Wd Elements Not Showing Up On Mac

Posted by Katrina to Home > Mac Data Recovery Tips on January 7th, 2019

I have a 1 TB WD external HD that won't mount. I connect it via firewire to my MacBook Pro running OS 10.13 High Sierra. My mac sees the drive, it just won't mount. I've also tried to mount it via USB, but again, my system sees the drive, but won't mount it. Does anyone have any suggestion what I can do?

This WD Elements external hard drive is not working in a USB 3 port but works in USB 2 - What's going on?!🛒 MUSTOOL G700 HD 1080P Portable Desktop LCD Digit. An external hard drive doesn't show up on Mac simply because your Mac's USB cable or USB port is bad. But the following factors may also contribute to WD not showing up. Latest macOS update; Device malfunction; Anti-virus; Virus; Motherboard errors; WD My Passport causes damage or corruption; Solution 1. Resolve this issue by using Disk Utility.

Generally, when you connect an WD, Seagate, Toshiba, Samsung external hard drive to Mac, it will be automatically mounted, then you can perform read and write operation on it. Alternatively, you can also select the disk and click on Mount to make it accessible by the operating system using Disk Utility.

However, hard drive problems may happen that your WD external hard drive won't mount on Mac, usually when you desperately need to access some data stored on it. Remain calm, all data on WD external hard drive is still there. This article will explain how to fix WD My Passport not mounting/showing up/recognized/detected.

WD external hard drive won't mount on Mac, how to fix?

First of all, if your WD external hard drive is listed on the left-hand-side menu of Disk Utility, you can make sure it doesn't have any hardware problem. Why the WD external hard drive won't mount? It is because the file system of the disk has been corrupted, preventing the disk from being accessible on Mac. Just try these solutions below.

Solution 1: Run Disk Utility to repair the WD external hard drive

No matter what problems you are meeting on a disk, First Aid is your first choice to repair it.

Step 1: Launch Disk Utility.

Wd Elements External Hard Drive Not Showing Up Mac

Step 2: Choose theunmountable WD external hard drive.

Step 3: Select First Aid in the top center and click Run.

Solution 2: Reformat to fix WD My Passport not mounting

Wd Elements 2tb Not Recognized

If Sometimes, the Disk Utility may not function as desired. In this situation, the only solution is to reformat the WD external hard drive. But reformatting will remove all data on the disk. In order to avoid data loss, you have to recover lost data from unmountable external hard drive as soon as possible.

Wd Elements Drive Not Recognized

Step 1: Recover lost data from unmountable WD external hard drive on Mac

As the best free Mac data recovery, iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery is able to recover lost data from unmountable, unreadable, corrupted, inaccessible external hard drive, hard drive, USB flash drive, SD card, memory card, etc. It supports to recover documents, photos, music files, videos, emails on Big Sur 11/macOS Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra 10.13/Sierra 10.12/10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.

1. Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on Mac.

2. Launch this program. Select the unmountable WD external hard drive and click 'Next'. The program will start scanning this drive for recoverable files.

3. After the scanning process finishes, you can click the found files and preview.

4. Choose what you want to get back and click 'Recover'.

5. Go through the recovered files and make sure all desired files are back.

Step 2: Fix WD external hard drive not mounting/showing up/recognized/detected on Mac by reformatting

1. Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.

2. Select the unmountable WD external hard drive and click 'Erase' on the top.

3. Provide a name and a format to erase the drive.

4. When finished, you can mount your WD external hard drive on Mac and use it again.

Also read: Other ways to erase external hard drive on Mac

Hope this tutorial can help to fix WD external hard drive not mounting/showing up/recognized/detected on Mac. If your WD external hard drive not recognized on Windows, it is also easy to be fixed. If you have any question, please feel free to contact us.

Also read: Can't See External hard drive showing up on Mac, What to do?

Still have questions?

Overview: WD External Hard Drive Not Recognized But the Light is On

'It seems that my WD 1TB external hard drive cannot be recognized on my PC but the light is on. The flashlight of WD external hard drive continuously blinking when I connect the drive with USB cable. But the problem is that the WD hard drive still not working when I connect it to a new USB cable with the PC. Nothing is detected. Do you know how to make the WD external hard drive to show up and work again? And how to restore the saved data on the drive?'

Why Won't My Wd Elements Work On Mac

If your WD external hard drive, USB drive, or a similar storage device has a similar problem with the light on but not detectable by your PC, do not panic. Follow the following quick fixes and effective methods to restore a non-working/unrecognized WD external hard drive and get all the lost data back right away.

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If you have a similar issue on your hard drive, use the fixes below.

Are your hard drives, be it new or old, internal or external, not showing up in File Explorer or Disk Management? Follow along to learn how to make your hard drive show up again in Windows 10/8/7 without losing data.

Quick Fixes for WD External Hard Drive Light On But Not Recognized

Here, you have three options to quickly fix and repair WD external hard drive with the 'light on but not recognized' error:

1. Change the USB Port/Cable to Detect WD External Hard Drive

If the WD external hard drive cannot be detected or fails to show up on your PC, change the USB port (you may try to connect the external hard drive to the motherboard), or connect it using a different USB cable to check if it shows up on the PC.

2. Remove and Clean Up the Virus that Blocks/Stops WD External Hard Drive From Working

When the computer or the WD external hard drive gets infected by a virus or malware, you cannot access the saved data or even open the drive on the PC.

In this case, use anti-virus software or CMD to remove the virus or malware on your PC or WD external hard drive

3. Turn USB Root Hub On to Make WD External Hard Drive Recognizable

  • Click Start > Type: devmgmt.msc and hit Enter.
  • Open Device Manager > Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers.
  • Right-click USB Root Hub > Click Properties > Power Management.
  • Uncheck Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.

Repeat this process to turn on all USB Root Hubs in the list and reboot the PC. Then, see if the WD external hard drive shows up on your PC.

Advanced Fixes for WD External Hard Drive Light On But Not Recognized

To fix a 'WD external hard drive not detected, recognized or not working but light on' issue without losing any data, follow the following steps without formatting your drive:

1. Make Unrecognized WD External Hard Drive Detectable on PC

Here are two ways to potentially make the WD external hard drive detectable on your PC:

Option 1. Change drive letter to make WD external hard drive show up

1. Right-click on This PC > Manage > Disk Management.

Wd elements backup

2. Find and right-click the WD external hard drive > Select Change drive letter and path.

3. Assign a new drive letter to your WD external hard drive and save all changes.

You should now be able to see the WD external hard drive on your PC.

Option 2. Show all hidden devices to make WD external hard drive recognized by the PC

1. Click on Start > Type: devmgmt.msc and hit Enter.

2. Click View in the Device Manager > Select Show hidden devices.

3. Expand all notes by clicking on the + (plus) symbol.

4. If there are any greyed-out entries, right-click them and select Uninstall.

5. Reboot your PC.

2. Restore Data from WD Not Working External Hard Drive with the Light On

Wd Elements Not Showing Up On Mac

After making an unrecognized WD external hard drive detectable on your PC, the next step is to restore all saved data. If you have valuable data saved on your WD drive, just download EaseUS hard drive recovery software to get all your data back in a few simple clicks:

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Step 1. Connect the external drive to PC for a scan

Connect the external hard disk to your PC and let Windows recognize the disk and assign it a drive letter. Now launch EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Windows. Find your drive you want to recover and click Scan.

Step 2. Check the scan results

The scan process takes place in two stages, including a quick scan and deep scan. Deep scan is for searching lost data files that even lost file names, so it's worth waiting longer for the whole scan process to finish and find all desired data. You can try to preview the found files one by one by following their original paths from the leftside tree-view pane, or simply use the Filter function to specify the file type of one kind, like pictures, videos, documents, emails, etc.

Step 3. Select files and recover

Finally, when you are satisfied with the preview results, you can start to select the target files and use the Recover button to get them all back. We suggest you save the recovered files to a location other than the original external hard drive where you lost data.

3. Repair and Fix the Light On but Not Working/Unrecognized WD External Hard Drive

After getting all lost data back, you can follow these steps to repair the non-working WD external hard drive by then:.

Method 1. Uninstall hard drive driver to repair the non-detectable WD external hard drive

1. Click on Start > Type: devmgmt.msc and hit Enter to open Device Manager.

2. Expand Universal Serial Universal Serial Bus controllers > Right-click every USB device found there and select Uninstall.

3. Check out whether any device shows up as unrecognized or not:

  • If the WD external hard drive shows as unrecognized, go to the driver's tab and delete/uninstall the driver. Then check out whether the external hard drive shows up in My Computer/My PC or not.
  • If it doesn't show up, reboot or restart the PC.
  • If it shows up but disappears later, repeat the above steps and go to Disk Management, change the drive letter and reconnect PC again.

Method 2. Change registry and format to repair WD external hard drive not recognized/working error

1. Click on Start > Type: regedt32 > Click OK.

2. BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY by going to file and click Export.

Elements

3. On the left side, go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlClass{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.

4. If you see any upper filter or lower filters on the right side, delete them.

5. Then retry your external hard drive again.

Method 3. Format to repair/reset WD external hard drive

1. Connect the WD external hard drive to your PC > Right-click on This PC > Manage > Disk Management.

2. Find and right-click on WD external hard drive > Select Format volume...

3. Reset the WD external hard drive letter and file system (NTFS) and save all changes.

After this, reboot your PC and reconnect the WD external hard drive to the PC. You should be able to use your WD external hard drive to backup files and save data again.