Drive shows up in WD App but not Disk Utility

Portable Drives My Passport
1

I have a My Passport for Mac hard drive. When I plug it into my computer using a USB-C adaptor, it shows up in the WD app as being connected, but does not appear in Finder or Disk Utility on my computer.

The hard drive light turns on and it starts humming, so I feel like it’s working. Does anyone know how I can fix this issue? I’m guessing the problem is with my MacBook Air, since I’ve tried 2 different USB-C adaptors and the hard drive itself seems to be working, from what I can tell.

2

Hi @lavagirl123,

Have you checked our knowledge base articles?
(Support for Western Digital Hard Drives | Western Digital)

Try this one.

Have you opened a Support Case?
If not, contact Western Digital Technical Support for assistance.
[Contact Us | Western Digital]

3

If the WD app detects the drive but it doesn’t appear in Finder or Disk Utility, try the following:

  1. Check Disk Utility: Open Disk Utility > Click View > Select Show All Devices to see if it appears but isn’t mounted. If it does, try clicking Mount.
  2. Reset NVRAM & SMC: Restart your Mac and reset the NVRAM and SMC (varies by model). This can resolve hardware detection issues.
  3. Try a Different File System Reader: If the drive is NTFS-formatted, macOS won’t write to it natively. Try using Microsoft NTFS for Mac by Paragon or Mounty to access it.
  4. Test on Another Mac/PC: See if it appears on another device to confirm the issue isn’t with the drive itself.

If none of these work, the drive may have a corruption issue. Let me know what happens after trying these steps!