Try a different USB cable and port for power and data supply, especially if the My Passport external hard drive is not showing up in Disk Utility.Connect the WD hard drive directly to the computer and do not use a USB Hub.Make sure the WD hard drive is externally plugged into a wall outlet if it's a WD desktop hard drive like WD Elements Desktop and My Cloud.When your WD hard drive is not detected by Mac, you can always do the following quick fixes at the very beginning. Or else your Mac can't recognize the external hard drive, let alone show up it in Disk Utility. Try Quick fixes when WD hard drive is not recognized by MacĪ proper connection is the most basic condition that Mac can access an external hard drive. So, based on the process of Mac recognizing a WD hard drive, we need a thorough check to know which part makes the WD Elements external hard drive not be recognized, not show up, and not work on Mac, and then fix it. Fix WD hard drive not recognized issue on Mac As a consequence, you can't access, copy, write to or transfer data stored on it. However, if any part of this process goes wrong, hard drive problems like Mac won't recognize your WD hard drive would occur. Users access data on the WD hard drive.macOS recognizes the file system of each volume.macOS reads partition information of the WD hard drive.The WD hard drive is supplied with power so that Mac can detect this storage device.After scanning the data on your unrecognized WD hard drive with this data recovery tool, you can preview the files and click the Recover button to get them back. If not, recover data with some data recovery software, such as iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery. If you have a backup of the WD hard drive, you can feel relaxed to try the following fixes. To avoid permanent data loss after trying some ways to fix the unrecognized WD external hard drive on Mac, it is recommended to restore files from the drive first. Get files off the WD hard drive not recognized on MacĪs the data on the unrecognized WD hard drive is inaccessible, it can't be copied and backed up now. FAQs about WD hard drive not being recognized on Mac First, see how Mac recognizes a WD external hard drive Get files off the WD hard drive not recognized on Mac Reformatting the WD hard drives when it's not.

Use WD Drive Utilities to check the unrecognized WD hard drives.

Repairing the unrecognized WD hard drive with First Aid.

Checking if the WD hard drive is password locked.

Updating related WD Apps with WD Discovery for Mac.Showing the external hard drive in Finder & Desktop.

Mac disk utility not showing hard drive