mac external hard drive partition not showing up

The descriptions can be cryptic, but normally manufacturer name and size will help you locate your target drive.ģ. Look at the drawer on the left of the application for a description of your drive. Open Disk Utility, found in “/Applications/Utilities”Ģ. But sometimes all it takes is a quick tap of the Mount option to get things working.ġ. The disk formatting might be corrupt or unsupported by the Mac, preventing it from mounting properly. However, a failure to mount is sometimes for a good reason. Mounting is the last step between you and your data. It’s possible for a drive to be connected to your Mac and for the operating system to notice the drive but not mount it. Check Disk Utilityĭisk Utility will list drives both mounted and unmounted. If possible, use good, known hardware, like a USB cable that you recently used to successfully connect a device previously. If there’s a light on the drive, is it turning on? If it’s a spinning disk, do you feel the drive spinning through the hard drive’s case? Try a different port and different cable to confirm that these are not issues. If you used Disk Utility from macOS Recovery, you can now restart your Mac: choose Apple menu  > Restart.Most problems with drives on a Mac are caused by a poor connection, so the first step to troubleshooting the problem is to ensure your drive is actually connected to your Mac properly. The order of repair in this example was Macintosh HD - Data, then Macintosh HD, then Container disk4, then APPLE SSD. Keep moving up the list, running First Aid for each volume on the disk, then each container on the disk, then finally the disk itself. If you're asked for a password to unlock the disk, enter your administrator password.Īfter Disk Utility is done checking the volume, select the next item above it in the sidebar, then run First Aid again.If the button is dimmed and you can't click it, skip this step for the disk, container, or volume you selected.If there is no Run button, click the Repair Disk button instead.

In this example, the last volume on the disk is Macintosh HD - Data.Ĭlick Run to begin checking the selected volume for errors.

For each disk that you're repairing, start by selecting the last volume on that disk, then click the First Aid button or tab.

Mac external hard drive partition not showing up