My WD Elements external disk with my MacBook Pro backups became invisible to my Mac today. Does not appear in Disk Utilities. LED light is on and it is vibrating as if spinning, but does not load. What to do?
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!
Problem seems to be the WD drive software. With no drive plugged it, it had been the biggest power drain on my Mac, shown as the top user of high amounts of power, so I quit that app. Guess it is needed to use the encrypted disk. After restarting, disk was able to load. But it’s a shame the WD software drains so much energy when not in use. Why is that?
