Answer (1 of 6): When you plug in a hard drive into your Mac, you expect it to pop up in Locations in Finder, next to your remote disk and the computer itself. But sometimes Macs don't recognize external hard drives like WD or Seagate. Apr 09, 2018 Download Stellar Data Recovery software and recover WD external hard drive data like a PRO. “Every time I connect my 1 TB WD Elements external drive to MacBook Pro, the drive does not show up. It is really annoying as I need to access and transfer the drive’s content. Even restarting my MacBook several times but that didn’t work either.

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When your WD My Passport Ultra hard drive or external hard drive is not showing up, you can neither access nor use the drive on your computer.

But don't worry. Follow this guide, you'll learn the causes and fixes to the WD Passport Ultra external hard drive not showing up error on your own.

Here is the complete guide to making your WD Passport external hard drive detected again:

Some of you may also want to learn what causes the wd external hard drive not showing up on the computer. Continue reading and check it out.

Why is My WD Passport Not Showing Up?

We consulted many experienced users and IT professionals, and we concluded the causes below. Check out why is your WD Passport Ultra external not showing up:

1. 1. A faulty USB port/cable, or a damaged USB hub on PC
2. 2. No drive letter is assigned to WD Passport drive
3. 3. Corrupted file system or bad sectors makes WD drive unreadable
4. 4. WD drive driver is out of date
5. 5. Universal USB controllers drivers are outdated

These causes may also lead to some of your other devices malfunctioning, such as:

So how to fix these errors and make your WD Passport Ultra external hard drive show up on PC again? Follow through the tutorials below to get rid of this issue immediately.

Part 1. Check The State of WD External Hard Disk in Disk Management

Connect the WD external hard drive to your computer via the USB cable. Follow steps here to check the state of your WD external hard drive in Disk Management:

Step 1. Press Windows + R keys, type diskmgmt.msc in the Run box, and click 'OK'.

Step 2. In Disk Management, locate and check the state of your WD external hard drive.

Part 2. Fix WD My Passport External Hard Drive Not Showing Up Error

Check the state of your not showing up or not detected WD My Passport Ultra external hard drive and refer to the right fix to make your drive work normally again.

Fix 1. Add New Drive Letter to Make WD Passport External Hard Drive Showing Up

Applies to: Fix WD passport external hard drive not showing up due to the drive letter confliction.

If your WD displays as 'New Volume' with no drive letter in Disk Management, it won't show up in File Explorer. Don't worry.

You can change or add a new drive letter so to make WD passport detectable and accessible again in Windows PC:

Step 1. Press Win + R keys, type diskmgmt.msc in the Run dialog, click 'OK' to open Disk Management.

Step 2. Right-click on WD drive which fails to show up and choose 'Change Drive Letter and Paths...'.

Step 3. Click 'Add', set a new drive letter to assign to the WD external drive, and click 'OK'.

If the WD drive has already been assigned with a letter, click 'Change' to choose another letter for it. After this, restart your PC and check if you can visit the WD external hard drive in Windows File Explorer.

Fix 2. Fix Corrupted File System/Bad Sector

Applies to: Fix WD passport external hard drive not showing up due to file system error or bad sectors.

If the system files are corrupted or the WD device contains bad sectors, Windows disk management may detect it as '*Others' or RAW. Your computer may not even able to detect it from File Explorer.

EaseUS partition manager software with its Check File System feature can help. As long as your Disk Management can detect it, you can apply this tool to fix the corrupted file system and bad sectors on WD hard drive.

Mac Can't Read External Drive

Follow to see how to fix corrupted system files and bad sectors on WD device:

After this, you can check the drive. If your files were missing, move to Part 3 and apply reliable data recovery software to bring back all your WD external hard drive data.

Fix 3. Plug WD My Passport Halfway-in-USB

This method is more like a temporary solution. According to a user's feedback on a forum, in this 'bizarre way', his computer successfully recognized the external hard drive. Here's how to do it.

Step 1. Plug the USB cable halfway through any one of your computer's USB ports.

Step 2. Wait for the WD hard drive to show up in File Explorer.

Step 3. When you see your hard drive, push the USB completely into the USB port.

It might be unreasonable, but quite a lot of people solved their problem with this trick. Have a try on it!

Fix 4. Try a Different USB Cable/Port or PC

When your WD hard drive neither shows up in File Explorer nor Disk Management, you can try to change the USB cable, try another USB port, or a new PC to see if the drive can be read or not.

Step 1. Switch a USB port/cable and replug it to your computer.

If the drive can be read via new a USB cable or on a new PC, then the drive is working fine. The problem is with the USB cable.

Step 2. Reconnect the WD drive via a new USB hub or to a new PC.

• If the WD Passport drive shows up, it is the damaged USB hub that stops WD from showing up.
• If the WD passport is not detected either on your current or the new PC, replace the WD drive with a new one.

Fix 5. Update WD External Device Driver & Reinstall BUS Controllers

When the WD Passport drive is not working, it might be caused by the outdated device drivers. So the best way is to update its driver via the following three paths:

#1. Download and Install WD Device Driver:

Step 1. Connect the problematic WD external hard drive to your PC.

Step 2. Right-click on the Windows icon and select 'Device Manager'.

Step 3. Find and expand Disk Drivers, Portable Devices, Universal Serial USB Controllers, or Other devices.

See if the WD external hard drive is shown as an 'Unknown' device.

Step 4. Right-click on Unknown or not working WD external hard drive, select 'Properties'.

Step 5. Go to the Details tab, set Property to 'Hardware Ids'.

Step 6. Right-click the top Value and click 'Copy'.

Step 7. Paste it into a browser and search for the correct device driver.

Step 8. Find and download the correct WD device driver and install it on your PC.

After this, restart your computer. And everything shall work fine with your WD My Passport Ultra drive.

#2. Update WD Device Driver from Device Manager:

Step 1. Right-click on the Windows icon and select 'Device Manager'.

Step 2. Expand Device Manager and right-click the WD My Passport Ultra drive.

Step 3. Select 'Update driver'.

Step 4. Select 'Search automatically for updated driver software', wait for the process to complete.

#3. Uninstall/Reinstall USB Controllers

When the Universal USB Bus Controllers are outdated, it may also stop your WD passport from being detected or showing up. So you can try to uninstall and reinstall USB controllers:

Step 1. Right-click on the Windows icon and select 'Device Manager'.

Step 2. Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers, right-click on USB controllers of the WD drive, and select 'Uninstall device'.

Repeat to uninstall each USB controller one by one.

Step 3. Restart the computer and Windows will automatically reinstall the USB controllers of your WD drive.

After this, you shall be able to visit and access saved data on your WD Passport Ultra drive normally by then.

Fix 6. Send 'Unknown' & Not Detected WD External Hard Disk for Repair

If your WD external hard drive displays as 'Unknown' in disk management, the last thing you can try is to send the disk for repair.

You have two options for this issue:

• Option 1. Beyond the Warranty: Send WD external disk for repair in a local repair center
• Option 2. Within the Warranty: Send WD external disk back to its manufacturer

Part 3. Get Data Off WD External Disk and Format It to Work Again

If your WD hard drive shows up and you can access the disk again. Take the last guide in this part to fully protect your files and make the WD external hard drive viable for saving and editing data again.

#1. Get Data Off WD External Hard Drive

Here are two ways that you can fully get files from your WD external hard drive:

1. 1. Open and copy data from your WD hard drive to another storage device as a backup.
2. 2. Recover lost files from WD drive with EaseUS file recovery software.

Note that, if you lost some valuable files during the process, don't worry. Professional file recovery software can scan and bring back your files in 3 steps:

Step 1. Choose the external hard drive

• Since you're going to recover data from an external hard drive, you need to correctly connect the drive to your Windows computer.
• Run EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard and choose the exact external drive where you lost data.
• Click Scan.

Step 2. Check the scan results

The software will immediately start scanning the selected drive for all lost data. During the scan, you can see more and more data showing up in the results. The Filter feature is there for you to quickly locate the files of one kind, such as Pictures, Word/Excel/PDF documents, Videos, etc.

Step 3. Preview and recover data

• Double-clicking a file will allow you to preview its content.
• Choose the file(s) and click Recover.
• Select a different drive to save the recovered files instead of the original one.

Remember to save the recovered files to another secure location and then move to the next guide to format your WD My Passport external hard drive to usable again.

#2. Format WD External Hard Drive to Usable

Here, you may also let EaseUS Partition Master help. It's easy and efficient in formatting a disk:

Step 1. Launch EaseUS Partition Master, right-click the partition on your external hard drive/USB/SD card which you want to format and choose the 'Format' option.

Step 2. Assign a new partition label, file system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3), and cluster size to the selected partition, then click 'OK'.

Step 3. In the Warning window, click 'OK' to continue.

Step 4. Click the 'Execute Operation' button in the top-left corner to review the changes, then click 'Apply' to start formatting your external hard drive/USB/SD card.

After this, you can save the data back to your WD external hard drive again.

Make Your WD External Hard Drive Show Up and Work Now

On this page, we explained why is WD My Passport Ultra external hard drive not showing up on Windows PC and provided 6 practical fixes for you to follow and make the drive show up again.

As a beginner, we suggest that you follow the whole guide one by one. These fixes also work to resolve the same issue on all brands of external hard drive, internal hard drive, USB, or SD card.

Now, it's your turn. Take steps to fix your not showing up WD external hard drive and make it work again without losing any data.

People Also Ask

For further issues related to the WD passport, check the questions and answers below. You'll get a satisfying answer:

1. WD My Passport not showing up on Mac

If you are having a similar issue that WD My Passport external or internal hard drive not showing up on Mac, you can try the following tips as listed here for help: （Some are similar as shown on this page)

1. #1. Reconnect WD Passport to Mac
2. #2. Change WD Passport drive letter
3. #3. Remount WD Passport to Mac
4. #4. Update WD Passport drive driver
5. #5. Format WD My Passport on Mac

2. How to use WD Passport on Windows 10?

For a new WD Passport: Connect Passport to Windows 10 PC > Open Disk Management and Initialize Disk > Create a New Partition on WD Passport drive.

For a used WD Passport: Connect it to Windows 10 > Open it in File Explorer to use it. If you need more space, delete some useless files on it to free up space.

3. Why is my external hard drive not showing up?

Accordingly, many reasons may cause your external hard drive not showing up. Here is a list of major reasons:

• The external hard drive is not connected to the PC correctly
• Faulty USB cable or USB hub
• External hard drive is not initialized
• External hard drive is doesn't contain a volume
• External hard drive has no drive letter
• External hard drive contains file system error, bad sectors, or virus

For a resolution, follow to External/Internal Hard Drive Is Not Showing Up in Windows 10/8/7.

Have you ever met the above-described scenario before? While your Seagate, Western Digital, PS4, or Buffalo external hard drive connected to the Windows or Mac computer, the device did not show up. The situation will erode your calmness especially when you have extremely important files in the unrecognized external hard drive. How to fix external hard drive not recognized? Don't worry, this article will provide you step-by-step instructions on how to get the problem settled.

Why Does Your PC Not Recognize External Hard Drive?

You might wonders why your Windows or Mac computer does not recognize the external hard drive. And this problem can be caused by some partition issues:

• The external hard drive partition gets damaged.
• The file system is crashed.
• the drive errors occur in Windows or Mac computers.
• The USB port is dead.

You can try to connect the hard drive to another computer or connect it with other USB ports. If all the methods do not work, you can follow the article tutorial to fix the external hard drive not recognized on Windows or Mac computer, and you can recover lost data from an external hard drive with Recoverit Data Recovery.

How to Fix External Hard Drive Not Recognized on Windows?

If you want to solve your external hard drive not recognized on Windows 7, Windows 10 efficiently, it is advised that you conduct a problem diagnosis. Only when you know the specific reason why your external hard drive not showing up, can you settle it case by case. If you are not sure of the cause, just follow the guide to eliminate the causes one by one and get the issue done.

Step 1 Make Sure Your USB Port Is Dead or Not

You might be plugging in the USB cable in a dead USB port. Unplug your external hard drive and plugin it into another USB port. Now, see if it is present there in the My Computer window. If not, follow step 2.

Step 2 Find Your External Hard Drive Partition in Disk Management Windows

Now, look for the external drive in the Disk Management window. To begin with, press Windows+R to arouse the Run interface. Type diskmgmt. msc to open the Disk Management window, where you can find your drive even if it is not recognized because of no partition. If you cannot find the drive in the Disk Management window then you can go for step 3.

Step 3 Check It Is Computer or Hard Drive Default

By plugging in another USB port or finding the hard drive in the Disk Management interface, still, you cannot get the issue settled. Then there might be any problem with your Windows computer. Connect it to another computer, and follow step 1 to step 3 to check the external drive is recognized or not. If the drive still not shows up on another Windows computer, there must be something wrong with the drive, otherwise follow step 4.

Step 4 Find out The Problematic Hard Drive

To further diagnose a driver problem, press Windows+R and type 'devmgmt.msc' to expand Disk Drives. Look for a device having a yellow exclamation mark, which indicates a problematic hard driver. Now, right-click on the problematic device and read the error message after selecting properties. This issue can resolve in the following two ways:

• Click on the update driver button for installing updated drivers.
• Uninstall the driver and restart your computer. After restarting, the Windows will automatically reinstall and reconfigure the driver.

Now, plug in the external hard drive again or follow step 5 if the drive is still not recognized.

Step 5 Does Partition or Format Cause Hard Drive not Show Up?

Partitioning and formatting can also lead to the external not recognized issue. Partitioning can be fixed through Windows Disk Management tools. To create a new partition, just click the Unallocated Space and select New Simple Volume. You can create a new partition by following onscreen instructions.

Sometimes, your hard drive is formatted by the ext4 file system of Linux, NTFS file system, HFS Plus file system, or FAT32 file system, which is not recognized by your Windows. You can reformat the external hard drive through Windows to solve the issue. For this purpose, right-click on the partition, select Format, and then select the file system. Please kindly get noted! it is important and necessary you backup all your files on other systems before proceeding with 'format instruction', otherwise all your files will be wiped.

How to Fix External Hard Drive Not Recognized on Mac

Mac computer also detects an external drive automatically. If it doesn't, follow these steps:

Step 1 Look for Your External Hard Drive in 'Finder' Interface

First of all, click on File, and then press the New Finder window. Now, look for the hard drive below the Remote Disk.

Wd External Hard Drive Support

Step 2 Make Sure the External Hard Drive Is Properly Connected to Mac

If the external drive is not there, make sure that the USB cable is properly plugged in. It is advised you can change another USB port to have a try.

Step 3 Open 'Disk Utility' to Mount The External Hard Drive on Mac

Sometimes, the drive is connected but not mounted. To mount a drive, open Disk Utility and look for the external hard drive in the list. If it is there, click on the Mounting button. Then open a Finder window to see if the drive is mounted or not.

Step 4 Ensure Enough Power for The Drive

If you still cannot find it in the Finder, it is supposed that the drive does not enough power. A single USB port can only provide 5V. In that case, use a USB cable with two USB connections. One is for the external hard drive and the other is for Mac. Therefore, It can supply the power required by the external hard drive.

These steps for fixing an external hard drive not recognized on Windows and Mac are suitable for external hard drives of all capacities and manufacturers. And for your convenience, here also attaches the Wondershare Recoverit tutorial on how to fix the external hard drive not showing up. However, if still the issue is not resolved, you can avail of professional help.

Video Tutorial on How to Fix External Hard Drive Not Showing Up

A Professional External Hard Drive Data Recovery Software

After fixing the hard drive that is not recognized on Windows and Mac, you might want to get your data back. Here We introduce a professional external hard drive data recovery software - Wondershare Recoverit to you. Also, its operation steps are clearly listed to help you recover your hard drive data effectively and efficiently.

Wondershare Recoverit

It is trusted by over 5 million global users

It can save your files, photos, videos, audios, etc

It is able to recover data from any Mac or Windows system

Steps on How to Recover Data from External Hard Drive

Download and install Recoverit Data Recovery on your computer. Launch Recoverit to your Windows or Mac computers. Then follow the next step to perform external hard drive data recovery on a Windows or Mac computer.

Step 1. Select The External Hard Drive

Connect your external hard drive to the computer, select it while the disk is detected on the program.

Step 2. Scan The Hard Drive

The external hard drive recovery software will start scanning the device to search the lost files.

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Step 3. Preview And Recover The Files

In minutes, all recovered files will display. You can preview photos, videos, music, word, excel, ppt, pdf, etc. Select your files and click the Recover button to restore them.

Wd External Hard Drive Not Working Mac Computer

When the external hard drive gets damaged, you can try to fix it with the solution mentioned above. Also, get your data back with Wondershare Recoverit in three simple steps. Download and try it for now.

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