WD External disk not showing up anymore even in Disk Utility

WD External Drives External Drives for Mac
1

WD

Hello,

I’m contacting you because my WD external drive has not been working for a few days.

Indeed, it is not displayed on the finder and in the system report, there is no trace of the disk, even in the utility disk.

The only place I see the external drive mentioned is in the USB category.

It is named “Elements 25A2”.
And among the information that appears, I have the following:

Available current (mA): 900
Required current (mA) : 896

I checked in the activity monitor and I didn’t see any trace of the external drive on it or rather, I didn’t find anything at “fsck_hfs” and “fsck_exfat” so I don’t know what to do…

I even did a reset of the Mac’s USB ports but nothing changes.

I hope that the content is not lost and that the external drive can still be saved after a format…

2

Hi,
I will be sharing with you the some of the feasible solutions that you can try to fix this issue:

  1. Manually show external hard drive in Disk Utility
  2. Reboot your Mac computer to recognize the external drive again
  3. Check the external hard drive in System Information
  4. Reset USB ports of your Mac
  5. Check for hardware and software updates
  6. Run a virus cleaner software
  7. Run Mac diagnostics to detect hardware issues
  8. Reset your Mac’s NVRAM or PRAM
  9. Reset the SMC on your Mac
  10. Ask for help from local technicians or data recovery services

Solution 1: Manually show external hard drive in Disk Utility

The external hard drive is not showing up in Disk Utility? You can check if you can see the ‘External’ option at the left sidebar. If so, you can try these steps to manually show it up.

  1. Open Disk Utility after you connect the external hard drive to your Mac.

  2. Move your mouse and put it on the “External” option. You will see the “Show” option. Then you can simply click on it.

  3. Check if you can see the external hard drive in Disk Utility again.

Solution 2: Reboot your Mac computer

Sometimes, it might be some data damage to your Mac system. Hopefully, this problem can be easily fixed by restarting. Rebooting will refresh your macOS’s tasks. You can choose the Apple menu > Restart. Or you can press and hold the power button and, when a dialog box appears, click the Restart or press R.
### Solution 3: Check the external hard drive in System Information

You connect an external hard drive to a Mac computer but it is not showing up in Disk Utility. And it won’t appear even after a re-startup. Where else you can find this external hard drive then? Probably, you should check it in the System information. System information is where you can find all information of external devices, the software, hardware, and network on your Mac.

  1. Go to Applications > Utilities > System Information.

  2. Click “USB” on the left panel, and check the external hard drive information.
    If you see the external hard drive there but it is not showing up in Disk Utility, the hard drive may be under repair by macOS. Go and check it in the Mac Task Manager - Activity Monitor.

  3. Click the Launchpad and find the Other folder. Then you will see Activity Monitor there.

  4. Open this tool and check if there is any process named “fsck_hfs” or something similar. (If your external hard drive is exFAT formatted, then it should be “fsck_exfat”.)

  5. Select that task and click the “Force a process to quit” button at the upper left to stop it.

Then the external hard drive should show up on the desktop of your Mac. And you can run First Aid in Disk Utility manually if you doubt any disk error.

Solution 4: Check for hardware and software updates

The outdated firmware and software results in various hardware issues. For instance, external hard drives won’t work on Mac because of an incompatible USB driver. You need to check for system updates by opening the App Store and clicking on the Update tab. If there are firmware and macOS software updates available, install them onto the Mac.

Solution 5:: Run a virus cleaner software

Another major problem is a virus infection, which will cause data corruption on the drive. You can try anti-virus software to wipe out and remove any virus, malware, or Trojan from your Mac computer and hard disk. Then check if the external hard drive is showing up in Disk Utility or not.

Solution 6: Run Mac diagnostics to detect hardware issues

Can’t see the external hard drive in Disk Utility still? You can try Apple Diagnostics. It is a set of diagnostic tools used by technicians to find faults. You can use it to isolate a possible hardware issue on your Mac. It also suggests solutions and helps you contact Apple Support for assistance.

  1. It is advised to disconnect all the external devices except the keyboard, mouse, and other useful devices.

  2. Reboot your Mac or you can power on your Mac if is powered off.

  3. Press and hold the D button on your keyboard. Hold the button until you would be asked to choose a language.

  4. After selecting your language, it will display a progress bar stating “checking your mac”.

  5. After completing the diagnostics, it will suggest the solutions for the errors diagnosed.

Solution 7: Reset your Mac’s NVRAM or PRAM

NVRAM is a small amount of memory on your Mac. It saves specific data regardless if the Mac is powered on or off. If you experience issues related to hardware, resetting NVRAM might help. PRAM stores similar information and the steps for resetting NVRAM and PRAM are the same.

  1. Shut down or reboot your Mac.

  2. Immediately press these four keys in a sequence i.e. command, Option, P, and R.

  3. Hold the keys for at least 20 seconds and after you hear the second chime, release the buttons.

  4. After releasing the keys, your Mac will restart and hopefully your drive will show up.

Solution 8: Reset the SMC on your Mac

If you have reset the NVRAM or PRAM, you’ve done it all. But what if your external hard drive is still behaving strangely? In certain circumstances, resetting SMC can be a solution. SMC, short for System Management Controller, is responsible for lower-level functions on Intel-based Mac computers. Resetting it can solve particular power and hardware-related troubles.

Reset SMC on modern Mac laptops with an internal non-removable battery:

This is how to reset the SMC of a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro Retina, or MacBook Pro’s with an internal non-removable battery:

  1. Shut down your MacBook Air/MacBook Pro.

  2. Connect the power adapter to the Mac.

  3. After your Mac shuts down, press Shift + Control + Option key combinations, then press the power button at the same time. Hold these keys and the power button for 10 seconds.

  4. Release all keys and the power button at the same time.

  5. Press the power button again to turn on your Mac.

The boot time after resetting a machine’s SMC can be a bit longer than usual, that is normal.

Solution 9: Ask for help from local technicians

If unfortunately, your external hard drive has some serious hardware problems, no software can help you fix the external hard drive not showing up in Disk Utility. The only solution is to send it to a local data recovery service or replace it with a new one.

3

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:

  1. USB connectivity problem
  2. macOS preference settings
  3. Partition map damage
  4. Device incompatibility
  5. Physical damage on a drive

However, to fix the issue, you can try the below methods:

  1. Check the USB connectivity
  2. Enable visibility of external hard drive
  3. Update macOS
  4. Repair external hard drive by using Disk Utility
  5. Repair external hard drive by using Terminal
  6. Erase the external hard drive
  7. 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!

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