Summary: It's a definite guide to fix Mac not recognizing external hard drive without data loss. It troubleshoots why the external hard drive is not recognized by macOS and how to access it in such situations. You can also download iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac to get files off when Mac doesn't recognize the external hard drive.
Whether you are using MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or iMac, inevitably, the Mac can't recognize the external hard drive that you plug into.
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Don't know how to make Mac recognize the external hard drive again? No worries.
Because after reading this post, you can:
Apr 10, 2019 If you need to erase the disk manually, use the Disk Utility app to erase using the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. Time Machine can't back up to an iOS device or disk formatted for Windows. And if your disk uses the Master Boot Record (MBR) partition scheme, some of its partitions might not be available for use with Time Machine. Because the file system on the WD Passport For Mac external hard drive is a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. This file system is also call HFS+. A Windows PC cannot see, read, write to that file system. To share that drive between a Mac and Windows PC you need software. Software that translates HFS+ into something the PC can understand. Feb 22, 2020 Step 4: If the device doesn't show up at all, move on and make it detectable. Make LaCie external hard drive shows up, detectable on PC. Step 1: Restart PC, change USB port and USB cable, reconnect the LaCie external hard drive on PC. If it still doesn't show up, continue with Step 2. Step 2: Update USB Hub drivers in Device Manager.
According to different situations, this passage will show you solutions to fix 'Mac doesn't recognize external hard drive' issue accordingly.
Overview of macOS Recognizing An External Hard Drive
When your Seagate, WD my passport, Toshiba or other external hard drive is not recognized by Mac, the first thing is to know which part of the recognition process goes wrong.
So let's take a closer look at how macOS recognizes an external hard drive.
Step 1: The external hard drive is connected to your Mac.
Plugging the external hard drive into a computer will establish the hardware connection, which would supply the external hard drive with power source and data transferring capability. Visually, you can see the external hard drive lighting on and hear it spinning.
Step 2: macOS detects the external hard drive.
After the connection, the Mac would detect that a new storage device is plugged in. It's going to tell the device's type and manufacturer information, which will help macOS know how to load and read this external hard drive.
Step 3: macOS reads the external hard drive.
After recognizing the hardware information of the external hard drive, the Mac will call other system components to read the external hard drive’s type and partition information. If the hard drive is readable by the Mac, a visible disk icon would be formed consequently.
Step 4: macOS recognizes the files in the external hard drive.
Once Mac successfully reads the partition information of the external hard drive, it will go further by calling related programs to recognize the file system of each partition on the external hard drive. A recognized file system will let macOS know how and where your data is stored on the external hard drive, so that it can mount this external hard drive for use.
Step 5: Mac shows the external hard drive for users.
Going so far, macOS has recognized the external hard drive. Meanwhile, other programs get notified that there is a new volume available. But to make it convenient for users to access the data on the drive, it will check the system preferences and decide if users want to automatically mount and show the external hard drive on the desktop and in the finder.
Amazing, right? You probably never know the details. Your Mac has done so many works to recognize an external storage device, while you just simply plug the external drive into the USB port.
However, if one or more steps above fail, the external hard drive would not be recognized by Mac successfully. You can't access it. In this case, we need to know why Mac doesn't recognize your external hard drive.
Namely, we need to check these things:
Now, let's check them one by one.
First of all, Check the Connections
Don't assume this is unnecessary. It turns out that most of the time, Mac doesn't recognize external hard drives, USB flash drives, pen drives, SD cards, etc. just because the drive is not properly connected.
Since a good connection is a basic condition for secondary hard drives working on the Mac, we need to try these things step by step.
1. Make sure the external hard drive is supplied with power.
Usually, when the external hard drive is supplied with power, the light of the external hard drive is on and blinking. If not, try to check if the external hard drive needs to be externally plugged into the wall outlet. It happens most for some external desktop hard drives like WD Elements and Seagate Desktop devices that don't use USB ports as the power source.
2. Try to re-plug the external hard drive.
This works when you have a drive mounted but your operating system goes to sleep later. Mac won't recognize the external hard drive after the USB port is powered off. When your Mac wakes up again, the drive may not have come out of its slumber. You can reconnect the external hard drive to make it work again.
3. Try another USB port to connect the external hard drive.
Portable hard drives like My Passport and iomega use USB port both for power and data supply. So, if the USB port is loose, damaged, lack of power, or dusty, the connected external hard drive won't be recognized by Mac. You need to change another slot to connect your drive.
4. Try to plug the external hard drive into the USB port slowly.
Strange though, some users notice that the external hard drive would be recognized and work well when they plug it in exceptionally slowly. It may because the USB port is out of shape and unstable. The tricks also work for other storage devices, including thumb drive, USB flash drive, etc.
5. Try another USB cable to connect the external hard drive.
In case the cable is broken, you can try another USB cable to connect the external hard drive to your Mac. And if it's an SD card that is not showing up on Mac, try another card reader. Don't worry if you don't have one right now, you can skip and check other things first.
6. Try another USB hub or USB-C adapter.
Some MacBook after 2015 uses Thunderbolt 3 while some older ones use Thunderbolt 2. This results in incompatibility between different Thunderbolt ports. Thus, if the unrecognized external hard drive is a Type C drive, you can try to access it via another Mac. Instead, if it's a standard USB-A external hard drive and you connect it to Thunderbolt 3 port via USB-C adapter, you can try another USB hub or even another adapter. Sometimes, such adaption makes data transferring unstable.
7. Try to reboot your Mac.
Possibly, you improperly ejected the external hard drive the last time you use it on the Mac. As a result, Mac doesn't recognize the external hard drive this time. It's because macOS would think the USB port is still taken by the unsafely ejected one.
Second, Check if the external hard drive is recognized in System Information
The System Information app provides detailed specifications and other information about your Mac. In some versions of OS X, this app is called System Profiler. So, if the connections are good, you can check whether the connected external hard drive is detected in System Information or not.
Step 1: Choose Apple menu > About This Mac.
Step 2: Click the System Report button to see more details provided by the System Information.
Step 3: Find and click the USB option under the Hardware section.
Step 4: Check if the external hard drive is recognized here or not.
If you can find the USB external hard drive in System Information, it means macOS has detected this drive. But why you can't access and open this external hard drive on the desktop and in the Finder? You need to go further and check more things.
Then Check if Mac is Set to Display External Hard Drives
Usually, the external hard drive will be automatically mounted by Mac. Then you can see it on the desktop or in Finder in seconds. But this time, the external hard drive is not showing up on your Mac. Does this mean the external hard drive is not recognized by Mac? Probably not. On the contrary, you need to check if the mounted external hard drive is allowed to show up.
Step 1: Go to Finder > Preferences >Sidebar.
Step 2: Select External disks under Locations to list your external hard drive in the Finder sidebar.
Step 3: Shift to the General tab.
Step 4: Check External disks under 'Show these items on the desktop'. Then your connected external hard drive will appear in Finder and on the desktop.
Chances are that Mac won't recognize the external hard drive still. It means it's not the Mac device's fault. Then we should throw light on the external hard drive itself.
Third, Check if Mac Recognizes the Partitions of the External Hard Drive
Any storage devices, including HDD and SSD, need to be partitioned. It makes sure that each section can be managed separately. And partition table or partition map records the necessary partition information of the external hard drive.
Mac won't read the external hard drive further once the partition table is damaged, lost, or corrupted. Fortunately, you can check this in Disk Utility.
Solution 1: Check the external hard drive in Disk Utility
Disk Utility is a built-in disk repair tool on your Mac. It can manage, erase, check, and repair disks efficiently. It's free and powerful. So, continue reading and check if Mac is reading the disk's partitions.
Step 1: Click Launchpad, find the Other folder and open it. Here, you can see and launch Disk Utility.
Step 2: Click View option at the upper left, and then choose 'Show All Devices'.
Step 3: If you can see volumes of the external hard drive in the left sidebar, be it lighted or greyed, select the name of the unrecognized external hard drive.
Step 4: Click on the First Aid button in the top center and click Run.
Tips: If it's a WD external hard drive that is not recognized by Mac, you can check if it is encrypted by WD Security. If so, simply unlock it with WD Discovery and access the external hard drive again.
But if you can't see any partitions or volumes, or you run First Aid to repair the external hard drive but fail, then the partition information is not recognized by Mac. You need to move to the next solution in this situation.
Solution 2: Reformat the unrecognized external hard drive
If First Aid is unable to repair the unrecognized external hard drive, the disk might be corrupted too seriously to be repaired. Under this circumstance, the only solution is to erase this external hard drive in Disk Utility and assign new partition schemes.
Warning: Reformatting will wipe your data off the unrecognizable external hard drive. So, before you follow the steps below, make sure you have a copy of backups. If you don't have any backup in hand, you can also recover lost data from the unrecognized external hard drive with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
Step 1: Launch Disk Utility.
Step 2: Select the unrecognized external hard drive on the left.
Step 3: Click the Erase at the top of the Disk Utility window.
Step 4: Complete the related information (name, format, scheme), then click Erase.
Tips: Click here to learn the differences between GUID, Master Boot Record, Apple Partition Map if you don't know to choose which partition scheme in Disk Utility.
How to Prevent Data Loss When Mac Doesn't Recognize External Hard Drives?
When the external hard drive is not working normally, the first concern for most users is the important data on the drive. However, if you have tried possible solutions but Mac just doesn't recognize the external hard drive still, how can you access your data?
The good news is, you can recover lost data from this unrecognizable external hard drive with free Mac data recovery software like iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is one of the best hard drive data recovery software. It can recover lost data from the external hard drives when it's not recognized, not readable, not working or not showing up on Mac. Moreover, this data recovery software can recover lost data from formatted, corrupted, and unmounted external hard drives. It supports data recovery from APFS, HFS, HFS+, exFAT, FAT32 formatted hard drives.
This program works with macOS 10.15 (Catalina), macOS 10.14 (Mojave), macOS 10.13 (High Sierra), macOS 10.12 (Sierra) and OS X 10.11 (El Capitan), 10.10 (Yosemite), 10.9 (Mavericks), 10.8 (Mountain Lion), 10.7 (Lion).
Step 1: Install and launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on Mac.
After downloading and launching this Mac data recovery software, you can connect the unrecognized external hard drive to your Mac. Later, you can check if the drive is detected and show up in this software.
Step 2: Select the unrecognized external hard drive to scan for lost data.
If you can find the unrecognized external hard drive in the list, click on it. And then choose Scan to search for data on this hard drive.
Step 3: Preview the searching results and recover the target ones.
As we mentioned before, you can't access and view your important data on the unrecognized external hard drive. But with the assistance of iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac, you get a chance to check the condition of your data by using its Preview feature. Simply filter the scanning result, select the data to preview, and click 'Recover' to get them back.
Last, Check if Mac Has Recognized the File System of the External HDD
The file system manages how your data is stored on the external hard drive. If your partition map seems to be OK, the next thing we need to confirm is that if Mac has recognized the file system of each partition.
So, just go to Finder > Go > Utilities > Disk Utility. You can check if you can see the partition and file system of the USB external hard drive there.
You can see if the file system is NTFS in the right column. You can't write to Windows NTFS on Mac but only read. Probably, you assume that Mac doesn't recognize the NTFS external hard drive because you can't access or open the files. In this case, you can simply solve this problem with an NTFS for Mac driver. Or if you don't have important data, you can reformat it as FAT32, exFAT, or APFS (If you can macOS supports it) in Disk Utility.
If it is not NTFS but any other recognizable file system, you can fix the Mac not recognizing external hard drive issue with the following solutions.
Solution 1: Manually mount the external hard drive if it's greyed out in Disk Utility
Chances are that Mac has recognized the external hard drive, but for some reason, Mac fails to automatically mount it. So, if you can see the volumes of the external hard drive with correct disk information (name, file system, storage capacity, etc.), try to force mount the external hard drive in Disk Utility.
Step 1: Open Disk Utility.
Step 2: Click View option at the upper left, and then choose 'Show All Devices'.
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Step 3: Right-click on the volume that you want to access, not the external hard drive this time.
Step 4: Choose Mount in the context menu.
If nothing happens or macOS reports some errors, keep reading. You can repair the unrecognized external hard drive with First Aid.
Solution 2: Repair the external hard drive with First Aid if you can't mount it
If you can't mount the external hard drive in Disk Utility, the drive might have some file system corruptions. But don't be panic when you hear 'corruption', you still have solutions when Mac can’t recognize the external hard drive's file system.
Step 1: Launch Disk Utility as you did before.
Step 2: Click View option at the upper left, and then choose 'Show All Devices' in the context menu.
Step 3: Select the corrupted volume in the list, not the name of the external hard drive.
Step 4: Click on the First Aid button in the top center and then click Run.
If you run First Aid successfully, go to check if the external hard drive is recognized by Mac. If it fails, you need to expand the 'Show Details' option to see more information. Also, if you received an error like 'file system check exit code is 8', 'invalid b tree node size', or other messages, the file system of the external hard drive might be seriously corrupted and can't be repaired.
Read further and check what you can do.
Solution 3: Recover lost data and reformat the corrupted external hard drive
What if First Aid fails to repair the corrupted file system? Well, in this case, we strongly recommend you to recover your important data from the unrecognized external hard drive. It helps especially if you don't have backups. And then you can fix Mac not recognizing external hard drive by reformatting.
Step 1: Recover lost data from this unrecognized external hard drive with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
Step 2: Launch Disk Utility and select the unrecognized partitions of the external hard drive.
Step 3: Click the Erase at the top.
Step 4: Fill in the name and format you want to use, and then click Erase to reformat.
After these operations, your external hard drive should be recognized by Mac again. But if the external hard drive is not showing up in Disk Utility, unfortunately, your external hard drive has hardware problems. You could either contact the support team of the hard drive manufacturer for product repair and replacement. Or you can send the unrecognizable external hard drive to a local disk repair service for help.
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As you can see, Mac needs to do a lot of work to recognize an external hard drive. If any step fails, the external hard drive won't be recognized by Mac. Thus, we offer some additional tips to help you beyond this issue.
Bonus tips:
When you access your external hard drive through Mac, Windows, or other types of computer, remember:
Let us know if this guide helps when your Mac doesn't recognize the external hard drive!
Mac not recognizing external hard drive FAQ
? How to access external hard drives on Mac?
? How to fix if my external hard drive is not detected by Mac?
? What do I do if my external hard drive is not recognized in Disk Utility?
? How do I recover files from an external hard drive that won't mount?
Summary:If the external hard drive is not showing up in Disk Utility, you can try 10 solutions to make Mac recognize it again. Worry about data loss? Simply free downloadiBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac to recover videos, music, documents, images and much more from the external hard drive. Then you can fix 'external hard drive not showing up in Disk Utility' without data loss on Mac.
When an external hard drive is connected to Mac, it usually would be detected and recognized by Disk Utility. However, sometimes you check the connected external hard drive in Disk Utility, it doesn't show up as you thought. This problem could happen to some best external hard drives like WD, Toshiba, Seagate, etc. It also happens after you share the same drive between Windows and macOS.
Then, how can you make this external hard drive work again? This article will help you to find an external hard drive that is not showing up in Mac Disk Utility easily.
Why is an external hard drive not showing up in Disk Utility?
External hard drive not showing up in Disk Utility will cause panic, because Disk Utility is a built-in disk management program for Mac computers. All connected drives should be listed in Disk Utility. Then users can verify, check, repair, erase, partition, rename, encrypt, and unmount volumes and drives there.
Then why this time your external hard drive is not showing up there? If you have known how Mac recognizes an external hard drive, it would be easier to understand.
But to make it more simple for you, we list some common reasons for this issue.
Malfunctioned USB port
External hard drives won't show up in Disk Utility when the USB port is loose or dusty. Also, you need to know that not all the USB ports are the same. For example, The Canon Micro USB port looks like the standard ones. But some standard external hard drives can only be plugged in without work ability.
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Mac operating system is busy
You may have improperly ejected a storage device last time. Consequently, another external hard drive connected to the same USB port can't be recognized. It's because your Mac is busy in dealing with the former device.
Faulty USB cable or external hard disk enclosure
Some external hard drives are wrapped in hard drive case. Similarly, some SD cards, CF cards and other memory cards are accessed by card readers. So you can open those removable drives on Mac via USB cables. However, once these hardware devices are broken, the external hard drive will not show up in Disk Utility due to the lack of power and data supply.
USB-C adapter problems
It matters if your MacBook Pro or MacBook Air only has USB-C (Thunderbolt 3) ports. You need to use a USB-C to USB adapter to connect iOS devices, external hard drives, and many of your standard USB accessories to your Mac. But a wrong USB-C cable or adapter would be unstable and affect data transfer. That might be the reason why your external hard drive unmount, grayed out, or even disappear in Disk Utility. Sometimes, the external hard drive would also keep disconnecting and reconnecting on your Mac.
Some other causes for external hard drive not showing up in Disk Utility
Many problems appear so randomly that you cannot point out the specific reason. Fortunately, there are ways of getting the external hard drive showing up again. Let's go into some of them right now.
Notice: If your external hard drive contains massive important data, you had better recover all needed data before taking any solution. It's because any mistaken operation will result in data loss permanently. How to recover lost data from external hard drive on Mac is recommended here.
10 solutions to fix/repair an external hard drive not showing up in Disk Utility
At first, let's take a look at this example from discussions.apple.com:
I have been using my WD Elements hard drive for about 2 years and it always worked just fine. But when I plugged it into my MacBook Pro to back up today, it won't show up. The external drive doesn't mount, nor listed in Disk Utility. But the hard drive itself is still spinning and lighting up as usual. Any one have any idea?
What should you do if you are one of them?
Solution 1: Manually show external hard drive in Disk Utility
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.
Step 1: Open Disk Utility after you connect the external hard drive to your Mac.
Step 2: Move your mouse and put it on the 'External' option. You will see the 'Show' option. Then you can simply click on it.
Step 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 System information. System information is where you can find all information of external devices, the software, hardware, and network on your Mac.
Step 1: Go to Applications > Utilities > System Information.
Step 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 the Activity Monitor.
Step 3: Click the Launchpad and find the Other folder. Then you will see Activity Monitor there.
Step 4: Open this tool and check if there any process named 'fsck_hfs' or something similar. (If your external hard drive is exFAT formatted, then it should be 'fsck_exfat'.)
Step 5: Select that task and click the 'Force a process to quit' button at the upper left to stop it. and 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: Reset USB ports on Mac
If you don't see your external hard drive in Disk Utility still, you have to try a different cable and USB port. Besides, try an externally powered USB hub or power supply for the drive to see if the external hard drive can show up in Disk Utility.
Necessarily, you can refresh the USB ports and see if your external hard drive is detected by Disk Utility.
1. Restart Mac computer, press the Command +Option+P+R keys until the Apple logo appears.
2. Press Command+Option+Esc keys to close all applications that are not responding.
3. Plug the USB which is not showing up to your Mac computer. If it doesn't show up, click Apple icon and select 'Sleep'.
4. Wake up the computer after a few seconds by pressing any key.
5. Shut down the Mac, unplug the power cord, reattach it after 15 seconds.
Solution 5: 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 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 6: Run a virus cleaner software
Another major problem is virus infection, which will cause data corruption on the drive. You can try an 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 7: Run Mac diagnostics to detect hardware issues
Can't see the external hard drive in Disk Utility still? You can try Apple Service Diagnostic. 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.
Step 1: It is advised to disconnect all the external devices except keyboard, mouse and other useful devices.
Step 2: Reboot your Mac or you can power on your Mac if is power off.
Step 3: Press and hold D button on your keyboard. Hold the button until you would be asked to choose language.
Step 4: After selecting your language, it will display a progress bar stating 'checking your mac'.
Step 5: After completing the diagnostics, it will suggest you the solutions for the errors diagnosed.
Solution 8: 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.
Step 1: Shut down or Reboot your Mac.
Step 2: Immediately press these four keys in a sequence i.e. command, option, P and R.
Step 3: Hold the keys for at least 20 seconds and after you hear the second chime, release the buttons.
Step 4: After releasing the keys, your Mac will restart and hopefully your drive will show up.
Solution 9: 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 SMC of a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro Retina, or MacBook Pro's with an internal non-removable battery:
Step 1: Shutdown your MacBook Air/MacBook Pro.
Step 2: Connect the power adapter to the Mac.
Step 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.
Step 4: Release all keys and the power button at the same time.
Step 5: Press the power button again to turn on your Mac.
The boot time after resetting a machines SMC can be a bit longer than usual, that is normal.
Solution 10: Ask for help from local technicians
If unfortunately, your external hard drive has some serious hardware problems, no software can help you fix 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.
This is a comprehensive guide to fix external hard drive not showing up/recognized/detected on Mac issue. Troubleshoot this drive problem and now read more >>
How to recover lost data from corrupted external hard drives on Mac?
Hopefully, the external hard drive is showing up in Disk Utility after you try the solutions above. But sometimes, you still can't access the external hard drive if it is corrupted or unmounted in Disk Utility. The external hard drive might be corrupted due to file system corruption or partition table lost. In this situation, all data on the external hard drive is so dangerous. It's high time to try lost data from the corrupted external hard drive.
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is a free and professional data recovery software that recovers data from broken/corrupted external hard drives, hard disks, USB flash drives, SD cards, memory cards, etc. Even when your external hard drive is not showing up in Disk Utility or detected by Mac computers, this software may be possible to recognize the drive and get lost data back. It is compatible with macOS 10.15/10.14/10.13/10.12 and OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.
Besides, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac also recovers data from formatted external hard drives, recovers data when external hard drive is not mounting on Mac, recovers data from inaccessible external hard drives,recovers data from corrupted external hard drives, and recovers files deleted or lost from external hard drives, recover lost data when Mac computer won't boot/turn on, etc.
Simple steps to recover lost data from a corrupted external hard drive:
Step 1: Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on your Mac computer.
Step 2: Correctly connect your external hard drive to your Mac and launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac. Check if the external hard drive is showing up in the software. If you can see the corrupted external hard drive here, click the 'Scan' button to let the software search for lost data on the selected drive.
Step 3: After a quick scan, all files will be presented in the left panel in the scanning results. You can preview the searching results to check if your files are in good condition. If so, you can choose files you need, and click 'Recover' to get them back.
Step 4: Have a check to ensure you have got all lost data back.
Tips: Disk Utility is a program that users can directly manage internal and external hard drives on Mac. That's to say, all connected drives should be listed and showing up here. If a hard drive is not showing up in Disk Utility, it means macOS fails to recognize the external hard drive, nor read and access files on it. Technically, Mac can't build a visible hard drive for users.
Conclusion
When an external hard drive is not detected/showing up in Disk Utility on Mac, most people would think this drive is dying. But indeed, you can find this hard drive some elsewhere of your Mac, and then verify and repair this external hard drive.
If your external hard drive is corrupted and won't show up on Mac normally, it might be corrupted or even dead. The most important thing is your important data on the drive. You can send it to a local data recovery service and get your files back.
Hope you have solved the external hard drive not showing up in Mac Disk Utility issue successfully.
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