WD MY PASSPORT ULTRA not showing up on Mac

I bought a 5TB black WD My Passport Ultra and it doesn’t appear on my Mac. I have MacOS Mojave. When I plug it in, I can’t even see it on disk utilities. I have an older 4TB WD My Passport which shows works perfectly, so the connection on my Macbook is not faulty. Can I fix it or should I return it?

Hi,

You could refer to the following link: Error

I am having a similar problem. The drive works fine with my 2016 Macbook Pro that has USB C ports. I can see both partitions that I made, backup with TimeMachine, etc. However, when I connect it to my 2015 Macbook Pro via USB with the supplied cable and USB C to USB A adaptor I can’t see the drive or any of the partitions either in Finder or using Disk Utility. I’ve area checked and tried the suggestions in the recommended link. I purchased the drive specifically so I could move files between these 2 machines. thanks

I think the USB 3.0 adaptor is poorly made. My wife read it somewhere. Have you tried using a different one? Mine also works with the USB-C port, but the cable is not perfect.

I haven’t tried a different one as most of my adapter go from USB A - USB C so I can use USB A devices on my Macbook Pro with only USB C connectors.

Was able to find and try and different USB A - USB C cable and it worked on my 2015 Macbook Pro! Later I went back and retried the USB C cable and USB A adaptor that came with the drive. I was able to get to work as well. Realize the trick is make sure the connection is really tight on the adaptor. Even though it feels connected you have to make sure there’s no gap or looseness on the adaptor and also that the USB C connector on that goes to the drive is also completely plugged in. Guess I’m used to the ease with which the USB C connections on my newer Macbook Pro and iPad Pro work. The WD ones take more work.

Now I just need to find a way to get this to work with my Airport Extreme. Think I may need a powered USB hub.