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WD External Hard Drive Not Recognized

External devices not getting detected on your Mac or PC would often happen mostly due to interface issues so, that your WD external hard drive not recognized mac .

If you have connected your WD external hard drive to your Mac using a USB cable, make sure that the cable is not defective. Check if the USB ports on the Mac are damaged. If you find the connected port faulty, connect the cable to another port.

If there seems to be no issue with the USB cable and the USB port and still the WD external hard drive is not recognized by your Mac, consider the procedure given below to fix the issue.

WD External Hard Drive Not Recognized Mac

Step 1: Change the Finder settings on Mac

  • Restart your Mac several times and check if the issue is fixed. 
  • Go to the Finder and see all the connected devices. 
  • Select all checkboxes under Show these items on the desktop.
  • Now, you could see the WD external hard drive on the desktop. 
  • If the issue persists, you won’t see the hard disk section. In such a case, the Mac drives and partition icons may remain hidden from your Mac. This might be the reason why your WD external hard drive is not recognized by your Mac.

Step 2: Fix the issue using Disc Utility

  • Disk Utility is a built-in Mac feature to repair hard drives that are not recognized.
  • When the error message appears, click on the Initialize button.
  • Go to the View option on the menu bar and select the Show all devices option from the displayed list.
  • Now, select your WD external hard drive from the left panel.
  • Click on the First Aid button and select the Repair Disk button at the bottom to begin the repairing process. 
  • Now, remove your external hard drive and connect it again to fix the WD external hard drive not recognized issue.

Still, if the WD external hard drive not recognized mac , connect it to some other Mac or PC and check if it is detected. If it is not detected, the drive might be faulty and you should consider replacing it.