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External Hard Drive Not Showing on Mac: How to Fix?

By: Waseem Patwegar

If an External Hard Drive is not showing up in the Finder on Mac, you should be able to fix the problem using steps as provided below.

External Hard Drive Not Showing on Mac

External Hard Drive Not Showing Up in Finder on Mac

The problem of External Hard Drive not being detected by Mac usually occurs due to External Drives not being setup to show in Finder, Faulty or Damaged USB Cable, Corrupted System settings and other reasons.

Another common reason for External Hard Drive not being recognized by Mac is due to the External Drive being in NTFS format, which is not recognized by macOS.

If you want the External Storage Drive to work on both Mac and Windows computers, it needs to be in FAT32 or exFAT Format.

1. Restart Mac

Click on Apple Logo in top-menu bar and select Restart option in the drop-down menu.

Restart Mac

After Mac restarts, you may find the External Drive appearing in the Finder window.

2. Change USB Port

Unplug the External Hard Drive and plug it into another USB Port and see if it shows up in the Finder window.

If you are using a USB Hub, unplug it from Mac and connect the External Drive directly to USB Port. If you are using UBC-C port, plug the External Drive into another USB-C port.

3. Change Finder Preferences

Open the Finder on your Mac > click on Finder tab in top-menu bar and select Preferences in the drop-down menu.

Open Finder Preferences on Mac

On Finder Preferences screen, switch to General Tab and select External Disks option.

Show External Drives in Finder on Mac

Next, switch to Sidebar tab and make sure both External Disks and CDs, DVDs and iOS Devices options are selected.

Show External Disks and iOS Devices on Mac

If the External Drive is still not being recognized by Mac, you may have to manually mount the Drive using Disk Utility.

4. Manually Mount External Hard Drive on Mac

Press Command + Option (Alt) + Spacebar keys to open spotlight search > type Disk Utility in the search bar and double-click on Disk Utility in the search results.

Open Disk Utility Using Search on Mac

On Disk Utility screen, select the External Hard Drive in the side-bar and click on the Mount tab.

Mount External Hard Drive on Mac

5. Run First Aid

The built-in “First Aid” tool on Mac can be used to fix corrupted files and other issues, which might be preventing the External Drive from functioning properly on your Mac.

Open Disk Utility > select External Hard Drive in the sidebar and click on First Aid.

Run First Aid Option in Disk Utility on Mac

On the confirmation pop-up, click on Run to confirm.

Run First Aid on External Hard Drive

If the First Aid tool is able to fix the problem, the Drive should now appear in the sidebar. If not, try to manually mount the External Drive.

7. Reformat External Drive

As mentioned above, you won’t be able to use the External Drive, if it is in NTFS format. To fix this issue, you need to Format the External Drive to a macOS compatible File Format.

Note: The format process will wipe out the entire data on the disk.

Open Disk Utility > select the External Hard Drive in sidebar and click on Erase.

Erase Disk Option in Disk Utility on Mac

On the confirmation pop-up, type a Name for the External Drive > select the desired Format type and click on the Erase button.

Type External Drive Name and Erase

Patiently wait for the Format Process to be completed, after which it should show up in the Finder window.

8. Reset SMC & NVRAM

MacBook’s SMC can sometimes become confused or corrupted, leading to various problems, including the problem of External Hard Drive not showing up on Finder.

The steps to Reset SMC & NVRAM vary, depending the model of your MacBook. Hence, it is recommended that you refer to these guides:

  1. How to Reset SMC on MacBook
  2. How to Reset NVRAM or PRAM on Mac
Related
  • How to Start Mac in Recovery Mode
  • How to Backup Mac to External Hard Drive Using Time Machine

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