Normally when you plug in an external hard drive to your Mac's USB port yous will see it appear on the desktop (aka mountain on the desktop). You lot tin can likewise run across information technology in the Finder in the left cavalcade under Locations (or Devices on older versions of macOS). If the drive is not showing up on your Mac chances are it has not been formatted correctly, has been corrupted, or is faulty.

We evidence you how to work out whether the reason the external drive is not mounting on your Mac up is due to a problem with the drive itself, the cable or the port, and how to resolve the problem and access information on your drive.

This article assumes you lot have an external drive 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 you lot should read this article virtually connecting to a NAS drive.

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

There are a number of reasons why your difficult drive, flash bulldoze, USB drive, or SSD might non be showing up. It may accept been formatted incorrectly, information technology may exist corrupted, it may take 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 place the cause and fix the problem that is stopping your external drive from opening on your Mac.

i: Edit your preferences

Hopefully there is a actually easy fix to get the hard drive to mount on your desktop. Effort the following to make sure your Mac is set to show mounted drives on the desktop.

  1. Open 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 abreast External Drives.finder mount drive

If it was already set so that the external bulldoze would appear on the desktop then go along to follow the steps below.

2: Bank check the cable

The starting time port of call is ever to cheque that it'due south plugged in, simply we are sure yous have washed that. The problem might be with the cablevision though.

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

On the subject field of cables, brand sure that it'southward non at fault. Endeavour using a unlike cable with the bulldoze to see if that fixes the problem. Similarly, if you are using a USB port via a hub check that's not what's causing the problem.

Besides check that the port on your Mac isn't the problem. Endeavor plugging into a dissimilar port. Or if you only have the i, plug another device in and meet if that works ok.

3: Try some other Mac and and so try a PC

The next step is to try plugging the drive into another Mac. If it besides fails to mount in that location you will know that there is a trouble with the bulldoze while if information technology does mount and then the problem is with your Mac.

The next step is to endeavour plugging the bulldoze into a PC. If the drive mounts on the PC it'south likely that you have discovered what the problem is: the drive is formatted for PCs and can't exist read by your Mac.

iv: Utilise Disk Utility to admission the drive

If the various checks in a higher place suggest that the disk is faulty and then you can use Apple'southward Disk Utility plan to access the disk and potentially fix whatever is causing the event. Hither's what to practice:

  1. Find Disk Utility by opening Spotlight (cmd+Space-bar) and offset typing Disk Utility, press enter to open the program.
  2. Look in the cavalcade on the left to run across if the hard drive appears in that location.
  3. If yous can meet the difficult drive in Disk Utility check underneath information technology for a volume. If information technology is there click on it and select Mount. If your Mac has already mounted the drive the choice Unmount volition be displayed instead. (If there is no volume listed your Mac is not able to access the drive. The Mount selection will be greyed out.)Disk Utility Mount Hard Drive
  4. Your options are Commencement Aid, Erase and Restore. Outset Aid will check the disk for errors and then repair the deejay if necessary and this is the option to choose. (Restore allows you to erase the contents of the drive and replace that with data from somewhere else. Erase deletes all the information stored on the drive. If yous need the data on the drive do not cull Erase or Restore!)
  5. Click the First Help tab and select Run.Run First Aid Mac
  6. If after running Offset Aid the Mac finds errors you could prepare you may see the option to Repair Deejay. If y'all do, go ahead and run the repairs.

v: Change the bulldoze format

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

Hopefully though the drive is fine just the format is wrong. Hither's a bit of background on file formats:

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

To make sure your drive tin exist read by Macs and PCs you lot demand to format it using exFAT or the older FAT32. We'll explain how to do that below.

It is possible that the hard drive has been formatted using a different file system (i.due east. on a Windows PC). In that instance, if you need to admission the data on the bulldoze you'll demand to connect your drive to a Windows PC that does recognise information technology and re-create the data before moving on to the next step.

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

  1. Open up Disk Utility (every bit per the steps to a higher place).
  2. If you don't require the information on the difficult drive, select the deejay and click Erase.
  3. Before Disk Utility starts to erase the disk it will option a format for y'all. You can change this if you click on the Formatting options. Choose your format, probably exFAT if you want to brand sure it's compatible with PC and Mac, otherwise, Mac Bone Extended (Journaled) is probably the best pick.Drive formats Mac and PC
  4. Give the drive a proper name.Name drive
  5. Click on Erase and wait for your Mac to erase and so reformat the bulldoze.

6: Try a data recovery app

If you have been unable to access the data on the bulldoze then you might desire to try one 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 Data Recovery for Mac, £43.99/$59.99 at Stellar, or Recoverit £69/$79.99 at Wondershare.

seven: Always disconnect your drive properly

We accept final proffer to make that is more of a guard against this error happening again.

Make sure that your external drive doesn't go 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 lot tin right-click (command-click) on the icon on the Desktop or in the Finder and choose Squirt. Plainly most drive issues are acquired when the deejay is removed without ejecting it properly.

Decided there is no hope for your faulty hard drive, we have a round up of some of the best we've seen here: The best Mac hard drives.