Hi. My WD Book Essential is not recognized by my computer. It seems like it’s not turning on or initiating. It has worked fine in the past. Any suggestions? Thanks.
Whenever you connect an external drive to your mac, the storage drive may not show up on Desktop, Finder or even on Disk Utility due to various reasons:
- USB connectivity problem
- MacOS preference settings
- Partition map damage
- Device incompatibility
- Physical damage on a drive
However, to fix the issue, you can try the below methods:
- Check the USB connectivity
- Enable visibility of external hard drive
- Update macOS
- Repair external hard drive by using Disk Utility
- Repair external hard drive by using Terminal
- Erase the external hard drive
- If none of the above works, then the drive needs replacement
Further, you can also check the below link for steps to be followed in each method mentioned above:
Hope it helps!
Thank you Jose. It did not work after I updated the macOS. The hard drive is not recognized by the computer. There is what looks like on on/off/ button on the back of the drive - I can’t find reference to it in any manual. Do you by chance know what that might be? I think I’m going to have to find a service to restore the data to another device. Thanks again.
