My Passport Not Showing Up On Mac

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As mentioned above, malfunctioned USB port or Mac computer, the broken USB cable and some hardware problems can also make WD My Passport not showing up on Mac. You can do some basic checks to troubleshoot whether this issue is resulted from those factors. The first step is straightforward, where you need to test the WD My Passport with any other Mac or Windows laptop to see if it’s accessible or not. If it’s not accessible, it means the WD Passport may be corrupted. As a caution, you shouldn’t write any further data on this external drive. Some Quick Fixes if External Drive is Not Showing. As mentioned above, malfunctioned USB port or Mac computer, the broken USB cable and some hardware problems can also make WD My Passport not showing up on Mac. You can do some basic checks to troubleshoot whether this issue is resulted from those factors.

'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.'

Mac

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.

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.

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

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.

My Passport For Mac Not Showing Up On Pc

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.

My Passport Hard Drive Mac

Last updated on Aug 30, 2021

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Last updated on Aug 30, 2021

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Summary: WD My Passport for Mac is not showing up Mac? Follow the tutorial in this article to fix WD My Passport not working issue and recover data from unrecognized WD My Passport for Mac.

It is easy use your WD My Passport for Mac and Windows in 7 steps. You’ll find other documents on the site all about your WD My Passport portable external hard drive. Why not take a look: Format WD My Passport for Mac, 10 Quick Steps. How to Use WD My Passport for Mac 5 Ways No Anger. Partition WD My Passport For Mac, Teach Yourself in 10 Steps. Shop WD My Passport for Mac 2TB External USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive with Hardware Encryption (Latest Model) Blue at Best Buy. Find low everyday prices and buy online for delivery or in-store pick-up. Price Match Guarantee. I have the same problem with WD my passport ultra 1TB external USB disk (after upgrading to High Sierra) but fortunately I've installed Windows 10 on BOOTCAMP and then Parallels Desktop 13 on macOS 10.13.5 and do active as a system Windows 10 in this Parallels, and then surprise, after booting Windows 10 from Parallels Desktop 13 connect WD disk it is visible, accessible as read only, but I.

Everything has flaws, even the WD My Passport for Mac drive that you used for years.

It happens frequently that:

  • WD My Passport won't show up when connecting to your Mac computer
  • WD My Passport is greyed out in Disk Utility
  • WD hard drive's light is on but not working after macOS Big Sur update
  • My Passport WD external drive won't open the password application on M1 Mac
  • Mac didn't unlock the My Passport WD drive but asking for WD Drive Unlock application
  • My Passport WD becomes encrypted or unreadable on your Mac
My Passport Not Showing Up On Mac

Either way, your important data on this drive will become inaccessible and concerns you a lot.

If the WD My Passport is not showing up on Mac desktop, Finder or Disk Utility after connecting to your Mac, how to find it and make it work? If you can't see files from WD external hard drive on Mac, how to access data? You'll get answers here.

Troubleshoot WD My Passport not showing up on Mac issue

Usually, malfunctioned USB port or Mac computer, the broken USB cable and some hardware problems could make WD My Passport not showing up.

You can do the following basic checks before go further troubleshootings.

  • Safely remove the WD My Passport and reconnect it to the USB port. Try quickly plug and slowly plug, which sometimes just works for no reason.
  • Check whether the USB cable or USB port is bad by connecting other hard drives to this USB port or cable and see if that makes a difference.
  • Reboot your Mac computer to see if your WD My Passport drive is not showing up in Disk Utility/Finder or not.
  • Connect the WD My Passport to another Mac computer or Windows PC, which will find out if it is the incompatible file system of the drive that makes this WD My Passport undetectable.

How to fix WD My Passport not showing up on Mac issue?

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If the WD My Passport for Mac still does not work or not show up on Mac after the basic checks, go ahead to try out the solutions as below to make it show up on Mac.

Solution 1: 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 is stopping your WD My Passport drive showing up.

In other words, you didn't allow the connected hard drives showing up in the Finder or on the desktop.

Now, follow the guide below to set Finder Preferences and make the WD My Passport for Mac show up in Finder or on the desktop.

  • 1. Go to Finder > Preferences > General tab.
  • 2. Tick the 'External disks' option to show the WD My Passport for Mac on the desktop.
  • 3. Go to Sidebar tab, tick 'External disks' under 'Devices' to show your WD My Passport for Mac in Finder.

Solution 2: Check My Passport for Mac in Disk Utility

If the WD My Passport for Mac drive is still not showing up in Finder or on the desktop, you can see whether it is showing up in Disk Utility or not.

When checking WD My Passport in Disk Utility, you could have two results:

1. Your WD My Passport drive is detected and showing up in Disk Utility, but it is greyed out or not mounting.

2. Your WD hard drive is not recognized, so it's not showing up in Disk Utility at all.

Here, we'll show you solutions to case 1.

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Method 1: Mount WD My Passport for Mac in Disk Utility manually

Sometimes, hard drives cannot be automatically mounted in Disk Utility, even though Mac has detected the hard drive. So it's possible that you'll see the WD My Passport for Mac drive not mounting in Disk Utility. In this situation, you can manually mount the hard drive.

  • 1. Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
  • 2. Click 'Show All Devices' in View option at the left corner of Disk Utility.
  • 3. Select your WD My Passport for Mac drive from the left sidebar and click the Mount button on the top of Disk Utility window.

Instead, you can also click on the mount icon beside the drive to mount it immediately.

Method 2: Repair WD My Passport for Mac drive with First Aid

If you can't mount the WD My Passport for Mac manually, there should be some file system problems in this drive.

But don't worry. There is a native repair tool called First Aid in your Mac computer's Disk Utility, which is able to analyze and repair basic hard drive problems especially with file systems and catalogs, extends, volume bit maps. You can follow the instructions to fix this problem.

  • 1. Go to Disk Utility.
  • 2. Select the WD My Passport for Mac.
  • 3. Click First Aid on the top of the Disk Utility window.
  • 4. Click Done when the reparation finishes.

Solution 3: Install the Latest WD Utilities

This has been discussed a lot that Western Digital hard drives not working after Big Sur update or when connecting to an Apple Silicon M1 MacBook Air.

Typically, you'll receive a similar message as follows and you can't open or unlock your WD drive (My Passport):

If you have used WD Utilities or have created a secure password to keep others from accessing the files on the drive, you have to password unlock the drive (unless you enable auto unlock for this computer) each time you:

  1. Shut down or restart your Mac
  2. You disconnect and reconnect the WD My Passport
  3. Mac wakes up from sleep mode

And you have to unlock it with passwork though you have uninstalled the WD My Passport software from your Mac.

To fix that Western Digital My Passport hard drives not working or unlock (only if you know the right password) after Big Sur update, simply download, update, and install the latest WD Discovery Utilities for macOS 11 Big Sur.

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If unfortunately,you can't remember the password, you can only reformat the WD drive (My Passport for Mac) to make it work again, at the expense of data loss.

Solution 4: Erase/Reformat My Passport for Mac

If First Aid was unable to repair the errors in the WD My Passport, meaning the disk file system has been damaged, which is quite common, then you have to fix the WD My Passport for Mac not showing up on Mac problem by reformatting.

The situation is, reformatting will assign a new file system but will erase all your data on this drive as well.

To avoid the loss of important data, please make sure you have a backup copy of data. Without a backup? It's not necessarily the end of the world. You can at first recover lost data from the WD My Passport for Mac with professional Mac data recovery software, like iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.

iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is free hard drive data recovery software for Mac that is able to recover deleted files on Mac, recover lost data from formatted, inaccessible, corrupted, unmountable, unreadable hard drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, memory cards, etc.

It's compatible with macOS Big Sur 11/Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra/Sierra 10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7, on both Intel- and M1-based Macs

1 Recover lost data from My Passport for Mac with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac

  • 1. Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on Mac.
  • 2. Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
  • 3. Select My Passport for Mac and click 'Next' button to scan all data on this drive.
  • 4. Preview the searching results, choose files you need, and click 'Recover' to get them back.

2 Reformat My Passport for Mac in Disk Utility

After recovering data from this drive, you can now courageously proceed to erase your WD My Passport for Mac drive with no fuss.

  • 1. Go to Disk Utility.
  • 2. Select the WD My Passport for Mac drive in the left sidebar.
  • 3. Click Erase on the top of the Disk Utility window.
  • 4. Complete the information for your drive (such as new format, partition scheme, and so on) and click Erase.

What to do if the WD My Passport drive is not recognized/detected?

If My Passport for Mac hard drive is not showing up in Disk Utility at all, it means the WD hard drive is not recognized. Very probably, your My Passport for Mac may have some hardware problems. It's better to send it to a local reparation center.

Understanding why My Passport drive not showing up on Mac

Sometimes, an external hard drive not showing up on Mac just because the USB cable or the USB port on your Mac is bad. In addition, the following reasons may also lead to WD My Passport for Mac not showing up or not working.

  • Recent macOS update issue
  • System failure
  • Virus infection
  • Motherboard issue
  • WD My Passport drive damage or corruption

Bonus Maintenance Tips for WD My Passport drives for Mac

My Passport For Mac High Sierra Madre

Apparently, most hard drive not showing up issues are caused by unsafe ejection and sudden power outrage. In order to maintain your WD My Passport for Mac in good condition, you should pay attention to:

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  • Make sure that your WD My Passport doesn't become physically damaged.
  • Always safely and properly eject the WD My Passport for Mac drive after using it.
  • Don't just unplug the USB cable, on the contrary, unmount your drive by right-clicking (control-click) on the icon on the Desktop or in the Finder and choose Eject.
  • Properly use WD software like WD Drive Utilities, WD Backup software ( to back up important files to your My Passport drive), and WD Discovery ( to organize and share your files to the My Passport drive to backup your online social life).