external hard drive that will work with mac and pc

Once your Mac powers on, connect the external drive, and it should be visible on the desktop and inside Finder. If you cannot see your drive after following the above fixes, go ahead and restart your Mac.Ĭlick the Apple logo at the screen’s top left and choose Restart. Restarting is one of the simplest (and my favorite) methods to solve several Mac and iPhone issues with pretty remarkable success rates. In case the hard drive is not visible on your Mac, gently move the cable on the joints (where it connects with the drive and Mac) and see if it helps. You may also consider getting a new drive cable or a new drive. If it appears, I would advise copying most essential data to the Mac or other drive. See if it appears on the desktop or in the Finder. Now, do the same for the drive and connect it to Mac carefully. Is the cable connecting your hard drive to the Mac wobbly at either end? If yes, do not force it as it may aggravate the problem. If it didn’t, don’t panic! Move on to the next one. In case the dongle is too hot, give it a few minutes to cool, and then try.

Secondly, if you are using a USB-C dongle/hub, unplug it from your Mac and plug it into a different type-C port. Give it a few seconds and see if it is visible. But if you did not, unplug the drive from the current Mac’s USB port and plug it into another. This is a pretty common trick to solve such problems. If everything is fine here, move on to the next step. Secondly, some drives have two ports, and both must be plugged into the computer. The power they get from Mac’s USB port is sufficient.īut if you have a big hard drive that requires external power, ensure you satisfy that. Small hard drives, SSD, and pen drives might not require additional power. Make sure the drive is powered adequately If the options are already checked, move on to the next fix. Next, click ‘ Sidebar‘ and make sure ‘ External disks’ is checked.Make sure ‘ External disks‘ is checked.Click Finder at the top menu bar and choose Preferences. The first step is to ensure that external drives are allowed to show up on Mac’s desktop. Change Finder preferences to show the drive on Mac Access the drive using macOS Disk Utilityġ.Make sure the drive is powered adequately.Change Finder preferences to show the drive on Mac.External Hard Drive Not Recognized on Mac How to fix an external hard drive not recognized on Mac Now that you know the basics, let’s look at the fixes. You will have to buy a new cable or contact a data recovery service like DriveSavers. Note: If it’s either of the last two, the mentioned fixes won’t work.

External hard drive that will work with mac and pc