My passport ultra for mac not showing up

"I have a WD My Passport external which is not recognized on Mac, but I have stored many files on this external HDD. So can anybody tell me how to recover data from an unreadable external hard drive for Mac? I have some important excel files on this external, so I would appreciate it very much if anybody can recommend useful excel recovery software."

WD My Passport external hard drive is able to work on Mac and Windows PC for data transferring or backup. If a WD My Passport external hard drive is not recognized by Mac OS, you had better make it clear if the problem is caused by external HDD error or Mac OS crash.

Windows? -> [5 fixes] how to fix wd usb disk not showing up on Windows 10

Here are 4 fixes for you on MAC for fixing the wd disk not showing up problem.

#1 - Try it on another mac machine

You can connect the WD My Passport to another computer to see if it can work normally. Once you are sure that the WD My Passport is corrupted and becomes inaccessible, you had better stop performing any further data writing to this external.

#2 - Recovering files from WD My Passport that Is Not Readable on Mac

For an unreadable external hard drive data recovery, you need to rely on a professional data recovery program. Free mac data recovery tool such as Lazesoft Data Recovery for mac is a good solution for data recovery from any storage media including WD My Passport when it is not detected by Mac OS or other PC.

My passport ultra for mac not showing up

Also read: 5 free file recovery software for mac

Option: Recovering data from wd external hard disk with free data recovery software on Windows 10 - iCare Data Recovery Free.

My passport ultra for mac not showing up

#3 - Fix WD My Passport Not Showing UP on MAC with Disk Utility

My passport ultra for mac not showing up

Also read: 5 free ways to repair usb disk on mac

#4 - Check Finder preference

Check wether the disk is selected under finder preference under General, and Sidebar.

Also read: 5 free ways to repair usb disk on mac

Possible Reasons Why WD My Passport Does Not Work on Mac

Everybody knows that the most important thing is to restore all lost data when a WD My Passport drive is not recognized on Mac, but many people still like to know the reasons why an external hard drive stops working on Mac. Here are some possible reasons:

  • WD My Passport external contains too many bad sectors
  • The WD My Passport is infected with virus or Trojan
  • WD My Passport portable HDD file system is corrupted
  • WD my passport external hard disk is formatted wrong or needs updated drivers
  • More other reasons

Solution When WD My Passport Is Not Recognized due to Incompatibility issue

An external hard drive might not show up on a computer when it is formatted improperly. As you know, when you buy a new external hard drive, it usually has FAT32 or NTFS file system. Both of file systems are able to be recognized by Windows OS, but it might become unreadable when you plug an external hard drive that has FAT32 or NTFS file system to a Mac computer. Therefore, if a WD my passport external hard drive is not recognized by Mac OS, but it is able to be compatible with Windows OS, you only need to format it to HFS+ file system which is able to be recognized by Mac OS.

WD My Passport Does Not Show up due to Virus Attack

As mentioned above, an external hard drive must be formatted properly so that it can be detected by Windows or Mac OS. However, sometimes, virus infection might corrupt the file system of WD my passport external hard drive and make it not show up when you connect the external to your computer. In this situation, you can recover all inaccessible data at first and then you can run antivirus software to scan the external hard drive and finally format the external into proper format.

WD My Passport External Is Recognized on Mac but becomes Inaccessible

Another situation is that the WD my passport portable hard drive can show up on Mac OS when you plug it to your computer, but the problem is that you are unable to access any data stored on this disk. In this situation, you can also check whether the external hard drive file system is compatible with Mac OS. If WD my passport external HDD has unknown file system, you can use iCare Data Recovery to recover files from inaccessible drive and then try to format the WD my passport external hard drive to HFS+ file system. If you want to use your external hard drive in Windows PC, you can connect it to a Windows PC and format RAW to NTFS file system.

It does not matter why a WD My Passport external HDD is not recognized, you have chance to recover files from WD portable hard drive which is not detecting as long as it is not physically damaged or overwritten.

How do I fix my WD passport Ultra not detected?

Follow the below steps:.
Type “devmgmt. msc” in the search bar and hit Enter..
Device Manager will open..
Navigate to “Disk Drives” and expand it..
Right-click on WD My Passport. ... .
Click on Properties..
Select Driver tab..
Click Update Driver..
In the box that pops up select Search automatically for drivers..

Why is my WD external hard drive not showing up on Mac?

Show the WD hard drive in the Finder and Desktop In this case, you can change the preferences to show the WD hard drive on your Mac computer: Step 1: Go to Finder > Preferences > General, and make sure the "External disks" option is ticked. This will make the recognized WD hard drive show up on the Desktop.

How do I get my Mac to recognize my passport?

Part 2 - How to Format WD my Passport for Mac?.
Login into your Mac. Just turn on your Mac and when it boots up, plug in your My Passport drive to your WD. ... .
Navigate to Finder if Your Drive Isn't Visible. ... .
Launch Disk Utility. ... .
Access your Drives. ... .
Select "Extended Mac OS (Journaled)" ... .
Eject Your Drive..

Why is my WD external hard drive not showing up?

Change the USB Port/Cable to Detect WD External Hard Drive If the WD external hard drive cannot be detected or fails to show up on your PC, change the USB port (you may try to connect the external hard drive to the motherboard), or connect it using a different USB cable to check if it shows up on the PC.