- My WD Passport Ultra 2TB external hard drive is not showing up in explorer when I plug it into the USB port in a 'normal way'. I have to connect it through a 'bizarre way' to make it show up in explorer. I realizes there were threads related to the same issue, but it's not what I am looking for. Let me explain the 'normal way'.
- If the WD My Passport for Mac still doesn't show up or work on Mac after the basic checks, go ahead to try out the solutions as below to make it show up on Mac. Fix 2: Check Finder Preferences If your WD My Passport is not showing up in Finder and desktop, it's possible that the configuration of the Finder Preferences prevents your WD My.
Question: Q: WD My passport not showing up on desktop when plug in I've just brought a 500GB WD portable hard drive but when i plug it into my mac it isn't coming up on the desktop. The hard drive itself is making a noise when its plugged in, but nothing else is happening.
A few days ago while I was trying to transfer files from the WD My Passport Ultra 2TB to the Time Capsule, it suddenly became unrecognizable. I've replaced the cable (no difference) and also run the Disk Utility on it. Disk Utility displayed the drive as uninitialized. It allowed me to run first aid, but then it just said 'operation successful' and there's no change to the drive. Please help!
Similar to what happened above, when WD My Passport is uninitialized on Mac, Disk Utility may show the drive uninitialized and all partitions get lost. Most of time, Disk Utility doesn't even read the drive. In this case, each time you plug into your WD My Passport, the operating system can't recognize it, making all data on the drive inaccessible. Have no idea of what goes wrong? Just keep reading. This passage will focus on how to fix WD My Passport uninitialized on Mac without data loss.
How to fix WD My Passport uninitialized on Mac?
Unfortunately, First Aid can only repair some tiny disk errors, WD My Passport uninitialized issue is beyond its capability. Under this circumstance, initializing the external disk is the most effective and easiest way. But if you have useful data, please back up before initializing. Forget to make any backup?iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery can help you.
Recommend: recover lost data from uninitialized WD My Passport on Mac at first
As free Mac data recovery software, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac enables you to recover lost data from uninitialized WD My Passport on Mac and other brands of external hard drive,recover lost data from uninitialized AppleAPFSMedia, even recover lost data after initialize a disk, whatever the drive is formatted to APFS, HFS+, HFS, exFAT, FAT32. It is compatible withmacOS Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra 10.13/Sierra 10.12/10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.
Besides, it can alsorecover lost data even emptied from Mac Trash Bin, recover lost data from formatted drive,recover lost data from unmountable drive, recover lost data from unreadable drive, recover lost data from inaccessible hard drive, USB flash drive, SD card, memory card, pen drive, digital camera, etc.
Step-by-step tutorial to recover lost data from uninitialized WD My Passport on Mac
Step 1: Download, install and launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on your Mac.
Step 2: Click 'Find Lost APFS Partitions' on the top right corner and then choose the uninitialized WD My Passport to scan all lost partitions on this drive.
Step 3: Select the partition where you lost data and click 'Next' to scan all lost files on this partition.
Step 4: Preview the scanning results, and click 'Recover' to finish recovery process.
Step 5: Go through to ensure you have got all lost files back.
Try to initialize WD My Passport on Mac
If you have made a backup of WD My Passport or you don't care about the data on the drive, you can directly initialize the drive in Disk Utility.
Step 1: Launch Disk Utility from Utilities.
Step 2: Select the uninitialized WD My Passport on the left part of the window.
Step 3: Click the Erase on the top of the Disk Utility window.
Step 4: Complete the related information (name, format, scheme, etc.), then click Erase button.
Common reasons for WD My Passport uninitialized on Mac
If you want to find out the cause of WD My Passport uninitialized on Mac, please recall what operations you did with the external hard disk before your hard drive not initialized. Did you plug the drive into unsafe computer? Did you interrupt the process when trying to partition the drive? Did you experience power failure or system crash when using the portable drive? Here are some general reasons for WD My Passport uninitialized:
1. File system corruption.
2. Virus infection.
3. Bad sectors.
4. Head volume corruption.
5. Connection problem.
According to your own situation, you can determine what might be the real cause. Even so, the most important thing is to fix WD My Passport uninitialized on Mac.
See also: How to fix when WD external hard drive for PS4 not recognized/not working?
Can't See Wd My Passport On Mac
Still have questions?
How $15anhour wages helped my business succeed. '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. 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 operation to this external and then you can use data recovery software to get back lost data.
Wd My Passport For Mac Not Showing Up
WD hard drives, including My Passport and Easystore, won't mount on Mac when the disk format is not recognized. Such error could be caused by virus infection, sudden power failure, sudden power outage, unwanted interruption during transferring data, etc. Just turn on your Mac and when it boots up, plug in your My Passport drive to your WD. Your WD My Passport drive will appear as a rectangular, yellow icon on your desktop (it looks just like the image below). Navigate to Finder if Your Drive Isn't Visible.
Data Recovery When WD My Passport Is Not Readable on Mac
For an unreadable external hard drive data recovery, you need to rely on a professional data recovery program. iCare Data Recovery 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. You just need to plug the external to a PC, and this data recovery software will deep scan the external even if it cannot work normally. iCare Data Recovery is a read-only program which is compatible with Windows OS, so you should plug your external to a Windows PC in order to retrieve all lost data when the WD My Passport is not recognized on Mac. Now, you can follow the steps below to recover unreadable data:
Step1. Download and install iCare Data Recovery on Windows PC. Run the software and choose a proper scan mode.
Step2. Select the WD My Passport external and then wait the software to scan it.
Step3. When scanning is completed, you can preview found files and then save the lost data to another drive.
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:
Western Digital Passport Utility
- 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.
Wd My Passport For Mac Not Showing Up On Desktop
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.
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