Usually, when we connect the external drive to Mac, it shows up quickly on the desktop. But when you don’t find the external drive on the desktop, then it is frustrating cause you can’t copy or post anything on your Mac internal drive. We all have some important stuff like backups, documents, movies and much more things stored in the external drive. However when you find that your Mac doesn’t recognize external hard drive then different thoughts come in mind like the drive is corrupted or crashed. Sometimes Drive not appear on the desktop, then you should check for a disk in the left frame of finder Windows and under the ‘’Devices’’ heading.

1. Mac Os External Hard Drive Not Mounting System
2. External Hard Drive For Mac

1. Some users are unable to mount CDs and DVDs after applying the Mac OS X 10.3.7 update. Two typical reports of the problem: 'After installing the upgrade to 10.3.7, suddenly my internal Pioneer DVD.
2. Apr 12, 2019  For example, a new Mac mini has the ability to be attached with a Cat6 wire to your network at 10-gigabit speeds. Your networked files would be accessible at near HDD speeds (not SSD speeds mind you). So plan accordingly for your requirements. You can get more information on how to share your files on a network from a Mac. Making permanent.
3. Hi John, Thank you for contacting Microsoft Community. I suggest you to plug in the USB hard drive into the computer and perform hardware troubleshooter or disk management tool, rescan disks to mount it with drive letter, once you get the drive letter then you may assign the new drive letter and remove the USB drive. Again plug in the USB drive and check if it works or not.
4. External Hard Drive not Mounting. I have this issue too with any external hard drive, they do not show up in the Disk Utility. This issue, is not a Seagate-specific issue. None of the HD I would like to connect to this Mac have a Thunderbolt connection but that is helpful if the hard drive you would like to connect have that connector.

Even if you have an external drive which contains corrupted data, then Mac won’t recognize the external drive on macOS Mojave. Before judging the exact reason, we will try to solutions and fix this issue.

we are happy to help you, submit this Form, if your solution is not covered in this article.

Mac Doesn’t Recognize External Hard Drive anymore and why your Mac is not mounting or won’t detect specific popular brand drives including Seagate, wd, Toshiba, Iomega, Lacie, and exfat. Don’t worry, Apply my task, I’m sure that you will get rid of on this issue. Our, this article got many thanks from our readers so hope you will get success too. Let’s dive on it to know correct problems and its solution!

Hold, before getting started the tutorial, keep in mind that Apple Mac Computer and Apple notebook including (MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, MacBook), etc. need the hard drive that must be formatted with a file system so you Mac can support. Usually, a tech-savvy guy knows that formatting drive erases all of the data on it. In case, your hard drive is pre-formatted as NTFS then your macOS can only read data from it, not write any files and data of it.

Dec 19, 2017  The external drives are connected to the PC via an external HDD dock (USB 3). None of my external drives are mounting to Windows explorer since I installed Windows 10. I have tried the following: 1. Check disk management and see if the drives appear in there. They do, so I assign a drive letter to the drive but it can't.

Solutions to fix Mac Doesn’t Recognize External Hard Drive on Mojave

Are you sure the port is correct for the hard drive? If it isn’t found a right slot, then try giving useful clues.

Solution 1: Faulty USB Cable of your hard drive

Before trying any other solution, you must look on cable (in most case USB cable) which you are using while connecting the external hard drive to the Mac. If the wire has defected, then Mac won’t recognize the external hard driveon Mojave. Plug the USB cable correctly, or you can try to connect the external drive using another USB cable.

Hint: if your hard drive comes with a Thunderbolt or FireWire cable, then please find the right port to plug your external hard drive. Otherwise, get an adapter in case of don’t have a port on your Mac.

Solution 2: Damaged Port

When we roughly use the USB port of Mac and connect and disconnect so many times in a day can result in damaged port. So this can be considered as a hardware issue. Try connecting the external drive to another USB port.

Solution 3: Incorrectly formatted drive

I would like to remind you that Mac uses a different format. So if you are trying to connect the same Windows formatted drive, then Mac won’t show external hard drive on macOS Mojave.

Connect the same drive with another Windows PC and check if your hard drive is showing their or not. If it is showing on Windows, then change the format that is compatible with macOS.

Solution 4: Restart Mac

Evergreen way to fix any weird issue is to reboot the system and give a fresh start to the system. However, after restarting the Mac hopefully, your problem will get fixed.

Step #1: Go to the “Apple” menu and “Restart” the Mac.

Solution 5: Mac is not formatted to show external drives

It could be possible that Mac successfully recognizes the external drive, but it is not showing on the desktop of Mac. To cross verify and enable Mac to show external drives on the desktop you have to follow the steps,

Step #1: Go to Finder” menu and click on “Preferences.”

Step #2: There check the box near “External disks.”

Solution 6: Check Apple’s Disk Utility

Disk Utility keeps the record of how much storage is used, and unused along with it also shows externally connected drives. If you found any external hard drive on the Disk Utility, then Mount the drive.

Step #1: Click on the “Apple” menu and open “System Preferences.”

Step #2: Select “Disk Utility.”

Step #3: If you see your connected external hard drive on the list then click on “Option” and Mount the drive.

Solution 7: Check Power of your Hard disk

Some of the external hard drives required separate power connection so if you have powered hard drive then you make sure that the drive has enough power. For this, you may need a dual USB cable.

Mac Os External Hard Drive Not Mounting System

If none of the above solution work for you then it might be possible that external hard drive is crashed or damaged.

Solution 8: You consider Replacing your Drive

Test your Drive on other Mac or Windows computer, and if it is not showing on there too then, your hard drive fails and this the time to buy a new one. If you hard drive new and its under warranty or guaranty, then please contact particular seller or company.

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Wrap up:

If unluckily, your Mac is old or even in new Mac the hardware Port frailer, then what next? Apple Store? Yes, you should go to your nearest Apple Authorized service center and ask them your problem regarding Mac doesn’t mount external hard drive. Hope they will guide you honestly. Stay in touch with us for further assistance.

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Get a data lifeguard for Mac

Most of the time, when you connect an external hard drive to your Mac’s USB port, you soon see it mount on the desktop. Apple likes to ensure these are easy to find, so they also appear in the Finder in the left-hand column under Devices, since Mac’s treat them the same way as another computer.

However, sometimes, an external hard drive doesn't show up. It’s annoying, especially when you need to transfer something right then. And besides, there can be a risk that data on the external USB pen, hard, or flash drive is corrupt, which means you can’t transfer what you need between devices at all.

Corrupt data can be one reason your Mac won't recognize an external drive, but there are other reasons too. Let’s take a look why this is happening and how you can get an external drive to appear on your Mac and get recover data to access to your documents.

How to fix an external disk drive that won't show up on a Mac

Why an external disk drive is not showing up? There could be a few reasons why a USB flash drive isn’t making an appearance.

Open an External Drive Not Showing on Mac

Get a huge set of top utilities for troubleshooting external hard drives not mounting on a Mac

Start with the basics:

1. Check whether the drive is properly plugged in. It sounds obvious, but since this relies on a wire - either a USB cable or HDMI cable - if it’s not connected properly then it won’t appear on your desktop.
2. Faulty cable. Assuming it’s plugged in correctly, not wobbly or loose, the cable could be at fault. Try connecting the same device with a different cable.
3. Damaged USB or flash drive port. It could be a hardware issue with the Mac. If you’ve got another port, try connecting the device to that one.
4. Reboot your Mac. Sometimes, if a USB disk won't boot, the cause is macOS issue. Hopefully, some data damage that can be fixed by restarting. Choose the Apple menu > Restart. Or press and hold the power button and, when a dialog box appears, click the Restart or press R. Restarting your Mac essentially clears your macOS’s memory and starts it up fresh.
5. Incorrectly formatted drive. Not every external drive is optimized for Macs. It could be that you are trying to connect something only fit to interact with Windows devices. If you’ve got a PC or laptop, it’s worth connecting and seeing if you can access the files through another device. The best way to look for an incorrectly formatted drive is to go to
   Apple (in the top toolbar menu) > About This Mac > Storage.
   See if the external drive shows up here. For more information, go to the same menu option, then select System Report.
6. Mac not formatted to display external drives on the desktop. It could be that your Mac already recognizes the device, but just isn’t showing its icon on the desktop screen. Even if that is the case, the drive will still appear in the left-hand column of the Finder menu under Devices. You should be able to access your drive that way, and, in the Finder menu under Preferences > General, you can check External Drives to ensure that from now on it shows up on your desktop too.
7. Reset NVRAM. To do this, shut down or restart your Mac, switch it back on and immediately press these four keys together for at least 20 seconds: Option, Command, P, and R. It should look as though your Mac has started again; if it has, release the keys when you hear the second startup chime. Hopefully, the hard drive has shown up now.
8. Check Apple’s Disk Utility to see if an external drive is showing up. Disk Utility is within System Preferences, or you can find it using Spotlight. If it is visible, then click the option to Mount, which should make it visible on the desktop and in the External Drives option in the Finder menu.

Unfortunately, if none of those options has worked and the external drive still isn’t visible, then it could have crashed, or be well and truly broken. But there might still be a way you can recover the data on the external drive.

How to show connected devices in Finder

1. Go to the Finder menu and select Preferences (Cmd+comma).
2. From General tab tick External disks to ensure that from now on it shows on the desktop.

In the Sidebar tab you can choose which folders and devices will be shown in the left-hand column of the Finder window.

How to add cloud storages to Finder

You can also mount cloud storage as local drive on your Mac. By connecting Google Drive, Dropbox, or Amazon to your computer, you get more space for securely accessing and sharing files. For your ease, add cloud drives to Finder with CloudMounter app, so that you keep them close at hand. You can read detailed instructions on managing cloud storage as local drives here.

Repair the failed external drives with First Aid

If your drive is having problems, you can try to fix them yourself with First Aid and therefore get access to your files. First Aid tool will check the disk for errors and then attempt a repair as needed. It helps to verify and repair a range of issues related to startup HD and external drive problems. If you are able to fix the hard drive or SSD in your Mac (or an external drive) using Disk Utility you will hopefully be able to recover your files.

To run Fist Aid on an external hard drive:

1. Open Disk Utility. You can searching for it using Spotlight Search or via Finder > Application > Utility
2. Check on your external hard drive, click the First Aid tab and select Run to start running diagnostics.

If First Aid successful in fixing errors, the external drive should be available to mount. If the utility unable to repair issues, your drive truly is broken or formatted using a file system that the Mac cannot read - in this way we suggest you follow the next steps to recover data from a damaged disk drive.

How to recover data from a crashed drive

Thankfully, there is an app for that. Disk Drill is the world’s premier data recovery software for Mac OS X. Powerful enough to retrieve long-lost, mistakenly deleted files from Macs, external hard drives and USB drives and camera cards.

Get a file recovery app

With Setapp you get a pack of professional tools for file recovery and Mac maintenance.

An easy way to recover lost files on an external hard drive

Providing you already have Disk Drill Pro version, which you can get automatically by downloading from Setapp:

1. Connect your drive to the Mac.
2. Quit all other applications on the Mac, especially those that may be trying to access the external drive (e.g. iPhoto, Words)
3. Launch Disk Drill.
4. Click on the external drive that you are trying to recover files from. If it has partitions, you will see all of them. If, however, you still don’t see any volume to the external drive then you may need to try some of the steps above again or read the Disk Drill Scanning FAQs.
5. To avoid the external drive being accessed during the recovery process, click Extras next to the drive or drive partition or file, then select Remount Volume As Read Only. A padlock will appear, protecting the drive during the process.
6. Now click Rebuild (or Recover) next to the file(s) you are trying to recover. Once the scan is finished - it may take some time if the files are large - a list of files will appeal.
7. Next, click Mount Found Items as Disk button on the bottom-left below the scan results.
8. Disk Drill “strongly suggest saving the files to a different drive than the one you are trying to recover files from. Saving to the same drive substantially lowers your chances of recovery.”
9. A drive icon will appear, which once you double click will give you the option to open the files as you would do before they were lost. Drag them to another location, such as your desktop or a folder on your Mac.
10. Open the files to ensure they have been recovered properly and safely eject the external drive.

Disk Drill does have other ways to recover lost files but assuming there aren’t complications, this method is the most effective. Disk Drill Pro recovery app is available from Setapp, along with dozens of Mac apps that will make your life easier. Never have to worry about a crashed or corrupted external drive again.

A few more tips on getting your files back

1. Macs and third-party apps that look after Macs, such as Disk Drill and iStat Menus come with a S.M.A.R.T. (also known as Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) status monitor. If a SMART check reports errors, then it could mean the hard drive is at risk of failing completely. Within Disk Utility and Disk Drill, there are several solutions for this: Repair Disk Permissions and Repair Disk. If neither work, it’s recommended that you backup all of the data from the disk, erase, then run a SMART check again. The external hard drive should show up as Verified.
2. Partitions can get lost within hard drives, temporarily hiding all of the information contained within. Disk Drill can help to identify and restore this information.
3. Within Disk Drill, you can restore data when a hard drive is damaged or add formatting, which is also something Disk Utility can help with.
4. CleanMyMac, another useful app available from Setapp, can help you identify external hard drive errors and repair them. It is an essential tool worth trying when you’re having external hard drive difficulties.

Try all these apps for free

Get a huge set of top apps for keeping your Mac in shape. Best utilities in one pack, give it a go!

Alternative ways to recover data from an external hard drive

Reset the System Management Controller (SMC) if your Mac shuts down when you plug in an external hard drive. Then use a different port to connect the external hard drive. If you’ve got a battery that you can’t remove:

• Shut down and unplug the power adapter
• Press Shift-Control-Option and the power button at the same time. Do this for 10 seconds
• Release all keys
• Plug the power adapter back in and switch your Mac back on

For Macs with removable batteries, you need to switch them off, remove the battery, then press and hold the power button for 5 seconds. After that, put the battery back in, plug in the power adapter and switch the power on again.

What’s your file format? One reason your Mac isn’t recognizing the hard drive is the file format. Windows uses NTFS file formats, while Macs, up until the introduction of Sierra, have used HFS+. Now, Apple has introduced the Apple File System (APFS) for newer operating systems. It is possible to format a hard drive so it can be read on Mac and Windows computers, providing you format using exFAT. However, if you’re having problems accessing the files and the issue is due to formatting, you will need to connect it to a device it can be read on, and then format the files correctly for the computer you are going to use it on next.

How to make Ext2/Ext3 drives readable on Mac

The common issue is Ext2- and Ext3-formatted drives are not readable on macOS. There are two ways to access such external drives on your Mac – via Linux OS or FUSE system. The easiest would be installing Linux to a secondary drive or virtual machine.

If you go with Linux installation, dual boot your Mac with Linux on another drive and use FAT32 as a transfer intermediary. If you don’t have a drive to install Linux to, use virtual machine as an interface for it. Transferring can be done the same way – with FAT32, or via network.

Another option for reading Ext2/Ext3 disks is mounting disk with Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE). Basically, it works as an extra interface enabling file system access via specially installed modules. Here’s how to mount drives with FUSE:

1. Install FUSE for macOS or MacFUSE as well as fuse-ext2 module.
2. Use the following Terminal command to enable Disk Utility’s debug menu and see all partitions: defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1
3. Attach your Ext2/Ext3 drive and locate the device name via Disk Utility.
4. In your user account, create a folder to be used as a mount point.
5. Use the following Terminal command to mount the drive as read-only: fuse-ext2 /dev/disk2s2 /Volumes/mountpoint
6. For write support, use the command: fuse-ext2 -o force /dev/disk2s2 /Volumes/mountpoint

And that’s not the only case where Terminal helps you access external drive.

Employ the handy all-powerful Terminal, which always comes forward with solutions for difficult problems. Especially if System Information does recognize the USB or hard drive, but continues to hide it from you, disconnect the drive and try to find it using the Terminal, which you can find in Applications > Utilities.

• Once in the Terminal, type in the command diskutil list
• A list with information about volumes and drives should appear
• Look for a section labelled /dev/disk_ (external, physical)
• Make a note of the whole line after the word disk
• Now put the following command into the Terminal diskutil info disk followed by the number or digits assigned to that disk
• Now you should see detailed information about the drive, therefore confirming that your Mac can and does recognize it
• Eject using the Terminal by entering the command diskutil eject disk followed by the number or digits assigned to that disk
• Physically remove the disk from you Mac
• Plug it back in and your Mac should recognize it

Console is also reliable when it comes to solving tricky problems, although it isn’t always that easy to use. You can find Console under Applications > Utilities > Console. Console shows if an external drive or any error is detected under the Errors and Faults tab. If no errors show up, then the problem is not caused by the device.

External Hard Drive For Mac

To sum up, there are lots of potential solutions for a Mac not reading an external hard drive. If we were to pick one, Disk Drill seems to be the most well-rounded, offering plenty of customizations and power in an easy-to-use interface. Disk Drill Pro recovery app is available via Setapp, along with 150+ Mac apps that strive to make your life much much easier. At the very least, you’ll never have to worry about a crashed or corrupted external drive ever again.