My Book Duo Won't Mount On Mac
Most of the time, when you connect an external hard drive to your Mac’s USB port, you soon see it mount on the desktop. Apple likes to ensure these are easy to find, so they also appear in the Finder in the left-hand column under Devices, since Mac’s treat them the same way as another computer.However, sometimes, an external hard drive doesn't show up. It’s annoying, especially when you need to transfer something right then. And besides, there can be a risk that data on the external USB pen, hard, or flash drive is corrupt, which means you can’t transfer what you need between devices at all.Corrupt data can be one reason your Mac won't recognize an external drive, but there are other reasons too.
Let’s take a look why this is happening and how you can get an external drive to appear on your Mac and get recover data to access to your documents.How to fix an external disk drive that won't show up on a MacWhy an external disk drive is not showing up? There could be a few reasons why a USB flash drive isn’t making an appearance. Killing floor 2 controls ps4. ✕Start with the basics:. Check whether the drive is properly plugged in. It sounds obvious, but since this relies on a wire - either a USB cable or HDMI cable - if it’s not connected properly then it won’t appear on your desktop. Faulty cable. Assuming it’s plugged in correctly, not wobbly or loose, the cable could be at fault.
Try connecting the same device with a different cable. Damaged USB or flash drive port. It could be a hardware issue with the Mac. If you’ve got another port, try connecting the device to that one.
Using the My Book Icon Right- or control-click the My Book icon on the desktop and click Eject “MY BOOK” where “MY BOOK” is the name you assigned to the volume when you reformatted the drive for use on a Mac computer: You might hear the drive power down. The My Book™ Duo drive has massive capacity for storing photos, videos, documents and music. RAID-0 mode provides super-fast performance with up to 360MB/s2 sequential read speeds (using the USB Type-C™ port). Switch to RAID-1 configuration for redundancy and to mirror data on the WD Red™ drives inside. A USB Type-C port with all cables included makes it universally compatible (supports.
Reboot your Mac. Sometimes, if a USB disk won't boot, the cause is macOS issue. Hopefully, some data damage that can be fixed by restarting.
Choose the Apple menu Restart. Or press and hold the power button and, when a dialog box appears, click the Restart or press R. Restarting your Mac essentially clears your macOS’s memory and starts it up fresh. Incorrectly formatted drive.
Not every external drive is optimized for Macs. It could be that you are trying to connect something only fit to interact with Windows devices. If you’ve got a PC or laptop, it’s worth connecting and seeing if you can access the files through another device. The best way to look for an incorrectly formatted drive is to go toApple (in the top toolbar menu) About This Mac Storage.See if the external drive shows up here. For more information, go to the same menu option, then select System Report. Mac not formatted to display external drives on the desktop. It could be that your Mac already recognizes the device, but just isn’t showing its icon on the desktop screen.
Even if that is the case, the drive will still appear in the left-hand column of the Finder menu under Devices. You should be able to access your drive that way, and, in the Finder menu under Preferences General, you can check External Drives to ensure that from now on it shows up on your desktop too. Reset NVRAM. To do this, shut down or restart your Mac, switch it back on and immediately press these four keys together for at least 20 seconds: Option, Command, P, and R. It should look as though your Mac has started again; if it has, release the keys when you hear the second startup chime.
Hopefully, the hard drive has shown up now. Check Apple’s Disk Utility to see if an external drive is showing up. Disk Utility is within System Preferences, or you can find it using Spotlight. If it is visible, then click the option to Mount, which should make it visible on the desktop and in the External Drives option in the Finder menu.Unfortunately, if none of those options has worked and the external drive still isn’t visible, then it could have crashed, or be well and truly broken. But there might still be a way you can. How to show connected devices in Finder.
Go to the Finder menu and select Preferences (Cmd+comma). From General tab tick External disks to ensure that from now on it shows on the desktop.In the Sidebar tab you can choose which folders and devices will be shown in the left-hand column of the Finder window.How to add cloud storages to FinderYou can also mount cloud storage as local drive on your Mac.
By connecting Google Drive, Dropbox, or Amazon to your computer, you get more space for securely accessing and sharing files. For your ease, add cloud drives to Finder with CloudMounter app, so that you keep them close at hand. You can read detailed instructions on managing cloud storage as local drives.
Repair the failed external drives with First AidIf your drive is having problems, you can try to fix them yourself with First Aid and therefore get access to your files. First Aid tool will check the disk for errors and then attempt a repair as needed. It helps to verify and repair a range of issues related to startup HD and external drive problems. If you are able to fix the hard drive or SSD in your Mac (or an external drive) using Disk Utility you will hopefully be able to recover your files.To run Fist Aid on an external hard drive:. Open Disk Utility. You can searching for it using Spotlight Search or via Finder Application Utility. Check on your external hard drive, click the First Aid tab and select Run to start running diagnostics.If First Aid successful in fixing errors, the external drive should be available to mount. If the utility unable to repair issues, your drive truly is broken or formatted using a file system that the Mac cannot read - in this way we suggest you follow the next steps to recover data from a damaged disk drive.
How to recover data from a crashed driveThankfully, there is an app for that. Is the world’s premier data recovery software for Mac OS X. Powerful enough to retrieve long-lost, mistakenly deleted files from Macs, external hard drives and USB drives and camera cards. ✕ An easy way to recover lost files on an external hard driveProviding you already have Disk Drill Pro version, which you can get automatically by downloading:. Connect your drive to the Mac.
Quit all other applications on the Mac, especially those that may be trying to access the external drive (e.g. IPhoto, Words). Launch Disk Drill. Click on the external drive that you are trying to recover files from. If it has partitions, you will see all of them.
If, however, you still don’t see any volume to the external drive then you may need to try some of the steps above again or read the Disk Drill Scanning FAQs. To avoid the external drive being accessed during the recovery process, click Extras next to the drive or drive partition or file, then select Remount Volume As Read Only. A padlock will appear, protecting the drive during the process. Now click Rebuild (or Recover) next to the file(s) you are trying to recover.
Once the scan is finished - it may take some time if the files are large - a list of files will appeal. Next, click Mount Found Items as Disk button on the bottom-left below the scan results. Disk Drill “strongly suggest saving the files to a different drive than the one you are trying to recover files from.
Saving to the same drive substantially lowers your chances of recovery.”. A drive icon will appear, which once you double click will give you the option to open the files as you would do before they were lost. Drag them to another location, such as your desktop or a folder on your Mac.
Open the files to ensure they have been recovered properly and safely eject the external drive.Disk Drill does have other ways to recover lost files but assuming there aren’t complications, this method is the most effective. Disk Drill Pro recovery app is available from Setapp, along with dozens of Mac apps that will make your life easier. Never have to worry about a crashed or corrupted external drive again. A few more tips on getting your files back.
Macs and third-party apps that look after Macs, such as and come with a S.M.A.R.T. (also known as Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) status monitor. If a SMART check reports errors, then it could mean the hard drive is at risk of failing completely. Within Disk Utility and Disk Drill, there are several solutions for this: Repair Disk Permissions and Repair Disk.
If neither work, it’s recommended that you backup all of the data from the disk, erase, then run a SMART check again. The external hard drive should show up as Verified. Partitions can get lost within hard drives, temporarily hiding all of the information contained within. Disk Drill can help to identify and restore this information.
Within Disk Drill, you can restore data when a hard drive is damaged or add formatting, which is also something Disk Utility can help with., another useful app available from Setapp, can help you identify external hard drive errors and repair them. It is an essential tool worth trying when you’re having external hard drive difficulties. ✕ Alternative ways to recover data from an external hard driveReset the System Management Controller (SMC) if your Mac shuts down when you plug in an external hard drive. Then use a different port to connect the external hard drive.
If you’ve got a battery that you can’t remove:. Shut down and unplug the power adapter. Press Shift-Control-Option and the power button at the same time. Do this for 10 seconds. Release all keys. Plug the power adapter back in and switch your Mac back onFor Macs with removable batteries, you need to switch them off, remove the battery, then press and hold the power button for 5 seconds. After that, put the battery back in, plug in the power adapter and switch the power on again.What’s your file format?
One reason your Mac isn’t recognizing the hard drive is the file format. Windows uses NTFS file formats, while Macs, up until the introduction of Sierra, have used HFS+. Now, Apple has introduced the Apple File System (APFS) for newer operating systems. It is possible to format a hard drive so it can be read on Mac and Windows computers, providing you format using exFAT.
However, if you’re having problems accessing the files and the issue is due to formatting, you will need to connect it to a device it can be read on, and then format the files correctly for the computer you are going to use it on next. How to make Ext2/Ext3 drives readable on MacThe common issue is Ext2- and Ext3-formatted drives are not readable on macOS. There are two ways to access such external drives on your Mac – via Linux OS or FUSE system.
The easiest would be installing Linux to a secondary drive or virtual machine.If you go with Linux installation, dual boot your Mac with Linux on another drive and use FAT32 as a transfer intermediary. If you don’t have a drive to install Linux to, use virtual machine as an interface for it.
Transferring can be done the same way – with FAT32, or via network.Another option for reading Ext2/Ext3 disks is mounting disk with Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE). Basically, it works as an extra interface enabling file system access via specially installed modules.
Update:After about 3 weeks. I plugged in again into my MacBook and left it there.
After more than an hour I came back and the drive showed up on my Mac again. (So somehow the problem got fixed.)I ran First Aid on Mac's Disk Utility. It says the drive appears to be OK. So I don't know what fixed it exactly.Problem:When I plug my WD Passport Ultra 4TB external hard drive WDBBKD0040BBK-0A (with 2TB of family photos) into my MacBook Pro it has fast flashing of light and can't be mounted. It can be read on a Windows laptop (after Windows automatically fixed an error). I tried opening up Disk Utility on my Mac, but it just spins forever trying to mount the external hard drive. Nothing ever shows up on Disk Utility.How it broke:The WD Passport Ultra was plugged into my MacBook on battery.
I was not actively reading or writing to the external hard drive, but it did have a list of directories open (no individual photo files, but just the directory names). The battery ran out.When I charged up my Mac again it says that the disk was not ejected properly. Ever since that my WD hard drive has the flashing problem and can't be mounted on my Mac. I tried changing the Mac laptop, changing the USB cord, same problem.I then plugged in my WD hard drive to a Windows laptop. It says that it detected an error and had the option of automatically fixing it. I clicked 'Start' and let it ran, but it didn't have a progress bar and just had a 'Cancel' button.
After running for 3-5 minutes, my mom came in and unplugged the external hard drive forcefully (I yelled at her for doing that). We tried plugging it into the Windows laptop again, and my files and photos could be read!! But it still can't be read on Mac and has the flashing problem.Why is it like this?
What is broken? How can I test what is broken?I'm asking because I have had accidentally unplugged other WD external hard drives without ejecting in the past while not writing data, like in this case, but the drives never broke. What is up in this case?I'm curious if this is something that happens a lot or if it's just a less durable hard drive I got. Because I'm at a point where WD's warranty can give me a new drive to replace it, or I can fix this drive myself. (I have copied the photos out to a new drive on a Windows machine.) Because if it is something that happens with the same frequency in all drives, shouldn't I just fix it?What is the best free software program on Windows that might potentially fix my problem?
Mac programs are good too if they can actually access it since my Mac can't even mount it. As you have backed up the photos on the windows machine, you should try to use disk utility to fix your drive. There might be a volume mounting error or a format error, which can be fixed by using a function in disk utility called 'first aid'.On your Mac, spotlight search for disk utility. It should show up. When it opens you should see a column on the left with all your disks listed there.As you can see, this column has both internal and external drives listed there.
Be extremely careful, do not tamper with the internal drives. Go over the list very carefully and select your external drive. It should be fairly obvious which one it is. In your case it should be labeled as something similar to WD passport ultra.
If not, you can look at the storage capacity and check if it matches with your disk's (here, 4TB).Next you need to run first aid. A self explanatory button placed towards the start of the row on the top says first aid. Click and let the magic happen! If it doesn't start right away, you may have a different version of macOS. In the case of this, click on verify the disk.
Next, click on repair.While doing this, please make sure no one yanks the cable out because that will be very, very bad.If these situations occur:. You see the output The volume 'diskname' appears to be OK., but the problem still isn't fixedor. You see the output Scan complete. Problems were found, but Disk First Aid cannot repair them.then you can try to install and use DiskWarrior or try other solutions given on this thread.
You could also try reformatting the disk, the steps for which I can edit in later.@jksoegaard's method looks promising too.Good luck! For Macs, if your External Hard Drive is not showing up in Disk Utility. And you have ruled out damaged drive and cable. The next step you should try is using Terminal.Search Bar: Terminal.Type diskutil list, press enter.Find the Name of your External Hard Drive, it should show up here if it is not damaged.The External Hard Drive name is the next line under EFI EFI. Example 'Productivity', 'Universal' etc.If name is Universal, Type diskutil mount Universal, press enter(instead of typing the name of the drive, you can also type in the identifier, eg. 'disk3s1, disk2s1, etc')The External Drive should show up on Finder or Desktop. Good Luck, hope that works for you.
The same happened to me.Here's what fixed the problem for me.It was ejected improperly because my Mac went to sleep mode or shut down because the battery drained, so it will simply appear to not be mounted until that completes.For the fsck process to complete, it may take as the amount of time relevant to the memory stored on your Disk. Please connect your Diskand allow it to sit for few minutes to hours.It took me about 10-15 mins (My 1TB Disk was 250GB full and 750GBempty)A quick way to 'fix' this is to manually force quit the fsck process from activity monitor. (not recommended because you have to restore the disk i think).