Adding extra storage space to Mac can cost a pretty penny. Therefore, most Apple users prefer using an external hard drive as it’s easy to use and cost-effective.
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- Discover the world of external hard drives for Mac. Compare portable, USB and external hard drive models for office and home and shop online.
- Select the disk location (it can be an internal HDD/SSD or a removable storage device) where you.
- To format an external hard drive for Mac with Time Machine, you must follow the steps below. Step 1 Open Finder, Applications, then go to Utilities and Disk Utility. Step 2 Follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with Time Machine on your Mac system. Part 3: Bonus Tip – Data Recovery from Formatted Hard Drive on Mac.
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Usually, when an external disk drive in inserted via a USB port, it displays on the screen under the devices’ list. In case the external drive is not recognized by Mac, chances are it has been incorrectly inserted, formatted, corrupted, or is faulty.
Why Is My Mac Not Recognizing The External Hard Drive?
Well, there are a plethora of reasons why an external drive might not be appearing on your Mac screen when plugged in. One of the common causes of this issue is – USB cable is not connected correctly, to Mac, drive, or maybe both.
Alternatively, this can happen due to:
- Non-functional USB port.
- Faulty USB cable.
- Physical damage to the hard drive.
- Device incompatibility.
- Partition map damage.
Now that you know all the potential causes of “External Drive Not Showing Up On Mac,” scroll down to the next section, where we discuss all the troubleshooting tips to fix the issue.
Must Read: The Best Mac Apps & Utilities You Should Have In 2020
How To Fix External Hard Drive Not Recognizing On Your Mac?
Before you try advanced troubleshooting workarounds, we suggest you start with the basic methods. You never know, certain simple tweaks could help you fix the problem without putting much effort.
- Quickly check that the hard drive is securely plugged in.
- Replace your USB connector if it is damaged or broken.
- Try plugging in your external hard drive into a different outlet.
- Try inserting the external disk drive to another USB Port. (You never know if it’s a hardware issue)
- Check your hard drive on a PC. (Chances can be it is not readable for Macs)
- Reboot your Mac.
If none of the tips mentioned above helped you, you could try the following workarounds to make your hard drive show up, so that you can successfully gain access to it.
Best Workarounds To Fix An External Disk Drive That Refuses To Show Up On A Mac
Walk through the steps, and hopefully, you will be able to fix the problem that makes your external drive not show up on your Mac.
1. Check System Information
- It is important to check System Information & see which USB devices are connected to your Mac. Simply go to the Apple Menu.
- Click on About this Mac option.
- And select System Report.
There can be chances that you may find the USB external drives in System Information, but they aren’t showing up for multiple reasons. In such a case, disconnect then and try remounting the external disk drive using Terminal.
2. Edit Preferences
- Go to Finder.
- Navigate to the Preferences.
- Hit the General tab > Make sure the External Drive section is checked.
In case the External Drive option was already enabled & still your Mac isn’t recognizing the drive, you have to mount the external disk drive manually.
3. Mount External Hard Drive
- Navigate to the System Preferences and click on Disk Utility.
- You need to check whether the External drive is listed in the left section or not.
- At this point, highlight your drive storage and choose the option, the Mount.
- As soon as you do that, the external disk drive should now appear under the device in the Finder.
If you are still struggling with the “External Drive Not Showing Up On Mac” issue, then its time to run the Disk Utility to fix the problem.
Must-Read: A Quick Checklist: How To Make Your MacBook Pro Faster
4. Run Disk Utility
- Locate Disk Utility from Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
- Alternatively, you can find the Disk Utility via Spotlight and search for Disk Utility program.
- The new window looks in the left column to see if the external hard drive shows there.
- If you can see the connected external hard disk drive, you need to check it for a volume. If it is there, you need to hit the Mount button. (With no volume, the Mount option will appear greyed out.)
- In case your Mac already mounted the hard drive, you’ll be shown the Unmount option.
- Next, you need to run the First Aid tool successfully.
- The feature is dedicated to scan for disk errors & repair them instantly thoroughly.
Once this built-in utility runs, it would potentially fix all the issues that might be hampering your overall experience and causing the issue “External Drive Not Showing Up On Mac.”
5. Reset NVRAM
For some users resetting NVRAM on Mac is a helpful solution to get rid of the “External Drive Not Being Recognized on Mac” issue. Read our dedicated guide on What, Why, When & How To Reset NVRAM?
6. Try Using Data Recovery Solutions
If no workaround helped you to resolve the ‘External drive not showing up on Mac’ problem. Maybe you need data recovering utilities that hold strong potential to retrieve data from inaccessible, corrupted, formatted, or faulty external hard drive. Here’s our complete round of Best Data Recovery Solutions For Macs.
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Usually, external hard drive data recovery on Mac can be done by trash restoration, Time Machine/Cloud backup, Mac drive data recovery software, and manual data recovery services. Among all, third-party software - EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac is the most universally applied when there is no backup available.
4 Ways of External Hard Drive Data Recovery Mac
Most Mac users have invested an external hard drive to expand the storage space of their MacBook or iMac. The most popular brands are usually Westen Digital, Buffalo, G-Technology, Samsung, Seagate, and Lacie. As far as we know, it's notoriously difficult for simply upgrading the internal hard drives. Somehow, the more frequently you operate a Mac computer on an external hard drive, the more likely you are subject to data loss. For example, accidental deletion, disk formatting, improper disconnection, or merely the drive itself is dying.
Basically, there are four possible ways to recover deleted files from external hard drive, USB flash drive, or a memory card on Mac. Each way is applicable to certain data loss scenarios, and we'll explain in detail.
1. How to Recover Deleted Files from External Hard Drive Mac from Trash Bin
Find External Hard Drive Mac
If you lost data on the external hard drive by dragging it to the Trash, always check the Trash Bin first. Right-click on the file and select 'Move to Trash', or use the keyboard shortcut Command-Delete. Those files were not permanently removed until you emptied the Trash. Here are the steps to restore files from Trash.
Step 1. Connect your external hard drive to Mac and navigate to Trash.
Step 2. Locate the abandoned file in the trash folder, and use 'Copy Items' to recover the files back to their original spot. By the way, the 'Put Back' command works the same way.
Best External Hard Drive For Mac Time Machine Backup
2. Recover External Hard Drive Mac from a Backup File
Since Mac provides users with secure protection mechanism by backing up important hard drive files to Cloud, or a backup device via Time Machine, one good way to recover deleted files is from the backup file.
For example, to restore Mac files from Time Machine, refer to the steps:
Step 1. Open Time Machine by clicking on the icon in the menu bar and choose 'Enter Time Machine'.
Step 2. Find the specific file in the backup, press Space Bar to preview it, and determine whether it's the one you want.
![Mac External Hard Drive For Mac Mac External Hard Drive For Mac](/uploads/1/2/7/9/127942391/269739934.jpg)
Step 3. Click on the 'Cloud' icon to download a snapshot to view it. When you do this, that snapshot will be available to view even when your external drive is disconnected from the Mac.
Step 4. Click 'Restore' to restore the selected file.
3. Restore External Hard Drive Mac with Data Recovery Software
When it comes to the situation where you are unable to access or locate files in the Trash or backup or even no backups were ever created, the only way to continue is to download a capable Mac external hard drive data recovery program and perform data recovery as soon as possible.
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac is reputable in the data recovery field, regarding the 10+ years of experience, deep scan ability, all macOS and Mac OS X compatibility, it's the top 1 choice whenever you're faced with Mac data loss issues and eager to find a simple yet effective data recovery solution.
How does the software work in a variety of data loss scenarios? We give you some examples.
- Permanently deleted files from the external hard drive on Mac, like using Command-Shift-Delete to empty the Trash, or Option-Command-Delete, known as 'Delete Immediately' to bypass Trash.
- Format the external hard drive using Disk Utility or other third-party disk formatting tools.
- Files were unknowingly hidden somewhere, and you lost the entrance.
- Other logical errors occur to the external hard drive, and later it becomes inaccessible.
How to recover data from external hard drive on Mac with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard.
Step 1. Select the disk location (it can be an internal HDD/SSD or a removable storage device) where you lost data and files. Click the 'Scan' button.
Step 2. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac will immediately scan your selected disk volume and display the scanning results on the left pane.
Step 3. In the scan results, select the file(s) and click the 'Recover Now' button to have them back.
4. How to Restore External Hard Drive Mac with Manual Service
External Drives For Mac
Apart from most of the logical errors that would bring data loss on an external storage device, which EaseUS Mac data recovery software can absolutely help recover, there are moments you cannot simply get data back, especially when severe issues were developed on a disk. For instance, hard drive corruption with too many bad sectors, the hard drive has fallen apart, heavy clicking/beeping sound, etc.
Mac Format External Hard Drive For Time Machine
When you got problems similar to the examples, do not try to rely on any Mac data recovery software in the market, it's time to send it to an IT expert who is good at manual data recovery (check the average hard drive data recovery cost if you're interested). Most of the time, by the local data recovery service, hard drive repair comes before data recovery. To make sure that the team is reliable, you must check the following things.
Mac Hard Drives
- Must be an ISO certified service center
- Data recovery guarantee after analysis
- Should have Class 100 Clean Room
- Service must be secure & reliable
According to our survey, Ontrack is reliable and secure; you can ask Ontrack for help if you got physical damage on your external hard drive.
How to Avoid External Hard Drive Data Loss (Bonus Tips)
Why not protect your data in advance. Data recovery may cost a lot; a nice choice is protecting your data in advance.
- 1. Think carefully before you are going to delete files or format your external hard drive
- 2. Eject the drive in the correct way. You may lose data if you eject the external hard drive when in use.
- 3. Avoid physical damage due to any reason.
- 4. Let anti-virus software scan your device to stay away from the virus attack.
- 5. Back up important files using Cloud drive, professional backup and recovery software, or manual copy.
To Sum Up
There are four ways to recover deleted files from Mac external hard drive. First, check the Trash Bin. If this solution fails, restore external hard drive files from a backup. If you don't have a backup, deploy EaseUS Mac data recovery software to scan and recover deleted files from the external storage drive. Finally, if Mac external hard drive data loss is caused by physical damage, turn to a manual service.
Mac External Hard Drive For Macbook Air
External Hard Drive Data Recovery Mac FAQs
Here are common FAQs that you may be interested in. Check if any of them could help you.
How to recover deleted files from a Mac hard drive?
To recover lost files from and external hard drive on Mac, follow these steps:
Step 1. Download, install, and launch EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac.
Step 2. Connect the external drive to your computer.
Step 3. Select the external drive from the disk list.
Step 4. Click the 'Scan' button. Preview the files that can be restored. Click the 'Recover' button to recover deleted files from external hard drive on Mac.
What is the best hard disk recovery software for Mac?
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac is the best hard disk recovery software for Mac. This powerful recovery technology with an intuitive and easy-to-use interface can be used by anyone with a Mac. For more information, refer to Top 5 Free Data Recovery Software for Mac.
External Hard Drive For Apple Mac
How to recover files from an external hard drive on Mac?
To recover lost files from and external hard drive on Mac:
Step 1. Download, install and launch EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac.
Step 2. Connect the external drive to your computer. Select the external drive from the disk list, and click Scan.
Step 3. After the scanning process, select the files and click the Recover Now button to get them back.
What do I do if my external hard drive is not detected on Mac?
Start with the basics:
- Check whether the drive is properly plugged in
- Run Disk Utility to mount and verify the drive
- Check the cable.
- Reboot Mac