Mar 01, 2019 You've plugged in an external USB Hard Drive and it doesn't show up automatically on your desktop! This video shows you how get the Hard Drive to mount on your desktop.
- Mac Os X External Hard Drive Not Showing On Desktop Computer
- Mac Os X External Hard Drive Not Showing On Desktop Windows 10
- Mac Os X External Hard Drive Not Showing On Desktop Drive
Jun 08, 2020 • Filed to: Solve Mac Problems • Proven solutions
“I just updated my Mac to High Sierra, but I can’t now see my hard drive on my Mac desktop. I am wondering how to show hard drive on Mac?”
There is no doubt that getting quick access to the Mac HD directory can be quite helpful in many situations. You can easily access several folders, such as System, Users, Applications, and Library. All these folders contain data that any Mac user access on a regular basis. Sadly, macOS High Sierra may not display you the Macintosh HD folder on your desktop or Finder by default. It makes access to files difficult.
The good news is that there are some ways to show the hard drive on Mac. Here, in this post, you will get to learn that and also, you get to know how to find the external hard drive on Mac.
Part 1. Why You Can't See Hard Drive on Mac?
Well, there are a number of reasons why you can’t see the hard drive on your Mac. Here, we are going to mention the most common ones:
- Preference Issue: You may have not set preferences that make the hard drive visible on your Mac Finder or desktop.
- Connector Issue: It might be the case that you fail to connect the hard drive to your Mac USB port correctly. And maybe cable you’re using for connection is damaged or non-functional.
- Corruption of File system: It might also case that file system of the hard drive is corrupt due to bad sectors, logical errors, etc. Sometimes, your hard drive file system damage leads to non-mounting HD in Finder.
- Hard drive failure: It might be the case that your drive is physically damaged due to component failure, head crash, or etc.
Part 2. How to Show Hard Drive Icon on Mac Desktop?
It is the Finder’s job for displaying the desktop and its icons, which include storage devices icon too. You can show or hide Mac main hard drive from the desktop of your Mac with ease and all you need to do is to adjust some of Finder options. If you want to keep your hard drives icon on the desktop so that you can access the data easily, then here’s what you have to do to show HD on Mac.
To begin with, you need to first have the Finder option in the foreground. For this, check if there is the word “Finder” in your Mac menu bar. If no, then all you have to do is to tap on the “Finder” icon from Dock of your Mac to appear it to the foreground.
Once you are able to do it, follow the below steps to show the hard drive on Mac desktop:
- Go to the Menu bar, and then, move to “Finder”. Next, click on the “Preferences” option.
- Next, select the “General” tab when the Finder preferences window appears on your Mac screen.
- After that, check the box “Hard disks” under “Show these items on the desktop”.
- Finally, Mac hard drive icon should now appear on your desktop as shown in the below figure.
As you can see how much it is easy to show and hide Mac hard disks or drives on your desktop. Whenever you want quick access to the data on your Mac, all you have to do is to double-click on your Mac HD drive from the desktop and you’ll be navigated to place where all of your Mac data is stored.
Part 3. How to Find External Hard Drive on Mac?
Is your Mac not detecting the external hard drive? In many cases, an external hard drive doesn’t show up on your Mac. There is no doubt that it is quite frustrating, especially when you want to transfer something very important right then. Besides this, there can be a change that data present on an external hard drive is corrupt, which is one of the reasons why your Mac can’t detect an external drive.
The good news is that there are some solutions that can help you to come out of this problem with ease. Let’s give a look at them:
1. Mount the External Hard Drive on Mac
It could be the case that your Mac already detects an external hard drive, but it just not showing its icon on your desktop screen. If it is the case, then you can easily mount and access your drive again and all you have to do is to follow the below steps:
- To start with, move to Finder menu and here, choose Preferences.
- In the Finder preferences window, choose the General tab.
- Here, you need to make sure that “External disks” option under “Show these items on the desktop” is ticked.
Also, you can set your Mac to display external hard drive in Finder. For this, go to “Finder”>” Preferences”>” Sidebar”. Here, you need to tick the option “External disks” under “Locations” menu.
This method will probably help you to show the connected external hard drive on your Mac. If it doesn’t, then you can go for the next solution. And if you need to make a USB flash drive detected, the solutions might be more feasible: Fix USB not showing up on Mac.
2. Launch Disk Utility to Run First Aid
There might be a case that your external hard drive is going through some problems you are unaware of it. In this case, you can try to resolve them yourself using Disk Utility to run First Aid tool. Afterward, you can even access your files. The tool will inspect the disk for issues and errors and then, try to repair as required. It is quite helpful when it comes to verifying and repairing a wide range of problems related to external and HD drive.
Here is the step-by-step guide on how you can run First Aid on your external hard drive:
- To start with, launch Disk Utility. You can search for it using Spotlight Search or go to “Finder”>” Application”>” Utility”
- After that, you need to check on an external hard drive. Next, click on the “First Aid” tab and choose “Run” to begin running diagnostics.
If First Aid tools become successful in fixing problems, then your external hard drive should now be available for you to mount. What if the tool fails to repair issues? Then, your drive is badly broken or may be formatted through a file system that your Mac can’t read. In this way, we recommended that you should recover data from the damaged hard drive. Check out the next section to learn how to get back and how hard disk data on Mac.
Part 4. How to Recover and Show Hard Drive Data on Mac?
Have you ever wondered what if you found that you can’t access the data stored on your Mac hard drive due to sudden power failure, or virus-attack? Or if above methods fail to fix “external hard drive not mounting Mac”. In such cases, data recovery software can help you to easily get back hard drive data on your Mac.
1. Recoverit - The Best Software to Recover Mac Files:
Whenever you experience a data loss situation, Recoverit Data Recovery Mac will help you to retrieve it. This data recovery software will come in handy even when you’ve never made a backup of your device. You now know how to partition Mac hard drive and unpartition it. But knowing how you can recover the lost or deleted files from the drive is also necessary.
2. How to Recover Lost Word Files on Mac:
Step 1: Select a Location
Launch the software and select the drive from where the data files are lost. If you don’t know which drive to search, tap on the “I can’t find my partition” option and hit the Start button.
Step 2: Scan the Location
Typically, the software will run an All-Around Recovery scan and search for the lost and deleted files on the entire drive.
Step 3: Preview and Recover
When the scan completes, the files will be listed on the screen. The software will sort out the files according to format to make the search easier. You can select multiple files at a time and have a preview at them.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that creating and removing a Mac drive partition is not that tough. You just have to careful during the process. And in case of a mishap, Recoverit is always here for your help so that you don’t have to suffer from data loss situation.
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Summary: Seagate external hard drive not recognized/showing up on Mac? Have no data backup? Feel very upset when finding you can't see any file on the external hard drive? Now download free external hard drive data recovery software for Mac - iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac to recover lost data from unrecognized Seagate external hard drive.
Plug a Seagate external hard drive into your Mac but the drive is not recognized by Mac?
Don't worry, you are not the only one who uses famous hard drive brand like Seagate, WD, Toshiba, Samsung, etc. but encounters this problem.
Here is an example from Apple Communities.
'I have a MacBook Pro with macOS El Capitan. My WD hard drives are recognized, but my new Seagate 1T drive is invisible. The light on the drive works, which tells me that it is drawing power from the computer. But the computer does not recognize the drive. Anyone knows how to fix Seagate external hard drive not recognized, showing up, or detected on Mac or at least recover files from the drive?'
Actually, it is a dime a dozen that external hard drive is not recognized or detected by Mac computers. Some users even say that they can see the Seagate external hard drives' light blinking but the computer just won't give any response. When an external hard drive is not working, not recognized, not detected, or not showing up on your Mac, you will feel very terrible because you can't access files nor the drive at all. Fortunately, in this article, you can find out how to fix the unrecognized Seagate external hard drive and how to recover lost data from unrecognizable hard drives easily.
- Table of contents
- 1. Why does Seagate external hard drive not recognized/showing up on Mac?
- 2. Baisc check - Check if Seagate external hard drive is showing up in Disk Utility/Finder?
Part I: Why does Seagate external hard drive not recognized/showing up on Mac?
Seagate external hard drives are often used as backup media to store important files, or to transfer data among computers. However, they are prone to be damaged or corrupted as well. And it's quite common for a Seagate external hard drive to become unrecognized by your Mac all of a sudden and leave you all at sea.
![Mac os x external hard drive not showing on desktop mac Mac os x external hard drive not showing on desktop mac](/uploads/1/2/7/2/127250834/483453249.jpg)
You may be wondering 'Why my external hard drive is not recognized/showing up on Mac?' Well, the reasons behind this problem could be varied and there are some common ones.
- Bad USB port
- macOS update issue
- System failure
- File system corruption
- Motherboard issue
- Virus infection
- External drive damage or corruption, etc.
Baisc check - Check if Seagate external hard drive is showing up in Disk Utility/Finder?
To fix the unrecognized Seagate external hard drive on Mac, the very first thing is to check whether it's the USB port's issue. Plug in the drive to another USB port or a different computer, and check if the drive is recognized, detected or shows up on Mac. If yes, congratulations. Both the external hard drive and the data on it are secure. But to access files on this drive, you need to move forward to do some basic checks and try out the solutions according to your situations.
Important thing: Check if the Seagate external hard drive is showing up in Disk Utility/Finder?
Usually, if your external hard drive is recognized/showing up by your Mac, you will see this drive on the desktop and Finder. But for many Mac users, when they can't find their disk drives in Finder or on the desktop, they would say the drive is not recognized by the computer. But actually, most of the time, even if a Seagate external hard drive doesn't show up in Finder, it still can be found in Disk Utility. So please check whether the drive is showing up in Disk Utility/Finder.
There are three possible outcoms. Just check them one by one and go head to fix this issue.
Scenario 1: Seagate external hard drive isn't showing up in Finder/on the desktop
When a hard drive is plugged into a Mac, the first impression for most users is that the icon of this drive will show up on the desktop and in Finder. But why your Seagate external hard drive is not showing up in Finder or on the desktop? Indeed, it is because you haven't set up your Mac to do so.
1. Show Seagate external hard drive in Finder
Step 1: Go to Finder > Preferences > Sidebar tab.
Step 2: Select 'External disks' under 'Locations', and then your Seagate external hard drive will show up in Finder.
2. Show Seagate external hard drive on the desktop
Step 1: Go to Finder > Preferences > General tab.
Step 2: Tick 'External disks' to show the Seagate external hard drive on the desktop.
Scenario 2: Seagate external hard drive is recognized but not mounted in Disk Utility
If the Seagate external hard drive shows up in Disk Utility but is just not mounted, it at least means the drive is recognized by your Mac. Mounting a hard disk makes it accessible by the computer, enabling the operating system to read and write to files on the disk. Most of the time, the operating system will automatically mount your disk when you connect your USB drive to this Mac, but you if you find the Seagate external hard drive unmounted in Disk Utility, you have two solutions.
Solution 1: Manually mount the Seagate external hard drive
You can simply right-click this external hard drive in Disk Utility, and choose Mount or click the Mount button on the top of the window. You will be able to access your files if it can be mounted successfully.
Solution 2: Repair the Seagate external hard drive with First Aid
However, if the Seagate drive is unmountable or the Mount icon is greyed out, it could be some disk errors that prevent your Mac to recognize/detect the drive correctly. Fortunately, there is a native disk repair tool called Disk Utility on your Mac and you can repair this external hard drive with the following steps.
- Click on the Launchpad on the Dock and find Other.
- Locate Disk Utility and open it.
- Select the unmountable external hard drive in the left sidebar and choose First Aid at the top.
- Click Run to repair this Seagate hard drive.
Solution 3: Fix the unmountable Seagate external hard drive by reformatting.
If First Aid failed to repair this drive, the file system or the partition table of this external hard disk could be corrupted. In this case, reformatting is a feasible method to fix the corrupted file system or partition table. However, it will also erase all data stored on it. So, to avoid unnecessary data loss, you should firstly make sure you have a copy of data backup or recover files from this drive with reliable data recovery software.
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is useful data recovery software, which can recover lost data from unrecognized Seagate Backup Plus drives and unreadable Seagate external hard drives. Moreover, this program supports file recovery from hard drives of Seagate, WD, Toshiba, Samsnug, etc. Generally, it can recover lost data from formatted, unmountable, inaccessible, unreadable or corrupted hard drives. This powerful data recovery software can also recover lost data from Macintosh HD drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, memory cards, etc. on Mac.
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac now is fully compatible with macOS 10.15 (Catalina), 10.14 (Mojave), macOS 10.13 (High Sierra), macOS 10.12 (Sierra) and Mac OS X 10.11 (El Capitan), 10.10 (Yosemite), 10.9 (Mavericks), 10.8 (Mountain Lion), 10.7 (Lion). And the macOS 10.15 (Catalina) is approaching.
Step 1: Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
Step 2: Select the Seagate external hard drive and click 'Next' button to scan for all the lost data.
Step 3: Double-click to preview your images, videos, word files, etc. in the searching results.
Step 4: Choose files you need and click 'Recover' to get them back and save the recovered files to another usable disk drive.
After recovering target files from this Seagate external hard drive, you can now reformat the drive in Disk Utility without worrying about data loss.
Step 5: Click Go in the upper left of your desktop, choose Utilities in the context list.
Step 6: Open Disk Utility and select the Seagate external hard drive from the sidebar
Step 7: Click Erase on the top of Disk Utility window.
Step 8: Complete the required information for erasure, including Name, Format, and Scheme.
Step 9: Then click Erase to go and wait until the erasure process ends and click Done.
Scenario 3: Seagate external hard drive is not detected in Disk Utility
However, if the Seagate external hard drive is not even showing up on Mac or not detected in Disk Utility, it is possible that the drive has some hardware problems like bad sectors.
Usually, the symptoms would be:
- The external hard drive makes clicking/beeping noise.
- Files get missing/disappeared/invisible/inaccessible.
- Documents or Folders become empty.
- Disk information like storage capability or files system is not showing normally in Disk Utility.
- Some other abnormal symptoms.
Mac Os X External Hard Drive Not Showing On Desktop Computer
Confronted with such kind of hard drive failure, you'd better seek help from a local disk recovery and repair service for good.
Mac Os X External Hard Drive Not Showing On Desktop Windows 10
Conclusion:
Mac Os X External Hard Drive Not Showing On Desktop Drive
Sometimes, the Seagate external hard drive not recognized/showing up on Mac problem is just that Seagate external hard drive not showing up in Finder, not showing up on Mac desktop, or not mounted in Disk Utility, which can be easily solved. However, your any attempts to fix the unrecognized Seagate external hard drive may write new data to the drive and overwrite the original one. Thus, if you're facing such kind of problems, you should firstly recover lost data from the Seagate external hard drive with a professional data recovery software like iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac before you set about fixing this problem.