My WD Passport Ultra 2TB external hard drive is not showing up in explorer when I plug it into the USB port in a 'normal way'. I have to connect it through a 'bizarre way' to make it show up in explorer. I realizes there were threads related to the same issue, but it's not what I am looking for. Let me explain the 'normal way'.
From the desktop go under Finder to Preferences General and check the box that says External Disks - WD My Passport Ultra 1TB Skip to main content Fix Your Stuff.
If the settings are configured correctly and the WD My Passport external drive is still not showing up on the desktop, please then do as follows and continue checking the issue. Check the cable and port. First, please check the ports on both the external drive case and the Mac. You can change the ports to have a try first.
Summary: This article analyzes why the WD My Passport for Mac drive is not mounting/working on Mac and how to fix this issue. If you worry about losing data, you can recover data from the WD hard drive with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac at first.
What is meant by mounting a WD My Passport drive on Mac?
The WD My Passport for Mac hard drive is specially designed for Mac mini computers, iMacs, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. You can access My passport for Mac drives only when macOS recognizes the format of the drive. This process is called mounting.
However, once your computer fails to recognize that format (also known as file system), the WD My Passport for Mac hard drive is not mounting on Mac computer.
Why is WD My Passport for Mac not mounting?
WD hard drives, including My Passport and Easystore, won't mount on Mac when the disk format is not recognized. Such error could be caused by virus infection, sudden power failure, sudden power outage, unwanted interruption during transferring data, etc. If the external hard drive won't mount, you can't open this WD My Passport for Mac drive and access your important files.
Here is one typical case from forums:
WD My Passport for Mac hard drive (2 TB) won't mount on my MacBook Air, grayed out in Disk Utility. I have 1 TB family photos on this hard drive, which are very precious for me. How to fix if WD My Passport for Mac not working on Mac? Any data recovery solution? Thanks a lot!
If you haven't got an effective workaround when WD My passport hard drive fails to mount in Finder or Disk Utility, this page will help. You'll know how to mount the Western Digital my passport drive on Mac again.
How to fix the unmounted WD My Passport hard drive on Mac?
The connected WD My Passport drive should be automatically mounted on the desktop, in Finder and Disk Utility. When it won't mount on Mac as you expect, you can try these methods.
1. Show the mounted WD My Passport for Mac hard drive on Mac destop
Sometimes, the My Passport drive is recognized and mounted by the Mac, and you just don't see it. You can go to Finder > Preferences and confirm if the 'External Disks' under 'Show these items on the desktop' is selected. This will ensure if the external drives connected to this Mac are allowed to show on the desktop.
But if your WD My Passport drive is not even showing up, it's reasonable that you can't see it mounting on Mac. Then, you shoud check the connections and some hardware issues.
2. Force Mount the WD Mac hard drive in Disk Utility
You can go to Utility and see if this hard drive appears in the left sidebar. If your WD My Passport for Mac drive for Mac is not mounting but grayed out in Disk Utility, you can right-click and select the 'Mount' button to force mount the hard drive. However, if this external hard drive is corrupted, the 'Mount' button will not be available and you need to try the next solution.
But sometimes, you can't mount a hard drive on Mac because of internal disk errors like file system corruption, partition table lost, the directory is corrupted, etc. You WD My Passport for Mac drive won't be recognized by your Mac in these cases. Fortunately, you can fix the hard drive not mounting issue with the native disk repair tool, First Aid.
3. Run First Aid to fix WD My Passport for Mac not mounting error
First Aid is a Mac built-in tool to verify and check minor problems of a hard disk. Whenever you can't mount a WD hard drive or My Passport for Mac is not working, First Aid should be a good disk repair tool.
Step 1: Go to /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility/, then click Continue.
Step 2: In the sidebar, select the unmounted WD My Passport for Mac hard drive.
Step 3: Click the 'First Aid' button.
Step 4: Click Run.
If Disk Utility reports that the WD My Passport for Mac hard drive appears to be OK or has been repaired, you're done. Otherwise, this WD My Passport drive has been corrupted. You have to retrieve your data from this corrupted hard drive as soon as possible.
When those methods didn't make any difference and the WD My passport for Mac hard drive is not mounting still, you need to check some hardware issues that get involved in the disk connection.
Let's start with some basics factors.
4. Check the power supply of the WD My Passport for Mac drive
It's well known that insufficient or no power supply in USB ports could also lead to hard drive not mounting issue. Therefore, you should make sure the WD My Passport for Mac hard drive is getting the appropriate power. If the drive came with a Y-cable, use both USB connectors. Moreover, do not connect the drive through a USB hub, connect it directly to the Mac. Make sure the power adapter is connected directly to a wall outlet, not to an extension cord.
5. Check the USB cable
When external hard drive is not showing up on Mac, ensure the cable is properly connected to both the drive and computer. Then try connecting your WD My Passport for Mac hard drive with a new USB cable if you can fetch another one.
6. Check the USB port of your Mac
If the problem still continues, try using a different USB port. Perhaps your Mac has two USB port - the back and front ones. Assuming the My passport driveis plugged in the front USB port, try to insert the drive to the back USB port.
7. Check for driver update
If the hardware seems to be OK, let's check the software that related to this disk problem. The My passport disk driver, a software component, bridges the operating system and the drive to communicate with each other. But the files of My passport driver could be deleted, outdated, or corrupted for virus invasion or misoperation.
So, when the WD My Passport drive is not working or the external hard drive won't mount on Mac, check the disk driver.
Step 1: Click the Apple icon and select 'App Store…'
Step 2: Click Update (NOT UPGRADE!) to install a specific update or Update All to install all available updates.
Sometimes, WD My Passport for Mac driver, software, and WD disk tool are needed, especially when you want to open a WD My Passport for Mac drive that is locked. You can go to WD official website and download software for WD My Passport troubleshooting and for WD My Passport driver update.
How to fix WD My Passport for Mac hard drive not mounting error without losing data?
However, if WD My Passport for Mac hard drive still won't mount on Mac, the last solutions is to reformat the hard drive. But reformatting will delete all data stored on the hard drive, and most of the time, many important files are stored on the WD My Passport for Mac hard drive.
If you haven't backed up important files, how can you recover files from the WD My Passport drive? It's high time to recover lost data from the unmounted hard drive first.
Step 1: Recover lost data from unmountable hard drive with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac
As for Mac data recovery, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is highly recommended as it's a free Mac data recovery software. It can easily retrieve files from WD Passport drives. This software can recover lost data from corrupted hard drive, unreadable hard drives, formatted hard drives, unrecognized hard drives, unmountable hard drives, inaccessible hard drives, and recover lost data from uninitialized hard drive. You can use this hard drive data recovery software on macOS Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra 10.13/10.12 Sierra and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.
1. Free download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
2. Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac and select the unmounted WD My Passport for Mac hard drive.
3. Click 'Scan' to search for all lost files on this drive.
4. Preview the listed scanning results, choose files we want, and click 'Recover' button to get them back.
Hopefully, you'll get all your files off after the WD My Passport is not working nor mounting.
Step 2: Fix WD My Passport for Mac drive not mounting error by reformatting
After getting lost files back, you can fix WD My Passport for Mac hard drive not mounting error by reformatting without worrying about losing data. This will reset the WD My Passport hard drive.
• Guide to reformat WD My Passport for Mac external hard drive
WD My passport for Mac hard drives always offer quick and easy way to expand the storage space of your computer. It has amazing features like cloud storage, password protection with hard drive encryption, and compatiblity with Apple's Time Machine backup software, so that you can store a massive amount of photos, videos, music and documents.
But the WD My Passport for Mac drive not mounting issue will call a halt on all these good things. You need to repair the WD My Passport for Mac that is not working or corrupted first, and recover data with the assistance of iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
For any questions or suggestions, please email us below.
Summary: Is your external drive WD My Passport not showing up on your Mac? Here’s how to format a drive to be used on Mac, or repair a corrupted external hard drive. Besides, you can learn how to access the contents on WD My Passport that’s not showing up on Mac Desktop/Finder/Disk Utility.
Normally, you will soon see the external drive WD My Passport on the desktop once it’s connected to your Mac’s USB port. Also, you can see it easily in the Finder. You can find it in the left-hand column under Devices. However, sometimes, it’s annoying that your WD My Passport external hard drive doesn’t show up in Desktop/Finder or even in Disk Utility.
And besides, there can be a risk that data on the WD My Passport external drive is lost. That means you cannot access the drive and the data on the drive directly. Here will help you trouble shoot the issues step by step. We can do the best to fix the issue that WD My Passport not showing up on Mac Desktop/Finder/Disk Utility. Or we will help you recover lost data from the damaged drive.
Why isn't My Passport drive showing up on Mac?
There are a variety of reasons why your external hard drive, flash drive, USB drive, or SSD might not be showing up. Sometimes, your WD My Passport external drive not showing up on Mac just because the cable or port on the computer is bad. Or any other reasons will lead to the issue. We will show you the possible reasons as follows.
Faulty USB cable or port.
System failure.
File system is not compatible with Mac.
macOS update issue.
Virus infection.
Motherboard issue.
WD My Passport drive damage.
How to fix a drive that won't show up on a Mac
Here we will troubleshoot the issue one bye one as follows and try to fix the issue. Then we may be able to identify the cause and fix the problem hopefully. After that, you would be able to access your WD My Passport external drive and get your data back without problem.
1. Check and change the system preferences.
One possible reason is that the system preferences are not configured correctly. Please first try to check if the system preferences are set to show mounted drives on the desktop.
1)Click on Finder in the menu at the top of the screen on Mac. 2)Choose Preferences > General, please check and ensure External Drives option is ticked.
If the settings are configured correctly and the WD My Passport external drive is still not showing up on the desktop, please then do as follows and continue checking the issue.
2. Check the cable and port.
First, please check the ports on both the external drive case and the Mac. You can change the ports to have a try first. If it doesn’t work, then it might be the issue of the cable.
Simply, please just change a new cable to make sure the cable is not faulty. Also, if you change the cable but the issue persist. Please also check if the power is enough. If not, the external drive will also not be mounted normally. If you have a cable that splits into 2 USB connectors, please plug both connectors to your Mac to make sure it has enough power supply. If possible, you can try a USB hub/adaptor that has standalone power supply.
3. Try another Mac and then try a PC.
Sometimes, there is problem with the the Mac. So the next step is to plug your WD My Passport external drive to another Mac. If it still cannot be mounted normally on another Mac, then you will know that there is a problem with the drive.
There is another possible reason is that the format of your WD My Passport external drive is not compatible with Mac. So the next step is to try plugging the drive into a PC. If the drive can be mounted and accessed normally on the PC, then the problem is that the format of the drive is only for PC but not for Mac.
4. Check and fix the disk in Disk Utility
If after checking and you find the issues is really related to the WD My Passport external drive, then you can try to fix the drive issues in Disk Utility. Please do as follows step by step to accomplish the task.
Open Disk Utility and check the left panel to see if the WD My Passport external drive appears there. If you can see the drive in Disk Utility, please check the volume on the disk. Please choose the volume and try to mount it.
If there is no volume listed your Mac, it is not able to access the drive then. The Mount option will be greyed out.). In such a case, Disk Utility see your external disk, your options are First Aid, Erase and Restore. First Aid will check the disk for errors and then try to repair the disk if necessary. This is the option to choose for you. Click the First Aid tab and select Run.
If after running First Aid the Mac finds errors you could fix, you may see the option to Repair Disk. If you do, go ahead and run the repairs.
Note: If you still need the data on the damaged drive, please don’t choose the Restore and Erase option. It will cause further damage to the lost data on the disk. We suggest you recover the lost data first. We will share the guide about how to recover lost data later. Please keep reading on.
5. Recover lost data from not showing disk.
If there are important data on the not showing disk, you may want to recover lost data first before repairing the hard disk issue. You can try one of the best Mac data recovery applications in the market. Here we will share you one of the software and tell you how to do the recovery step by step.
TogetherShare Data Recovery for Mac is the software we suggest for you. With this easy-to-use software, you are able to recover lost data from not showing up WD My Passport external hard drive or any other types of devices, including USB key, SSD, memory card, internal hard disk, etc.
Here is a simple and quick tutorial of the software. Only a few easy steps needed, you can get back lost data from the damaged drive effectively.
Step 1. Download the software.
Please download the trial version to scan and check if it works for you before recovering data. Here is the download available for you.
TogetherShare Data Recovery for Mac
Powerful & easy-to-use data recovery software
Step 2. Connect and select the disk.
Connect the disk to the Mac first. Please run the software from Launchpad and select the WD My Passport external hard drive in the device list. Click the Scan button to continue.
The software will scan the disk automatically. With different data recovery methods and technology, the software is able to help you check and find the lost data effectively.
Ste 4. Preview and recover data.
After the scan is finished, you will find all the found files are listed for check. Preview the files to identify the wanted files first. Then choose the files to recover to another drive.
What’s more, if you want to recover lost data in other cases - such as deleted files by accidental, reformat hard drive wrongly, deleted/lost partition, and so on - you can also try to use this software to recover the lost data. It can recover lost photos, videos, documents and other files on any digital storage devices.
6. Format the drive to fix the issue.
If your WD My Passport external hard drive is formatted using a file system that the Mac cannot read, or it is corrupted, you can try to reformat it directly to fix the issue. Of course, we suggest you follow the above tutorial about recovering data from a damaged disk to recover data first if necessary. Then you can try to reformat the drive.
Wd Passport Not Showing Up
Before reformatting the disk, please check and ensure to check the file system that can be read on Mac. Here's a bit of background on file formats: Mac computers, prior to Sierra, used the HFS+ file format. The systems after Sierra use Apple File System (APFS). exFAT or the older FAT32 are formats that can also be read on Mac. If you want your external hard drive to be read by Macs and PCs, you need to format it using exFAT or the older FAT32.
Here's how to reformat your drive in Disk Utility so it can be read by Mac:
1) Open Disk Utility. 2) select the disk and click Erase. 3) Choose your format, give the drive a name. 4) Click on Erase and it will then reformat the drive.
We will also introduce another simple software to help you format the drive. It’s TS DataWiper for Mac. You can download it first to have a try.
TS DataWiper for Mac
Then run it from Launchpad, choose Disk Format. You can see a format button. Just click Format button to format the hard drive.
We suggest this tiny tool for you because it can not only format the drive, but also with this application, you can even wipe the data permanently on any drives. If you want to erase some sensitive data from your drive, you can use it to do the job. However, please note that the wiped data is no longer recoverable, so please be careful to do this.
How to make sure your drive and data is safe?
My Passport Not Showing Up Windows 10
We have final suggestion to make your WD My Passport external hard drive is more safe. Also, we will do our best to make that is more of a guard against this error happening again.
Actually, most drive issues are caused when the disk is removed without ejecting it properly. To make sure that your external drive doesn’t become corrupted again in the future, please always unplug the disk properly after using it. Don’t just unplug the USB cable directly. Please first eject the external hard drive in Desktop or Finder by right clicking the disk and choose Eject. Then you can unplug the WD My Passport external hard drive manually.
Besides, please ensure to check the status of your hard drive after a long time use. If the drive is overused, some issues will happen and cause data loss. Don’t cut down power suddenly while the computer is running or the data is transferring between your devices.
No matter how, please just be careful to use your drives to avoid damage to the drive. More important, data is priceless, so please do the best as above to protect your drive and data.