Christina updated on March 30, 2023 to Hard Drive Solutions
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Most individuals today choose to store their data and files (such as photos, music, papers, etc.) on a computer or external hard drive. Mac laptops' performance and data storage benefits are guaranteed by their hard drives and SSDs. However, there have been situations where customers have experienced problems, such as the disks failing to appear in Disk Utility, Finder, or the Desktop after being plugged into a Mac.
When you connect an external disk to a Mac, it is usually mounted automatically. Yet, sometimes it does not, and the cause is typically incorrect preferences or tainted SMC data. But you can still mount the external disk using one of the following workarounds.
★ Find why a drive can’t mount on Mac:
Lack of proper drive connection.
Problems and slipups on the inside.
Since you turned off the screen options.
A virus has infected your hard drive.
Hard drive with physical damage.
Disrupted connections.
Unsupported file systems such as NTFS.
If your external hard drive is acting up, you can try things to fix it. For best results, work through this list from start to finish and see if any solutions work for you.
All that's needed to fix your external drive may be a restart and a reconnection. It is because a system restart initiates a whole new user session, which means any issues or malfunctions experienced in the prior session are forgotten.
Also, we advise that you exit the Finder by using the "Force Quit" option. Doing so will relaunch the file explorer, which may facilitate the system's mounting of the hard disk. Below is the precise procedure you could take:
If your Mac's external hard disk isn't mounting, you can try reverting to the factory defaults. The device's file system may be restricted from normal use if certain default settings are selected.
To modify your Mac's preferences, use Finder. Here's What to do:
A computer or other hardware device's ROM stores instructions for its operation, often known as firmware.
The next step to fixing unmountable hard disks on Mac is to reset the NVRAM and PRAM. If you want to accomplish this, please follow the steps outlined below.
How to Reset PRAM/NVRAM Firmware?
Disk Utility is a crucial part of macOS since it allows you to monitor, modify, and enhance your disk's health. Also, this program allows you to attach an external drive to your Computer forcibly.
Learn how to launch Disk Utility directly from Spotlight:
If the methods listed above can’t solve this issue or does not work on Mac with Apple silicon, you can try a NTFS for Mac software to help you securely mount a drive on Mac. Follow the steps below:
The issue of an external drive not being recognized by a Mac is a common one and one that numerous users have voiced. There are several reasons why a Mac might not recognize a given storage device, whether it be an external hard drive, USB flash drive, SD card, or even an internal hard disk. In this article, we discussed the common causes of a non-functioning hard disk on a Mac and offered some helpful remedies to these problems.
Note: In some cases, to make a drive mount on Mac, you may need to format it or initialize it. However, the data stored on the drive will be erased. To recover the lost data, just download a data recovery application to scan the formatted/initialized drive and recover the lost data.
Christina
Contributing Writer
Christina is the senior editor of Donemax software who has worked in the company for 4+ years. She mainly writes the guides and solutions about data erasure, data transferring, data recovery and disk cloning to help users get the most out of their Windows and Mac. She likes to travel, enjoy country music and play games in her spare time.
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