External Drive Not Showing Up on Mac? Here‘s How to Fix It

It‘s a horrible feeling when you connect an external hard drive or SSD to your Mac and nothing happens. Panic sets in as you wonder if all your important files and precious memories are lost forever.

Take a deep breath. In most cases, there‘s an easy fix and your data is probably still there. Follow along with this troubleshooting guide and we‘ll have you reunited with your external drive in no time.

Why is my external drive not showing up?

There are a few reasons why your Mac might not be recognizing an external drive:

• The drive is not properly connected
• The drive isn‘t getting enough power
• The drive is formatted for Windows and your Mac can‘t read it
• The disk is not "mounted" and accessible to your Mac
• Finder preferences are set to not show external drives
• Software bugs or hardware issues

We‘ll go through how to check for each of these problems and solve them one by one. Grab your external drive and let‘s get started!

Basic troubleshooting

First, let‘s tick off the basics:

1. Check the physical connection

Unplug the drive and plug it in again, making sure the cable is securely connected at both ends. Inspect the cable and ports for any visible damage. Try a different cable if you have one handy.

2. Try a different USB port

Connect your drive to a different USB port on your Mac. If it works, that means the original USB port may be faulty.

3. Make sure the drive has sufficient power

Some external drives need extra juice, especially larger mechanical hard drives. Try plugging your drive into a powered USB hub or using a different power adapter if it came with one. Bus-powered drives should work when connected directly to your Mac.

4. Restart your Mac

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?" is a cliché for a reason. Restarting your Mac can clear out minor software bugs that may be preventing the external drive from being recognized.

1. Unplug the external drive.
2. Go to the Apple menu and select Restart.
3. Plug the drive back in after your Mac boots up.

If your external drive still doesn‘t show up after the basic fixes, don‘t worry. We‘re just getting started.

Check Finder preferences

Believe it or not, there‘s a setting in Finder that can hide external drives from view. Here‘s how to check it:

1. Open a Finder window and go to the Finder menu > Preferences.
2. Click the General tab.
3. Under "Show these items on the desktop," make sure External disks has a checkmark next to it.
4. Click the Sidebar tab.
5. Under "Locations," make sure External disks has a checkmark.
6. Close the preferences window.

Your external drive should now appear in the Finder, both on the desktop and in the sidebar of the Finder window.

Manually mount the disk in Disk Utility

Before your Mac can access an external drive, the disk needs to be "mounted." This happens automatically most of the time, but sometimes you need to do it manually.

1. Open Disk Utility. You can find it in Applications > Utilities or search for it with Spotlight.
2. Look for your external drive in the list on the left. It will probably be grayed out.
3. Select the grayed out disk and click the Mount button in the toolbar.

If you get an error message when trying to mount the disk, or the Mount button is disabled, move on to the next step.

Repair the disk with First Aid

Disk Utility has a built-in repair tool called First Aid that can fix many disk issues:

1. In Disk Utility, select your external disk in the sidebar.
2. Click the First Aid button at the top of the window.
3. Click Run to confirm.
4. Wait for the repair process to finish. Don‘t put your Mac to sleep or unplug the drive during this time.

Hopefully, after running First Aid, your drive will show up and you‘ll be able to access your files. If First Aid found and repaired errors, it‘s a good idea to back up your important data, as the drive may be on its way to failure.

Reformat the drive as a last resort

If your external drive is still not cooperating, the last weapon in our arsenal is the nuclear option: erasing it and starting over.
Reformatting a drive will permanently delete all the data on it. Only do this if you‘ve tried everything else, and if recovering data from the disk is not important. If you had any irreplaceable family photos or crucial work files on there, stop here and consult a data recovery specialist.
Here‘s how to reformat a drive using Disk Utility:

1. Select your external drive in the Disk Utility sidebar. Make sure to select the parent disk, not a volume nested beneath it.
2. Click Erase at the top of the window.
3. Give your drive a name, then choose a format:
   • APFS is best for SSD drives
   • Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is best for mechanical hard drives
   • exFAT is best if you need to use the drive on both Mac and Windows computers
4. Click Erase, then Done when the process is complete.

Reset NVRAM/PRAM and SMC

If your Mac isn‘t recognizing your drive even after trying all of the above fixes, there may be a deeper software or hardware issue at play. Two things that can help are resetting your Mac‘s NVRAM/PRAM and SMC.

NVRAM (non-volatile random-access memory) and PRAM (parameter RAM) store settings like startup disk selection, time zone, and speaker volume. Corruption of this data can cause external drive issues. Here‘s how to reset it:

1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Press the power button, then immediately hold down the Option, Command, P, and R keys all at once.
3. Keep holding the keys for about 20 seconds, or until you hear the startup chime a second time.

The SMC (system management controller) handles things like thermal management and battery charging. To reset it:

• On desktop Macs, unplug the power cord for 15 seconds, then plug it back in.
• On MacBooks with non-removable batteries, shut down the Mac and hold Shift+Control+Option along with the power button for 10 seconds, then release all keys and turn it on again.
• On MacBooks with removable batteries, shut down the Mac, remove the battery, then hold the power button for 5 seconds. Reinstall the battery and turn your Mac on.

If you have an Apple silicon Mac (M1/M2 chip), your Mac doesn‘t have NVRAM/PRAM or a separate SMC. Just shut it down and leave it off for at least 30 seconds, then start it up again.

Contact Apple Support

If you‘ve followed all these steps and your external drive still won‘t show up, it‘s time to admit defeat and call for backup. Contact Apple Support and explain the issue you‘re having along with all the troubleshooting you‘ve already done. They can help you with more advanced diagnostics or arrange a hardware repair if necessary.

Wrapping up

External drive issues are never fun to deal with, but don‘t despair. In most cases, the data on your external disk is probably still intact, even if the drive itself is being stubborn.

With some patience and the troubleshooting steps outlined above, you should be able to make your external drive show up and accessible again:

• Check physical connections and try different ports/cables
• Ensure the drive has adequate power
• Reboot your Mac
• Verify Finder preferences to unhide external drives
• Mount the drive with Disk Utility
• Run First Aid to repair disk errors
• Reformat the drive if all data is backed up elsewhere
• Reset NVRAM/PRAM and SMC to resolve hardware bugs
• Get help from Apple Support as a last resort

Good luck and may your data be with you! Let us know in the comments if these tips helped you or if you have any other advice to share.