[Resolved] Mac didn’t Recognize Western Digital External Drive Issue

Summary: “The external hard drive was not recognized by Mac” error can be resolved by using the help of special tips mentioned in this blog.

Also, Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition for Mac Software can be used as a data rescue tool to retrieve the files stored on the external drive.

Why Western Digital External Drive Not Recognized Error shows on macOS:

On Mac, knowing why a Western Digital drive is not being detected plays a significant role in identifying and resolving the issue. Some of the common issues are:

• After a sudden power surge while the drive is being used for file transfer process.
• If WD suffered physical damage from mishandling or dropping of the Western Digital drive.
• Due to abrupt system termination when the drive still connected.
• Malware on the external drive.
• Owing to wear and tear of the Western Digital hard drive due to continuous overuse.
• OS corruption making the WD external drive unrecognized.

Tips to Solve Western Digital Hard Drive not Recognising

Certain tips could prove helpful in resolving the WD unrecognized error :

1. Open Apple’s Disk Utility to see if you can get the Mac to see the Western Digital (WD) drive there. Find Disk Utility by opening Spotlight (Cmd + Spacebar). Then start typing Disk Utility, press enters to open the program. Look in the list on the left to see if the Western Digital (WD) hard drive appears there. You could try running the First Aid through Disk Utility. To do this, click on the “First Aid” tab and select Run. If after running First Aid the Mac finds errors, then you can solve it by “Repair Disk” option

2. If there is no volume listed, the Mac is not able to access the Western Digital (WD) drive. The Mount option will be greyed out.

3. Make sure your Mac is set to show mounted Western Digital (WD) drives on the desktop. Go to Finder > Preferences > General and make sure that there is a tick beside External Drives.

4. Try another Mac to see if you can access the Western Digital (WD) drive there.

5. Try a Windows computer – perhaps the Western Digital (WD) drive is formatted for Windows and can’t be read by your MacBook, iMac or Mac Mini.

Important Note: Formatting the Western Digital (WD) hard drive is another option to retrieve the lost data from an inaccessible Western Digital drive. However, right immediately after formatting the hard drive make sure you do not write anything to it. Do not store any data or attempt to access the hard drive. All your previous files are recoverable until new ones are overwriting them.

Once the formatting gets finished, immediately disconnect the drive from the computer. You can then recover the lost data by using Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition for Mac Software.

Software Recommendation for Data Recovery from Western Digital Drive:

After the formatting completed, just run the Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition for Mac Software to recover the deleted files and folder stored on Western Digital (WD) external drive

The Mac data recovery software treats any Western Digital (WD) external drive as another hard disk and recovers the inaccessible data from it. Stellar Mac data recovery software provides certain additional features along with a basic data recovery option from a hard drive, i.e. Time Machine Recovery, Deleted BootCamp partition, Trash Recovery, Photo Recovery, etc.

Author Note: – Although, there are certain other tricks, which can be implemented to solve the “External Western Digital (WD) hard drive not recognized” error on Mac. However, the above-listed tips and macOS data recovery software are the ones, which I have used and found great success with them. Meanwhile, if you know any other tricks that deserved a place on his list, then please feel free to share them through the comment section.

Also Read List of Top 5 Mac Hard Disk Drive Repair Software