Wd Hard Disk Not Detected In Mac

If you can see the hard drive in Disk Utility check underneath it for a volume. If it is there click on it and select Mount. If your Mac has already mounted the drive the option Unmount will be. Sep 23, 2021 External Hard Drive Not Recognized Mac Dec 26, 2016 Under “File Explorer” open the drive: WD My Passport (or name you gave it) WD backup.swstor the name of your computer Volume Users (select your user) finally, you should find the picture folder with all your pictures. I am using a 2TB WD passport in my mac for the past 10 months. It was working fine till now, but all of the sudden the hard disk is not getting recognised in my mac. The LED in the hard disk is glowing, but the hard disk is not getting recognized. I have tried to connect with other cables too, its not working. All my important data is in this hard disk. Please help me, ASAP. Now turn off the Mac for a few minutes. Then reconnect the external hard drive and turn on the Mac. Use a USB-SATA / IDE adaptor. If your hard drive is not even connecting to any of the Mac, then you might use a USB-SATA/ IDEA adaptor to know if your hard drive is working or not.

The WD external hard drive not recognized issue on your computer is just as an illness on your body, which also with symptoms. An unrecognized WD external hard drive may not show up in File Explorer, Disk Management, or Device Manager. Or even worse, your computer becomes slow for this issue.

This post will make your WD external hard drive recognizable by checking and fixing the connections, software and hardware issues, and more. When you:

Can't find the WD external hard drive in File Explorer: Go to fix...
Also can't find the WD external hard drive in Disk Management: Go to fix...
Can't find the WD external hard drive anywhere in your PC: Go to fix...

Part one: Fix the connections of the unrecognized WD external hard drive

When you can't find your WD external hard drive on your computer, you should first consider if the connections go wrong.

First, check the power connections of the WD external hard drive

Some WD hard drives like WD MY Passport are powered through the USB cable while some others like WD D10 Game Drive via a separate power cable. The following is what you can do for checking power source of different WD hard drives.

• WD hard drives powered through a USB cable:

Step 1: Reconnect the WD external hard drive to another USB interface on the PC.

Note: This will not only test if the interface is working but also confirm if the power from the interface is insufficient or not.

Step 2: If the flashlight off or the WD external hard drive is not spinning, reconnect it to the other PC. If it works, the USB interface of your PC is damaged.

Step 3: If it doesn't work, replace the USB cable to a new applicable one to check if it's damaged.

Step 4: Check the USB hub (if you used) by directly connecting the USB cable to your PC.

• WD hard drives powered by separate power cable:

Step 1: Directly connect your WD external hard drive to the wall socket to avoid current loss.

Step 2: If the flashlight still off, check the WD disk's power interface by replacing a new power cable.

Step 3: No changes, so the power interface may need to be repaired.

Step 4: If its flashlight on after replaced with a new power cable, it is the power cable damaged.

Step 5: By the way, don't connect the other device if the WD external hard drive works with a Y cable.

Your WD external hard drive lights on with normal running sound but still not working? You'd better check the data transmission and other issues in the later part.

Second, check the data transmission of the WD external hard drive

Although the WD external hard drive is powered, without the right data transmission it still can't be recognized by Windows. Usually, the data transmission is through a USB cable. Thus:

Step 1: Make sure the computer interface matches the disk interface. Use a USB hub to switch the cable interface of your WD drive if it's a USB-C (Type-C).

Note: Don't mistakenly connect the USB 3.0 WD drive to the USB 2.0 one. The two are different in the transfer rate.

Step 2: Re-plug the USB data cable to the other USB port on your PC or re-plug it to another computer.

Step 3: Still not recognized? Change an applicable USB data cable.

Step 4: If use a USB hub, change a new one or directly plug the hard drive to the computer.

Third, reset the BIOS settings

BIOS (a former of UEFI) is an Input/Output System in your PC. You can check the BIOS settings if the WD drive enables the USB port or not. If not, reset the settings.

After fixed the connections issues, check if the WD external hard drive shows up in File Explorer again. If not, try to fix the other issues of the WD hard drive.

Part two: Troubleshoot the unrecognized WD external hard itself

Usually, if a hard drive can't be recognized by Windows (no connection issues), it will be displayed abnormally or even not displayed in Disk Management. Go to Disk Management to have a further check if can't find the WD drive in File Explorer.

Check the unrecognized WD external hard drive in Disk Management:

Right-click This Computer and choose Manage to enter into Computer Management, then select Disk Management to check the condition of the WD external hard drive.

Commonly, when the unrecognized WD external hard can be found in Disk Management, it displayed as:

Portable Hard Disk Not Detected

1. The WD external hard drive is not initialized

Just like with a new iPhone, you need to set it up before using it. Similarly, a hard drive that can be used to store files after being initialized, partitioned, and formatted. This could causes an WD external hard drive used as PS4 extended drive not recognized.

If it is a new WD external hard drive, just initialize, partition, and format it.
While if it is an old one (usually with data), you need to recover the data on it with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Windows before doing the above operations, or worse, replace this WD hard drive (the WD is physically damaged).

2. The drive letter of the WD external hard drive is missing

The drive letter of a hard drive like a lighthouse to guide you find it. So, assign a drive letter to the WD external hard drive can make it be recognized by the OS:

Right-click the WD external hard drive and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths...
Click Add and select Assign the following drive letter. Then choose a drive letter.

3. The WD external hard drive labeled unknown, RAW partition, or displays an incorrect capacity

It is caused by the file system of the WD hard drive can't be recognized or supported by the Windows. You can try the ways below:

Update the OS to match the WD hard drives or change a suitable hard drive. For example, some WD game drives like WD P10 Game Drives are only compatible with Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.
Make the file system of WD external hard drive compatible with your Windows. Windows only support NTFS, exFAT, FAT32.
Still not works? Recover important data if any and reformat the WD hard drive ( for it may corrupted).

4. The WD external hard drive displays as unallocated space

The unrecognized WD external hard drive has unallocated space, which is a result of no existing partitions or the original partition is deleted or lost. Assign a volume to the hard drive may make it recognizable:

Right-click the unallocated WD external hard drive.
Choose New Simple Volume and follow the prompts to click the required buttons.

5. The WD external hard drive is offline

Every hard drive in a Windows computer must be online before it can be used. So, just turn the offline hard drive online:

• Right-click the WD external hard drive and select Online to reactive it.

If the WD external hard drive not showing up in Disk Management, you need to check if it has problems in encryption, hardware issues or others. So, go to have a further check.

Unlock the unrecognizable WD external hard drive that is encrypted:

1. Your WD external hard drive is BitLocker encrypted

Windows BitLocker is an encryption feature to help users protect their data on the hard drive. Without a password, the BitLocker hard drive can't be accessed. So:

Use the password to unlock it.
Forget the password? Type ' bitlocker ' in the taskbar and open the Manage BitLocker panel to turn off BitLocker.

2. Your WD external hard drive encrypted with WD Security for Windows

Set by WD Security for Windows, the WD hard drive is password protected like My Passport or My Book. Thus, to make it accessible, you should:

Type the password in the prompted box to unlock the WD drive.
If the password is lost, you have to reformat it (The formatting will make the data lost).
If you uninstalled the WD Security for Windows on the hard drive before unlocking it, you should reinstall this software from the WD website and turn down the encryption settings.

Try to fix the hardware issues of the unrecognized WD external hard drive:

1. Check WD external hard drive with Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows

Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows is used to check and repair some of WD hard drive errors, which is suitable for WD Elements, My Passport Ultra, etc. So you can have a try:

Download Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows to your WD external drive from the WD support official site and install it.
Highlight the WD external hard drive and select the run icon on the top row.
When the 'DLGDIAG - Select an Option' window appears, choose the Extended Test.
Get the message about your WD external hard drive.

2. Fix WD external hard drive (if it's an SSD) by using Western Digital SSD Dashboard

Western Digital SSD Dashboard is used to keep the SSDs in a good performance. It can also analyze the SSD and update the firmware of SSD.

Download the Western Digital SSD Dashboard to your WD disk from the WD official support site. Then, follow the instructions to install it.
After installation, Western Digital SSD Dashboard will work automatically.

• Fix SSD Not Showing up in Windows

3. Use chkdsk to check & repair the errors on WD external hard drive

Chkdsk is a system tool and command that used to check and fix the errors of disks except for bad sectors. You can try to use chkdsk to repair the hard drive errors like fixing WD external hard drive errors:

Press Win key + R key simultaneously to run into CMD panel.
Type ' chkdsk /f e: ' (Here the /f means to fix, the letter e: should be replaced with the drive letter of the WD external hard drive).
Type ' Y ' (means Yes) when asked whether to check and fix this disk when your PC restarts next time. Then, restart your computer.

Part three: Check the software of the unrecognized WD external hard drive

WD sells WD hard drives installed with different software according to its using purpose. But sometimes, it is the software that causes your WD external hard drive not accessible or not recognized.

Update WD software installed in your unrecognizable WD external hard drive:

Check the version, the applicable hard drives, and the OS of the software at the WD official support site.
Update the version of the software to the latest if it is too old.
Uninstall the software if updating makes no difference. Then, eject the WD hard drive and re-plug it to your PC.

Install the WD driver for the WD external hard drive:

Usually, you can try to fix the disk driver issues with the functions in Device Manager. Right-click This Computer and select Disk Management. Then, choose Device Manager to open the panel.

If you make sure the WD hard drive is not hidden after checking Device Manager >Disk drives >View >Show hidden devices, you can try to fix its disk driver:

1. For WD external hard drive shows up in Disk drives:

It means the disk driver of the WD drive is detected but may with some bugs.

Right-click the WD hard drive and click Uninstall. Then reboot the PC to check if it shows up in File Explorer.
If no, right-click it and select Update Driver Software... and then restart your computer.

2. For WD external hard drive shows up in Other devices:

Oftenly, it is labeled with a ' ! ' symbol or indicates Unknown device. This situation means that the WD drive's disk driver is not detected. Follow these operations to repair:

Right-click the WD external hard drive and click Uninstall. Then restart your PC to check if it can be detected in Disk drives.
If no, right-click it again. Select Update Driver Software and then, click Search automatically for updated driver software.

If the WD external hard drive still doesn't display in Other devices, go back to check the connections. Besides, after your PC restarts, if it still shows with a ' ! ' symbol or indicates as Unknown device, maybe the WD external hard drive needed a WD driver.

3. Download and install the WD driver for your WD external hard drive

If your WD hard drive shows as WD SES Device USB device in Other device with a ' ! ' symbol, it only can be driven by a WD SES driver. Thus, try to download and drive with a WD SES driver:

The newer WD SES drivers are installed automatically with WD Security, Drive Utilities, and Smartware. Thus, you can install any of this three software you need to install the WD SES driver.
If you just want to install a WD SES driver, go to download at WD official support website.

The WD external hard drive not recognized, usually, are caused by some of the features of WD hard drives. However, there is always a solution to the problem. Hope you can make your WD external hard drive be read and wrote again with this article.

'I have a WD My Passport Ultra 1TB portable drive for storing important personal files. Suddenly, the WD Passport ultra is not showing up on my PC.
How do I fix My WD Passport Ultra not showing up on my computer?'

When your WD My Passport Ultra hard drive or external hard drive is not showing up, you can neither access nor use the drive on your computer.

But don't worry. Follow this guide, you'll learn the causes and fixes to the WD Passport Ultra external hard drive not showing up error on your own.

Here is the complete guide to making your WD Passport external hard drive detected again:

PAGE CONTENT:

Fix 1. Add New Drive Letter
Fix 2. Fix Corrupted File System/Bad Sector
Fix 3. Plug WD My Passport Halfway-in-USB
Fix 4. Try a Different USB Cable/Port or PC
Fix 5. Update WD External Device Driver & Reinstall BUS Controllers
Fix 6. Send Disk for Repair

Some of you may also want to learn what causes the wd external hard drive not showing up on the computer. Continue reading and check it out.

Why is My WD Passport Not Showing Up?

We consulted many experienced users and IT professionals, and we concluded the causes below. Check out why is your WD Passport Ultra external not showing up:

1. A faulty USB port/cable, or a damaged USB hub on PC
2. No drive letter is assigned to WD Passport drive
3. Corrupted file system or bad sectors makes WD drive unreadable
4. WD drive driver is out of date
5. Universal USB controllers drivers are outdated

These causes may also lead to some of your other devices malfunctioning, such as:

So how to fix these errors and make your WD Passport Ultra external hard drive show up on PC again? Follow through the tutorials below to get rid of this issue immediately.

Part 1. Check The State of WD External Hard Disk in Disk Management

Connect the WD external hard drive to your computer via the USB cable. Follow steps here to check the state of your WD external hard drive in Disk Management:

Step 1. Press Windows + R keys, type diskmgmt.msc in the Run box, and click 'OK'.

Step 2. In Disk Management, locate and check the state of your WD external hard drive.

Part 2. Fix WD My Passport External Hard Drive Not Showing Up Error

Check the state of your not showing up or not detected WD My Passport Ultra external hard drive and refer to the right fix to make your drive work normally again.

Fix 1. Add New Drive Letter to Make WD Passport External Hard Drive Showing Up

Applies to: Fix WD passport external hard drive not showing up due to the drive letter confliction.

If your WD displays as 'New Volume' with no drive letter in Disk Management, it won't show up in File Explorer. Don't worry.

You can change or add a new drive letter so to make WD passport detectable and accessible again in Windows PC:

Step 1. Press Win + R keys, type diskmgmt.msc in the Run dialog, click 'OK' to open Disk Management.

Step 2. Right-click on WD drive which fails to show up and choose 'Change Drive Letter and Paths...'.

Step 3. Click 'Add', set a new drive letter to assign to the WD external drive, and click 'OK'.

If the WD drive has already been assigned with a letter, click 'Change' to choose another letter for it. After this, restart your PC and check if you can visit the WD external hard drive in Windows File Explorer.

Fix 2. Fix Corrupted File System/Bad Sector

Applies to: Fix WD passport external hard drive not showing up due to file system error or bad sectors.

If the system files are corrupted or the WD device contains bad sectors, Windows disk management may detect it as '*Others' or RAW. Your computer may not even able to detect it from File Explorer.

EaseUS partition manager software with its Check File System feature can help. As long as your Disk Management can detect it, you can apply this tool to fix the corrupted file system and bad sectors on WD hard drive.

Follow to see how to fix corrupted system files and bad sectors on WD device:

After this, you can check the drive. If your files were missing, move to Part 3 and apply reliable data recovery software to bring back all your WD external hard drive data.

Fix 3. Plug WD My Passport Halfway-in-USB

This method is more like a temporary solution. According to a user's feedback on a forum, in this 'bizarre way', his computer successfully recognized the external hard drive. Here's how to do it.

Step 1. Plug the USB cable halfway through any one of your computer's USB ports.

Step 2. Wait for the WD hard drive to show up in File Explorer.

Step 3. When you see your hard drive, push the USB completely into the USB port.

It might be unreasonable, but quite a lot of people solved their problem with this trick. Have a try on it!

Fix 4. Try a Different USB Cable/Port or PC

When your WD hard drive neither shows up in File Explorer nor Disk Management, you can try to change the USB cable, try another USB port, or a new PC to see if the drive can be read or not.

Step 1. Switch a USB port/cable and replug it to your computer.

If the drive can be read via new a USB cable or on a new PC, then the drive is working fine. The problem is with the USB cable.

Step 2. Reconnect the WD drive via a new USB hub or to a new PC.

If the WD Passport drive shows up, it is the damaged USB hub that stops WD from showing up.
If the WD passport is not detected either on your current or the new PC, replace the WD drive with a new one.

Fix 5. Update WD External Device Driver & Reinstall BUS Controllers

When the WD Passport drive is not working, it might be caused by the outdated device drivers. So the best way is to update its driver via the following three paths:

#1. Download and Install WD Device Driver:

Step 1. Connect the problematic WD external hard drive to your PC.

Step 2. Right-click on the Windows icon and select 'Device Manager'.

Step 3. Find and expand Disk Drivers, Portable Devices, Universal Serial USB Controllers, or Other devices.

See if the WD external hard drive is shown as an 'Unknown' device.

Step 4. Right-click on Unknown or not working WD external hard drive, select 'Properties'.

Step 5. Go to the Details tab, set Property to 'Hardware Ids'.

Step 6. Right-click the top Value and click 'Copy'.

Step 7. Paste it into a browser and search for the correct device driver.

Step 8. Find and download the correct WD device driver and install it on your PC.

After this, restart your computer. And everything shall work fine with your WD My Passport Ultra drive.

#2. Update WD Device Driver from Device Manager:

Step 1. Right-click on the Windows icon and select 'Device Manager'.

Step 2. Expand Device Manager and right-click the WD My Passport Ultra drive.

Step 3. Select 'Update driver'.

Step 4. Select 'Search automatically for updated driver software', wait for the process to complete.

#3. Uninstall/Reinstall USB Controllers

When the Universal USB Bus Controllers are outdated, it may also stop your WD passport from being detected or showing up. So you can try to uninstall and reinstall USB controllers:

Step 1. Right-click on the Windows icon and select 'Device Manager'.

Step 2. Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers, right-click on USB controllers of the WD drive, and select 'Uninstall device'.

Repeat to uninstall each USB controller one by one.

Step 3. Restart the computer and Windows will automatically reinstall the USB controllers of your WD drive.

After this, you shall be able to visit and access saved data on your WD Passport Ultra drive normally by then.

Notice:: If the WD external hard drive is still not showing up in both File Explorer and Disk Management after trying all these solutions, send your drive for repair as shown in Fix 3.

Fix 6. Send 'Unknown' & Not Detected WD External Hard Disk for Repair

If your WD external hard drive displays as 'Unknown' in disk management, the last thing you can try is to send the disk for repair.

You have two options for this issue:

Option 1. Beyond the Warranty: Send WD external disk for repair in a local repair center
Option 2. Within the Warranty: Send WD external disk back to its manufacturer

Part 3. Get Data Off WD External Disk and Format It to Work Again

If your WD hard drive shows up and you can access the disk again. Take the last guide in this part to fully protect your files and make the WD external hard drive viable for saving and editing data again.

#1. Get Data Off WD External Hard Drive

Here are two ways that you can fully get files from your WD external hard drive:

1. Open and copy data from your WD hard drive to another storage device as a backup.
2. Recover lost files from WD drive with EaseUS file recovery software.

Note that, if you lost some valuable files during the process, don't worry. Professional file recovery software can scan and bring back your files in 3 steps:

Step 1. Choose the external hard drive

Since you're going to recover data from an external hard drive, you need to correctly connect the drive to your Windows computer.
Run EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard and choose the exact external drive where you lost data.
Click Scan.

Step 2. Check the scan results

The software will immediately start scanning the selected drive for all lost data. During the scan, you can see more and more data showing up in the results. The Filter feature is there for you to quickly locate the files of one kind, such as Pictures, Word/Excel/PDF documents, Videos, etc.

Wd Hard Disk Check

Step 3. Preview and recover data

Double-clicking a file will allow you to preview its content.
Choose the file(s) and click Recover.
Select a different drive to save the recovered files instead of the original one.

Remember to save the recovered files to another secure location and then move to the next guide to format your WD My Passport external hard drive to usable again.

#2. Format WD External Hard Drive to Usable

Here, you may also let EaseUS Partition Master help. It's easy and efficient in formatting a disk:

Step 1. Launch EaseUS Partition Master, right-click the partition on your external hard drive/USB/SD card which you want to format and choose the 'Format' option.

Wd Drive Imac Not Finding

Step 2. Assign a new partition label, file system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3), and cluster size to the selected partition, then click 'OK'.

Step 3. In the Warning window, click 'OK' to continue.

Wd Hard Disk Not Detected In Mac Os

Step 4. Click the 'Execute Operation' button in the top-left corner to review the changes, then click 'Apply' to start formatting your external hard drive/USB/SD card.

After this, you can save the data back to your WD external hard drive again.

Make Your WD External Hard Drive Show Up and Work Now

On this page, we explained why is WD My Passport Ultra external hard drive not showing up on Windows PC and provided 6 practical fixes for you to follow and make the drive show up again.

As a beginner, we suggest that you follow the whole guide one by one. These fixes also work to resolve the same issue on all brands of external hard drive, internal hard drive, USB, or SD card.

Now, it's your turn. Take steps to fix your not showing up WD external hard drive and make it work again without losing any data.

Foxweek987