WD Hard Drive Not Showing Up on Mac? Fix with 7 Effective Ways

Sometimes, you connect your WD external hard drive to the Mac, but it doesn't show up in Finder or Disk Utility. Why does the WD hard drive not show up on Mac? This issue can be caused by various reasons, such as incorrect settings, a damaged WD drive, incompatible file formats, and more.

In this article, we will show you 7 effective ways to fix the issue of WD hard drive not showing up on Mac:

• Solution 1: Check the USB cable with another device
• Solution 2: Review settings in Finder and Disk Utility
• Solution 3: Eject the WD drive and restart your Mac
• Solution 4: Force mount the WD drive in Disk Utility
• Solution 5: Run "First Aid" to fix WD drive errors
• Solution 6: Change the format of the WD drive
• Solution 7: Reset your Mac's NVRAM or PRAM

If your WD hard drive is not showing up on Mac due to incorrect settings, congratulations, you just need to change the settings on your Mac without worrying about data loss.

Unfortunately, however, if the worst comes to worst and your WD hard drive fails, you stand at the risk of losing your data. In such a case, consider retrieving your data before fixing the errors.

Preparing: Recover Data from WD Hard Drive

Solving issues with WD hard drive like WD Passport not showing up on Mac may lead to data loss. So, you should first recover the stored data to prevent permanent loss.

Consider using a professional and reliable data recovery tool like Data Recovery Wizard for Mac, which can recover data from external hard drives, internal hard drives, SD cards, USB flash drives, and more. Moreover, its powerful scanning capabilities allow you to see all files on your Mac hard drive, including hidden, deleted, and lost ones.

Tool for Data Recovery helps you easily recover data from hard drive in the following situations:

• The external hard drive is detected on a Mac or Windows PC but won't open.
• The external hard drive doesn't show up on a Mac with macOS Ventura, Sonoma, or earlier versions.
• WD My Passport won't mount on a Mac, or WD Easystore won't mount on a Mac.

Moreover, the tool can also fix a corrupted hard drive on Mac and restore data from it. Here are the steps to recover an invisible WD hard drive on Mac:

Step 1: Search for the Lost File

Connect the external hard drive to your Mac correctly. Launch the Disk Drill data recovery tool for Mac, and select the external drive. Click “Search for Lost Data” to find missing or deleted files on the external device.

Note: Before you recover data, it's recommended to click “Disk Backup” from the left sidebar and create a backup of your external hard drive to prevent further data loss. After backing up the external hard drive, the software can recover data from the backup of the external hard drive. Then, you can safely remove the external hard drive and use it again.

Step 2: Filter and locate missing files

After the scan, all file types will be displayed in the left panel. Select a file type to look for the files you need on the external device.

Step 3: Preview and recover

Click on a file to preview it, then select the files you want to restore and hit the “Restore” button. You can save your data to both local and cloud drives.

After retrieving the stored data, you can proceed to fix the WD hard drive not showing up on Mac issue with peace of mind, without the fear of losing any data! If you found this article helpful, please share it on social media to let more people know how to resolve this error.

8 Ways to Fix WD Hard Drive Not Showing Up on Mac Issue (UTF-8)

We've tested 7 effective methods to fix the problem of WD hard drive not showing up in Mac Finder or Disk Utility. Let's check them out!

# Solution 1: Test the USB cable with another device

Try using a different USB cable or connecting to another computer to determine if the problem is with the drive, the cable, or your Mac.

Solution 2: Check the settings in Finder and Disk Utility

When your WD external hard drive doesn't show up on your Mac, the first thing to consider is that it might not be properly enabled to show in the display settings. Follow these steps to address the issue:

Step 1. Click on “Finder” from the top menu, then go to “Finder > Preferences (or Settings) > General.”

Step 2. Select the “External drive” option.

Solution 3: Eject the WD Drive and Restart Your Mac

Restarting your MacBook Pro or Air can also resolve many macOS issues. Before restarting your Mac, though, make sure you safely eject the WD drive. Here's how:

Step 1. Click on the Apple icon in the top menu.

Step 2: Click “Restart” to reboot your computer.

Solution 4: Force Mount WD Hard Drive in Disk Utility

Moreover, if the WD hard drive is not showing up on Mac because it's not mounted, you can force mount it by following these steps:

Step 1: Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder within the Applications folder in Finder.

Step 2: In the Disk Utility window, select the WD drive and click “Mount” from the top menu.

Fix 5: Run First Aid to fix WD hard drive errors

If your WD hard drive is not showing up on Mac due to corruption, don't worry! Here are the steps to fix it using macOS's built-in features:

Step 1: Open Disk Utility and select the WD hard drive from the left panel.

Step 2. Click on “First Aid” from the top menu, and then click “Run” to proceed.

Wait for the process to complete; you should then be able to access your WD drive. If the First Aid process fails, this article can help you fix the problem.

Please provide the English content you want translated, and I'll do my best to translate it into Chinese.

Disk Utility First Aid Process Failed [With 5 Effective Fixes]

This article discusses how to fix the "First Aid process has failed" error on your Mac. Read More >>

Solution 6: Change the WD Hard Drive Format

An incompatible file system format also causes WD hard drive not showing up on Mac. Here's how to reformat it:

Step 1. Open Disk Utility and select the WD drive on the left.

Click on “Erase” from the top menu, and a window will pop up.

Step 3: Choose the new format (read our APFS vs Mac OS Extended comparison) and the new name for your Western Digital drive. Click “Erase” again to confirm.

Solution 7: Reset the NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac

If you have an Intel-based Mac, follow these steps to reset the NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac:

Important: Don't use a wireless keyboard to reset the NVRAM or PRAM, because it might not work.

Step 1: Turn off your Mac, and then press the power button to restart it.

Step 2: Hold down the "Command + Option + P + R" keys until you see the Apple logo appear again.

After that, you can reset the NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac when you restart it.

If you have an Apple Silicon Mac, you don't need to reset the NVRAM manually. Macs with M-series chips automatically check the NVRAM on startup and trigger a reset if any issues are found.

Conclusions

This article presents 7 effective solutions to address the issue of a WD hard drive not showing up on a Mac, including checking the USB cable with another device, examining display settings in Finder, restarting the Mac, and using Disk Utility to mount, repair, or format the WD hard drive.

Before you fix the error, it's recommended to install a powerful and reliable data recovery software tool like Data Recovery Wizard for Mac to retrieve your stored data. Additionally, this professional data recovery software also offers an intuitive backup option that lets you create a backup quickly!

Of course, I can assist you in translating English into Chinese. Please provide the English content you would like translated.

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"FAQ: Western Digital Hard Drive Not Showing Up on Mac"

Below are some questions people often ask when searching for how to fix a WD hard drive not showing up on Mac error:

1. Why can't my WD external hard drive show up on my Mac?

There are several reasons why a WD external hard drive might not show up on a Mac, such as incorrect settings, which is one of the easiest problems to fix: Go to “Finder > Preferences > General” and check the “External disks” option.

2. How do I get my WD drive to work on a Mac?

You can try switching the USB port, edit Finder preferences, restart your Mac, run Disk Utility on the WD drive, change its format, and more to get the WD hard drive working on your Mac.