my passport external hard drive not showing up mac

#MY PASSPORT EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE NOT SHOWING UP MAC HOW TO#
#MY PASSPORT EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE NOT SHOWING UP MAC DRIVERS#
#MY PASSPORT EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE NOT SHOWING UP MAC SOFTWARE#
#MY PASSPORT EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE NOT SHOWING UP MAC MAC#
#MY PASSPORT EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE NOT SHOWING UP MAC CRACK#

#MY PASSPORT EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE NOT SHOWING UP MAC DRIVERS#

Sometimes old drivers can cause a device to malfunction when connected to Windows.

Let’s start with some common problems and their solutions.

#MY PASSPORT EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE NOT SHOWING UP MAC SOFTWARE#

If you connect the drive to the computer and nothing happens, one of several things could be going on: your hard drive might have a problem, the correct software or drivers are not installed on your system, or there is something not working properly with the operating system. When you format a drive in OS X using Disk Utility, you can also choose the exFAT format if you like. In Windows, you can choose exFAT as the file system format in addition to NTFS and FAT32. You’ll have to be running OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) or higher or Windows XP or higher. It’s newer and supports much larger files, but only works with newer versions of OS X and Windows. If you need support for bigger files, then you should use the exFAT format.

#MY PASSPORT EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE NOT SHOWING UP MAC HOW TO#

You can read my previous post on how to format an external hard drive using FAT32. So what’s the best format to use so that you can see your hard drive on multiple operating systems? The legacy format that is most compatible is FAT32, but it limits you to only 4 GB for max file size. Make sure you connect the drive to the appropriate operating system and backup any data that you might need before performing a format. If you see this message, it just means that Windows does not recognize the file system on the drive. When you connect a HFS+ formatted drive to Windows, you’ll get a message stating that the drive needs to be formatted in order to be used. The only other option is to format the hard drive and use the FAT32 format for the best compatibility. You can get Windows to do it, but you have to purchase third-party software. Windows is worse in the sense that it cannot even read or write to HFS+ formatted volumes by default. Now OS X can read and write to FAT32 formatted drives, but can only read NTFS volumes. When it comes to file formats, there are a couple of major formats that are used about 99% of the time: FAT32 and NTFS for Windows and HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) for Macs. Scroll down to the Not Showing Up section below. If the drive is not showing up in Disk Management or Disk Utility at all, you have some other type of problem.

If the drive has a file system not recognized by OS X, you’ll need to erase it and the format it using FAT or HFS+. If the drive is showing here, but not on the OS X desktop, then click First Aid to try and repair the drive. If not, go to Disk Utility and check to see if it appears under the heading External. On Macs, the drive should automatically appear on the desktop. If the drive is showing, but you’re getting messages about the drive needing to be formatted, etc., then read the next section below. people that assume a non-working HD is a 'bad' HD when in fact the HD is just 100% fine, its just that miserable little circuit card.Pick a letter for your drive and you should be good to go. If a HD is over 3 months old (most all 'bad' HD fail usually before the 3 month mark) and LESS THAN 5 years old and treated very well. people that assume a non-working HD is a 'bad' HD when in fact the HD is just 100% fine, its just that miserable little circuit card.

#MY PASSPORT EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE NOT SHOWING UP MAC CRACK#

You have 2 options, offload all data onto another HD that will work on that one Mac, OR crack open the HD case and remove the HD itself and put into another enclosure ($10-15$ ebay).Ī SATA card is about the size of a stick of gum, its plugged into the HD with a female USB connection on the other side, it unplugs in 1/2 a second from the HD once you get into the HD casing.

#MY PASSPORT EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE NOT SHOWING UP MAC MAC#

This is why some of us HD 'collectors' call this the 'haunted HD syndrome' 😐, where a HD acts utterly illogical and contrary to common sense diagnostics (works fine on ONE Mac but not another) It makes very little logical sense to most (for obvious reasons), but that that one Mac is no longer able to communicate with said HD due to the SATA card. The case being, your other Macs will read/ write to this HD fine, but this one Mac wont. (and you swapped out HD USB cables too on the 'bad' HD?).Īfter swapping cables between the '2 identical WD USB HD', you have (nearly 100% certainty) a bad SATA card as I stated much earlier.

My passport external hard drive not showing up mac