs you need to format it using exFAT or the older FAT32. Nosotros'll explicate how to do that beneath.

It is possible that the hard drive has been formatted using a different file organization (i.e. on a Windows PC). In that instance, if you need to access the data on the drive yous'll demand to connect your bulldoze to a Windows PC that does recognise information technology and copy the data before moving on to the next step.

Having got the data of the bulldoze via a PC you tin reformat the bulldoze so that you can add the information again. Here's how to reformat your bulldoze so it can be read past and Mac or a PC.

  1. Open up Deejay Utility (as per the steps in a higher place).
  2. If you lot don't crave the information on the hard drive, select the disk and click Erase.
  3. Earlier Disk Utility starts to erase the deejay it will pick a format for yous. You can change this if you click on the Formatting options. Cull your format, probably exFAT if you want to brand sure it's compatible with PC and Mac, otherwise, Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is probably the best option.Drive formats Mac and PC
  4. Requite the bulldoze a proper noun.Name drive
  5. Click on Erase and expect for your Mac to erase and then reformat the drive.

6: Endeavor a information recovery app

If you have been unable to access the information on the drive and so y'all might desire to try 1 of the options included in our round up of the Best data recovery apps for Macs.

Our recommendations include EaseUS Data Recovery for Mac, £95.99/$89.95 at Easeus, Stellar Information Recovery for Mac, £43.99/$59.99 at Stellar, or Recoverit £69/$79.99 at Wondershare.

vii: Ever disconnect your bulldoze properly

Nosotros have last suggestion to brand that is more of a guard against this error happening again.

Make sure that your external bulldoze doesn't become damaged in the future by always unmounting the disk properly after using it. Don't just unplug the USB cablevision. To unmount your drive you tin can right-click (control-click) on the icon on the Desktop or in the Finder and cull Eject. Plain most drive issues are acquired when the deejay is removed without ejecting it properly.

Decided at that place is no promise for your faulty hard drive, nosotros accept a circular upward of some of the best nosotros've seen hither: The best Mac hard drives.