Top 8 Ways to Fix External Drive Not Showing Up on Mac

Apple MacBook SSD storage is fast but limited in size. Buying a MacBook with more storage will cost a lot. That’s why most Mac users rely on external drives to store data. However, what if your external drive suddenly doesn’t show up on your Mac?

Typically, external drives such as hard disks, portable SSDs, or USB drives should show up on your Mac’s screen within seconds of connecting them. But if you can’t show the external drive on your Mac, try these fixes.

1. Check Dongle and USB connection

Double check that your Mac’s USB port is working properly. If the external drive doesn’t connect and has problems, try attaching it to other laptops and see if it works. You can also try plugging the external hard drive into a different USB port.

Apple’s newer MacBooks come with a USB Type-C port, which requires a dongle to connect to a traditional USB-A external hard drive. You can try attaching other drives or computer peripherals to check if the dongle works.

You can check if your Mac’s USB port is faulty by going to System Report. Click the Apple icon in the top left and select About This Mac, then click System Report. Then in the left pane of the window, in the hardware subsection, click on USB and check if it detects the external hard drive. If yes, it will show something like this.

2. Enable external disk visibility

One of the reasons your Mac might not show your external drive is Finder’s settings. You can enable Finder to detect external drives by following these steps:

Step 1: Go to Finder and at the top left click on Preferences.

Step 2: Under Show these items on the desktop, make sure that the Hard Disk and External Drive options are enabled.

Step 3: Now click on the third tab, Sidebar.

Step 4: Enable Hard Disk and External Disk options in settings Show these in sidebar settings.

3. Update macOS

Try updating to the latest version of macOS and see if the problem is fixed. Sometimes the problem can be related to Finder’s cache, and updating macOS will reset the cache and possibly fix your connection issues. To update macOS, follow these steps.

Step 1: Go to the Apple menu and click About This Mac.

Step 2: Now click on Software Update.

Step 3: Your Mac will automatically check for updates. Install the latest version available.

4. Reset your Mac’s NVRAM and SMC

Resetting NVRAM is an effective way to troubleshoot your Mac. This small storage stores the computer’s settings when the power is turned off. Resetting NVRAM can be helpful to help your Mac recognize external drives.

To reset NVRAM, restart your Mac. Before you hear your Mac’s startup sound, just press and hold Option + Command + P + R on your keyboard for about 20 seconds. This will reset both NVRAM and PRAM.

In certain cases, resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) can also help. To reset the SMC, press and hold Control + Option + Shift on your keyboard for about 7 seconds. After 7 seconds, press and hold the Power button. Now press the Power button again to turn on your Mac, this will take some time.

5. Repair external drives with Disk Utility

Sometimes the file system of an external drive can become corrupted. Disk Utility is a built-in tool provided by Apple to fix those. Disk Utility’s First Aid feature helps mount unrecognized external drives.

Step 1: Launch Disk Utility on your Mac.

Step 2: If the external drive you want to connect to is listed in gray, click it.

Step 3: Now click on the First Aid tab from the top pane and click Run.

Step 4: Wait for the process to complete.

The external drive will automatically mount if it is repaired. If not, you can try mounting the external drive in Safe Mode. If it doesn’t mount even after that, you can try resetting your drive.

6. Attach an external disk in safe mode

There may be an application that prevents your external drive from attaching to the system. There are apps that interfere with your Mac’s USB connection, and if that’s the case, you can try attaching an external drive to your Mac in Safe Mode.

Step 1: Shut down your Mac.

Step 2: Press the Power button and now press the Shift key as soon as you hear the Mac startup sound.

Step 3: Release the Shift key as soon as you see the progress indicator.

You should now notice that your Mac has started in Safe Mode. If you can see your external drive in Safe Mode, it means an app you recently installed is obstructing the drive and you should uninstall it.

7. External drive detected as read-only

If you can see the external drive attached to your Mac but can’t copy content to it, chances are the drive you’re trying to write to is NTFS formatted. The NTFS format is proprietary to Microsoft Windows.

NTFS drives are readable on macOS, but you cannot write data on them. To write to an NTFS volume on your Mac, you need to install third-party NTFS software to easily write to and read data from.

If you don’t want to install third-party software, you can format the external drive into popular formats like FAT32 or exFAT that all operating systems can read and write. However, you will not be able to copy individual files larger than 4GB.

8. Format your external drive

In case none of the options work for you, it’s possible that the data on your external drive is corrupted. You can try erasing your external drive in such cases. To erase your external drive, follow these steps.

Step 1: Open Disk Utility on your Mac.

Step 2: Select the drive that you want to delete from the sidebar.

Step 3: Now select Delete from the top pane.

Step 4: Name your external drive and choose the appropriate format.

Step 5: Click Delete, select the appropriate Format and let the process finish.

Troubleshoot external drives on Mac

When the external drive is not showing up on your Mac, you can follow the solutions mentioned above. While they can be useful, we recommend backing up important data on your external drive.

Next: Having trouble with AirDrop not working on Mac? Read the post below to learn how to fix the problem.

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