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Your Mac not recognizing an external hard drive can be cause for panic. But try to remain calm — it’s unlikely that anything has happened to your files. All of your data will still be on the hard drive, it just that, for whatever reason, you can’t access it.

Just so that you worry not about losing data, get Disk Drill. Available via Setapp, the app is the best tool that will rescue your files.

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Fortunately, there are ways and means of getting the hard drive back up and running. Let’s get into some of them right now.

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Why a flash drive is not showing up on Mac?

If you’ve plugged in a flash drive or USB drive and it’s not showing up on your Mac at all, it could be down to a faulty cable or USB port.

Before you try any system troubleshooting tips, start with the basics.

  • Check that the drive is probably plugged in.
  • Check the USB connector — does it look damaged or misshapen in any way?
  • Check the cable — is it frayed or are there any wires exposed?
  • If the external hard drive is plugged into a wall outlet, try a different outlet.
  • Try a different USB cable — even cables with no visible defects can fail.
  • Try connecting the hard drive to a different USB port — it could be a hardware issue.
  • Try the drive in another Mac — if it works there, the problem is with the USB ports on your Mac.
  • Test the hard drive on a PC — it could be formatted for PCs and not readable on Macs.
  • Reboot your Mac — a simple on and off is sometimes all it takes.
  • Reboot USB drives by shutting down your system and restarting it, holding Command+Option+P+R as you do. When you hear a sound and see the screen flash, release the keys and let your Mac boot up as usual.

If you’ve carried out visually inspections, tested your hard drive with different cables and power outlets, and tried different systems with no luck, it’s time to put your Mac to work.

1. Change the Finder settings

One of the most common reasons for Mac not recognizing external hard drives is due to the system not being set up to display hard drives on the desktop. There’s a simple fix for this:

  1. Open a Finder window.
  2. Go to Preferences > General.
  3. Check that the External disks option is enabled.

If your Mac is not recognizing a USB or external hard drive after this, you’ll have to try mounting it manually.

2. Mount an external hard drive on Mac

If Mac isn’t automatically recognizing your external hard drive, it’s time to force it to. Connect your hard drive and follow these instructions:

  1. Go to System Preferences > Disk Utility.
  2. Check that the external disk is listed in the left sidebar.
  3. Highlight your hard drive and select Mount. It should now appear under devices in the Finder.

If the hard drive still isn’t playing ball, the next step is First Aid.

3. Run First Aid on an external hard drive

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Mac’s built-in First Aid tool is designed to verify and repair a range of issues related to corrupted files and apps, startup issues, and, crucially, external hard drive problems.

If your issue has to do with wanting to know how to open a flash drive on Mac that’s displaying but not allowing you access to files, First Aid might be able to help.

  1. Go to System Preferences > Disk Utility.
  2. Highlight your external hard drive and click on First Aid.
  3. Select Run to start running diagnostics and prompt Mac to automatically fix any issues.

If First Aid is successful in repairing any faults, your hard drive should be available to mount. If not, you’ll need to try the next option.

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4. Delete potentially conflicting apps

How recent is the problem? If a flash drive not showing up on Mac was completely fine a few days earlier there could be an app causing conflict. If you’ve downloaded any new apps recently, uninstall them one at a time, connecting your hard drive after each uninstallation to see if the issue is resolved.

You can delete apps using the Launchpad or by dragging them to the Trash, but neither method is recommended in this situation. You see, while an app might appear to be deleted, associated files will be left on your system — files that could be preventing access to your external hard drive.

Instead, let CleanMyMac X take care of it. CleanMyMac X has an Uninstaller tool that can define your installed applications and associated files and remove every trace of an unwanted app.

And it couldn’t be easier to use.

  1. Download CleanMyMac X (for free).
  2. Launch the app and select Uninstaller.
  3. Click on View All Applications and select a recently installed app.
  4. Click Uninstall.

If you’ve worked through all recently installed apps and are still no further forward, your hard drive may have crashed or, worse, be completely broken. In this case, you’ll need a heavy duty tool like Disk Drill to rescue files.

5. Repair disk permissions

Disk permissions keeps your files secure. Every file and folder has an associated set of permissions. Unfortunately, these can get messed up without you realising it, which can cause serious problems. You can fix these two ways. Either manually, as we mention in this article, or using CleanMyMac X, which is far easier.

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All you need to do is:

  1. Click on Maintenance from the left sidebar menu.
  2. Check the box next to Repair Disk Permissions.
  3. Click Run.

The program will scan and fix any it finds that are broken or faulty. Your Mac should be running as good as new.

To prevent an external hard drive not showing up on Mac turning into an all-out disaster, always backup files on your system hard drive and in the cloud. Anytime you use an external drive, unmount the disk properly and store it safely. And finally, use CleanMyMac to uninstall apps and run regular Maintenance on your system to prevent applications conflicting with hard drive performance.

These might also interest you:

How To Transfer Files from Mac to External Hard Drive Without Formatting.

Mac OS X one of the best operating system for Apple computers there are lots of series of computer available in Apple Stores. But sometimes performing several tasks on mac are very difficult in this article we went show you how to migrate folders and files of mac to external hard drive.

So, first of all, you’ve to select the best external hard drives for mac backup from which you can easily restore important documents in case of the reboot of mac. Generate a backup on mac of videos, photos, and files on an external drive.

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It was easy to move files from mac to mac but moving files from Mac to external hard drive is kinda hard which also relate to recovering files from the external hard drive.

However, sometimes due to the virus and some other error the data stored in external hard drive corporate and to recover the files from external hard drive recovery software for mac.

Now focus on, given below steps by steps guides let you know how to transfer files from mac to external hard drive.

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Step 1

Connect the external hard drive to your mac using a USB cable and wait until the hard drive successfully connected to your computer. (Name of the drive should appear on your Mac screen).

Step 2 :

Open “Finder”, then locate the files to move to external hard drive.

Step 3 :

Create a New Folder in hard drive, then drag each file you want to backup from Mac system to external hard drive.

Step 4 :

Close the external hard drive once all files moved to from mac to external hard drive.

Using Disk Utility To Transfer Files Mac To External Hard Drive

Sometimes your external hard drive doesn’t allow you to transfer files from Mac. Because it’s your hard drive may be formatted with NTFS which is normal in a windows environment.

While OS X is able to READ from a drive that is formatted at NTFS, it cannot WRITE to one. You will get a warning saying that the drive cannot be modified. To fix this error you’ve to use Disk Utility. Remember to save everything to Mac before formatting the apple external hard drives.

How To Formatted External Hard Drive In Mac OS X

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Step 1 :

Plug-In external hard drive to Mac using the USB cable. Wait until the hard drive name appears on Mac Desktop screen.

Step 2 :

In Mac OS X disc into your mac and restart your computer. Continue pressing the “C” key when the system is started.

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Step 3 :

Choose the language and then select Disk Utility from Utilities menu. Now select the disk which you want to connect to your mac and click on “Verify Disk”.

Step 4 :

Click on “Repair Disk” button to repair the external hard drive. Click on “New Image” and named your hard drive then select “128-bit” or “256-bit AES” from the encryption menu to add security to the backup.

Step 5 :

Click on the “Save” button and type the administration password, Conform it. (Wait till process to begin ).

Step 6 :

Now choose the new backup from the device. After completing the imaging process, select ”Image” and then Click on “Scan Image for Restore”.

Step 7 :

Press “Command Q” when the scan completes and then again press the same key to quit Mac OS X Installer window.

Reformat The External Hard Drive In Mac OS X

In my research. I’ve found that lots of Mac users how to purchase a new hard drive for mac. When they connected that hard drive to the Mac OS X system. The external Mac hard drive successfully connected to mac but files can’t transfer.

To resolve this issue, you’ve to reformat your external hard drive using Mac OS Extended option.

Step 1 :

Connect hard drive to Mac via USB slots.

Step 2 :

Now go to Utilities Folder > Disk Utility. Select the external hard drive.

Step 3 :

As long as you don’t have any important files in the external hard drive, choose “Ease” Tab and then select “Mac OS Extended(Journaled)”.

Step 4 :

Enter the new named of drive and Click Erase.

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I hope any of these methods will work for you to transfer files from mac to external hard drives with or without formatting the drive. Give your feedback via comment box.