By Katrina | Posted to Home > Mac Data Recovery Tips, updated on August 20th, 2021User rating:
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Summary: Here you will find 5 methods to fix WD My Passport for Mac drive not showing up or working on Mac. To avoid data loss, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac can help save your data to a safe place.
Everything has flaws, even the WD My Passport for Mac drive that you used for years.
It happens frequently that:
- WD My Passport won't show up when connecting to your Mac computer
- WD My Passport is greyed out in Disk Utility
- WD external hard drive light on but not working after macOS Big Sur update
- WD My Passport drive won't open WD unlocker application on M1 Mac
- Mac didn't unlock the WD My Passport drive but asking for the WD Drive Unlock application
- WD My Passport Ultra becomes encrypted or unreadable on your Mac
Either way, your important data on this drive will become inaccessible and concerns you a lot.
If the WD My Passport is not showing up on Mac desktop, Finder, or Disk Utility after connecting to your Mac, how to find it and make it work? If you can't see files from WD external hard drive on Mac, how to access data? You'll get answers here.
Besides WD My Passport Ultra, you can also use the program to copy or backup DVD to WD My Cloud Ultra 2, WD EX2 Storage, etc. Designed for Mac My Passport for Mac portable storage works straight out of the box with Mac devices which makes it easy to get going quickly – drag and drop files to and from, or setup a backup routine with Apple's. My Passport is one of the external storage product lines produced by Western Digital, or WD. My Passport drives are designed for on-the-go use, unlike the enlarged devices found in the My Book series. The first Time Machine backup is always the longest because it has to backup the entire Mac and all data. After that first backup is complete, the future backups are delta backups, meaning only the.changes. between the prior backup and the new backup are backed up, which makes those frequent backups quite fast generally speaking.
Solutions for fixing WD My Passport drive not showing up on Mac
- Method 1: Do the basic checks
- Method 2: Check Finder Preferences
- Method 3: Install the latest WD drive unlock application
- Method 4: Check & repair drive in Disk Utility
- Method 5: Recover data and erase the drive
- Method 6: Repair your WD hard drive in local shop
Fix 1: Do the basic checks
Usually, malfunctioned USB port or Mac computer, the broken USB cable, and some hardware problems could make WD My Passport not showing up.
Before going further troubleshooting, do the following basic checks is very necessary.
1. Safely remove the WD My Passport and reconnect it to the USB port. Try quickly plug or slowly plug, which sometimes just works for no reason.
2. Check whether the USB cable or USB port is bad by connecting other hard drives to this USB port or cable and see if that makes a difference.
3. Reboot your Mac computer to see if your WD My Passport drive is not showing up in Disk Utility/Finder or not.
4. Connect the WD My Passport to another Mac or Windows PC, which will find out if it is the incompatible file system of the drive that makes this WD My Passport undetectable.
If the WD My Passport for Mac still doesn't show up or work on Mac after the basic checks, go ahead to try out the solutions as below to make it show up on Mac.
Fix 2: Check Finder Preferences
If your WD My Passport is not showing up in Finder and desktop, it's possible that the configuration of the Finder Preferences prevents your WD My Passport drive from showing up.
In other words, you didn't allow the connected external hard drives to show up in the Finder or on the desktop.
Now, follow the guide below to set Finder Preferences and make the WD My Passport for Mac show up in Finder or on the desktop.
- 1. Go to Finder > Preferences > General tab.
- 2. Tick the 'External disks' option to show the WD My Passport for Mac on the desktop.
- 3. Go to the Sidebar tab, tick 'External disks' under 'Locations' to show your WD My Passport for Mac in Finder.
- 4. Go to Desktop or Finder and check if your WD My Passport is showing up. If not, download, install iBoysoft Data Recovery on your Mac and then check if your WD My Passport is detected by iBoysoft Data Recovery.
- 5. If your WD My Passport is recognized by iBoysoft Data Recovery, follow the wizard to recover data and then format WD hard drive.
If your WD My Passport drive is not detected by iBoysoft Data Recovery either, send WD hard drive to an expert for reparation.
Solution 3: Install the latest WD drive unlock application
Typically, if you have received a message like 'You must run the WD Drive Unlock application from the WD Drive Unlock CD associated with the drive you want to unlock' and you can't open or unlock your WD drive (My Passport):
This has been discussed a lot that WD hard drive not working after the macOS Big Sur update or when connecting to an Apple Silicon M1 MacBook Air.
If you have used WD Utilities or have created a secure password to keep others from accessing the files on the drive, you have to type the password to unlock the drive (unless you enable auto-unlock for this computer) each time:
- You shut down or restart your Mac.
- You disconnect and reconnect the WD My Passport.
- Your Mac wakes up from sleep mode.
Besides, you have to unlock the WD drive with your password even if you have uninstalled the WD My Passport software from your Mac.
To fix that Western Digital My Passport hard drives not working or unlock (though you know the right password) after the macOS Big Sur update, simply download, update, and install the latest WD Discovery Utilities for macOS 11 Big Sur.
Fl studio keyboard shortcuts not working. If unfortunately, you can't remember the password, you can only reformat the WD My Passport for Mac hard drive to make it work again, but at the expense of data loss. So, recovering your data with iBoysoft data recovery software in advance.
Fix 4: Check & repair drive in Disk Utility
If the WD Passport hard drive is not showing up in Finder after trying the above methods, you can see whether it is showing up in Disk Utility or not.
Usually, you could have two results:
Case 1: Your WD My Passport drive is detected and showing up in Disk Utility, but it is greyed out or not mounting.
Case 2: Your WD hard drive is not recognized, so it's not showing up in Disk Utility at all.
Here, we'll show you solutions to case 1.
1. Manually Mount WD My Passport for Mac in Disk Utility
Sometimes, hard drives cannot be automatically mounted in Disk Utility, even though Mac has detected the hard drive. So it's possible that you'll see the WD My Passport for Mac drive not mounting in Disk Utility.
In this situation, you can manually mount the hard drive.
- 1. Go to Finder>Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility.
- 2. Click Show All Devices in View option at the left corner of Disk Utility.
- 3. Select your WD My Passport for Mac drive from the left sidebar and click the Mount button on the top of the Disk Utility window.
Instead, you can also click on the mount icon beside the drive to mount it immediately.
2. Repair WD My Passport for Mac drive with First Aid
If you can't mount the WD My Passport for Mac manually, there should be some file system problems in this drive.
But don't worry. There is a native repair tool called First Aid in Disk Utility, which can analyze and repair basic hard drive errors especially with file systems and catalogs, extends, volume bit maps.
To run First Aid to check the WD My Passport hard drive:
- 1. Go to Disk Utility.
- 2. Select the WD hard drive.
- 3. Click First Aid on the top of the Disk Utility window and then click Run.
After running First Aid, try to mount the WD Passport hard drive again to check if it can be mounted and accessed now.
If your WD My Passport drive cannot mounted, try next solution to recover data and then erase the drive.
Fix 5: Recover data and erase the drive
If First Aid was unable to repair the errors in the WD My Passport, it means that the file system of the WD drive has been damaged. Common, to fix the WD My Passport for Mac drive that's not showing up on Mac, you have to reformat it.
The question is, reformatting will assign a new file system but will also erase all data on this drive as well. Hence, firstly, recover data from WD drive with iBoysoft Data Recovery.
How To Check Progress Of My Passport For Mac Backup Program
Tutorial to recover data from My Passport for Mac hard drive:
- 1. Download, install and launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on Mac.
- 2. Select My Passport for Mac and click the Scan button to scan all data on this drive.
- 3. Preview the searching results, choose files you need, and click Recover to get them back.
Next, you can courageously proceed to erase your WD My Passport for Mac hard drive with no fuss.
- 1. Open Disk Utility.
- 2. Select the WD My Passport for Mac drive in the left sidebar.
- 3. Click Erase on the top of the Disk Utility window.
- 4. Complete the information for your WD drive (such as new format, partition scheme, and so on) and click Erase.
Fix 6: Send your WD My Passport drive for repair
If My Passport for Mac hard drive is not showing up in Disk Utility, it means that the WD hard drive is not recognized or detected by the Mac. Very probably, your My Passport for Mac has some hardware problems. You'd better send it to a local reparation center.
Understanding why My Passport drive not showing up on Mac
Sometimes, an external hard drive not showing up on Mac just because the USB cable or the USB port on your Mac is bad. In addition, the following reasons may also lead to WD My Passport for Mac not showing up or not working.
- Recent macOS update issue
- System failure
- Virus infection
- Motherboard issue
- WD My Passport drive damage or corruption
Bonus Maintenance Tips for WD My Passport drives for Mac
Apparently, most hard drives not showing up issues are caused by unsafe ejection and sudden power outage. In order to keep your WD My Passport for Mac in good condition, you should pay attention to:
- Make sure that your WD My Passport doesn't become physically damaged.
- Always safely and properly eject the WD My Passport for Mac drive after using it.
- Don't just unplug the USB cable, on the contrary, unmount your drive by right-clicking (control-click) on the icon on the Desktop or in the Finder and choose 'Eject'.
- Properly use WD software like WD Drive Utilities, WD Backup software ( to back up important files to your My Passport drive), and WD Discovery ( to organize and share your files to the My Passport drive to backup your online social life).
Final thoughts
Actually, My Passport for Mac hard drives are just like other external hard drives, which may not show up after connecting to a Mac. This article offers a full guide to help you fix the WD drive not showing up issue in different situations. It's worth mentioning again that once this issue happens, rescue files from your WD Passport hard drive with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac first, or you'll face permanent data loss.
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How do I transfer files to my seagate external hard drive?
“I have some precious pictures, files, videos, etc on my computer that truly need to be backed up !!!! Thus, I bought Seagate Backup Plus. It’s said this is a backup drive. But It does not show as a backup drive when I plug it into my Windows 10. What's wrong? How do I backup files on Seagate external hard drive?”
Don't worry about it! This is what I will share with you in the following. As far as I know, this is probably a connection issue or the disk driver is outdated. And there are 3 different Seagate external drive backup software for you to backup files on Seagate external hard drive, namely Seagate Dashboard, Backup and Restore, and AOMEI Backupper.
Honestly, the third one is smarter, which has more advanced features and allows you to backup only changed files or folders. Also, it has an intutive interface, so all users can understand this software easily and quickly. Therefore, if you want a simple & effective way, it will be a great choice.
Why backup files to Seagate external hard drive?
Talking about the reason, there are 2 main reasons to backup files on Seagate external hard drive. Let's see them specifically.
- Ensure the security of your precious data. Most computers users save data on their laptop or desktop, but there is a great risk of data loss in the event of failure, such as, system crash, disk failure, virus attack, ransomware etc. To minimize the risk, you can backup files to external hard drive, like Seagate Backup Plus.
- External hard drive is very portable to take. Aside by the security issue, you may want to save the common used files to a portable storage device and take it everywhere, so you can view files on external hard drive anytime. Seagate external hard drive is one of the portable storage devices.
Seagate Dashboard: use Seagate external hard drive to backup files
This is the first method to backup files on Seagate external hard drive. You will use Seagate Dashboard, a seagate external drive backup software, which comes along with Seagate Backup Plus or Seagate Center. Without further ado, let's get started to reveal Seagate backup Plus how to use. Photos of roses free download.
Step 1. Connect Seagate Backup Plus to your computer and make sure it can be detected. Then, access Seagate external hard drive in Windows Explorer and double-click the Seagate Dashboard Installer.exe to install this software
Step 2. Launch Seagate Dashboard and then select PC Backup in the home page.
Step 3. Then, click Protect Now and Back up Now to backup all non-system files.
Notes:
◑ About how do I know when Seagate backup is complete, you can see the green backup progress bar and percentage. And when the task is complete, these indicators will disappear.
◑ Seagate Dashboard can also be a Seagate automatic backup software, which allows you to backup all personal folders (non-system files) or specific folders with New Backup Plan option. It supports multiple Seagate automatic backup options, including snapshot, weekly, monthly, daily, hourly, and continuously.
◑ About how do I know when Seagate backup is complete, you can see the green backup progress bar and percentage. And when the task is complete, these indicators will disappear.
◑ Seagate Dashboard can also be a Seagate automatic backup software, which allows you to backup all personal folders (non-system files) or specific folders with New Backup Plan option. It supports multiple Seagate automatic backup options, including snapshot, weekly, monthly, daily, hourly, and continuously.
Backup and Restore: backup files using Seagate external hard drive
As said before, Seagate Backup Plus is one of the backup drives. It’s is compatible with Windows and Mac. And it has a great capacity, even up to 8TB. Aside by that, it supports a faster speed. Then, let's have a closer look at how to use Seagate external hard drive in Windows 7/8/10 to backup files.
Step 1. Install Seagate Backup Plus drive on your computer via an adapter. Then, click Use this drive for backup under AutoPlay window, and wait for Windows Backup to start.
Step 2. Pitch on Let Windows choose or Let me Choose, then click Next.
Note: If you just want to backup files saved in libraries, on the desktop, in default Windows folders, you can choose Let Windows choose. If you want to backup specific files or folders, you can choose Let me choose.
Step 3. The default schedule setting is set to 7am every week. If you want to change it, click Change schedule. Then, review your backup settings and click Save settings and run Backup to finish the last step. Wait until you see a prompt like ”Windows Backup has completed successfully”.
Note: Backup and Restore utility (Windows 7) is very useful. It can help you backup files and backup system as long as you have a common external hard drive. However, it may fail to encrypt and compress backup images. Also, it cannot support differential backup.
AOMEI Backupper: backup files on Seagate external hard drive
Reading here, you may already know how to backup files using Seagate Backup Plus. Frankly speaking, it’s not a perfect way to backup files.
I strongly recommend you using Seagate automatic backup software AOMEI Backupper Professional. With it, you can backup files to Seagate external hard drive automatically, even with only changed files. It supports daily backup, weekly backup, monthly backup, incremental/differential backup, etc. Also, you can choose to compress backup files if it's too large In addition, you can encrypt backup files if there are any sensitive data.
Then, let's take Seagate Backup Plus as an example and have a closer look at how to backup files to Seagate external hard drive. Before starting any operation, please connect Seagate Backup Plus drive to your computer and download the free trial file backup software AOMEI Backupper Professional.
Step 1. Launch AOMEI Backupper Professional. Then, click Backup and File Backup to summon the next window
Step 2. Click Add File or Add Folder to select files from the local computer.
Step 3. Select Seagate Backup Plus drive as the destination path.
Step 4 (Important). Click Schedule, then click daily under the General tab and select differential backup under the Advanced tab. Then, click Start Backup if there are no problems.
Notes:
◑ Differential backup is much safer than incremental backup, because it will contain all the files in the original backup and the newly added or modified. Even if one of the image file is damaged, you still can restore files from backup.
◑ This version of software is only suitable for Windows 7/8/10/XP/Vista. If you are using server computer, you could consider upgrading to AOMEI Backupper Server.
◑ Differential backup is much safer than incremental backup, because it will contain all the files in the original backup and the newly added or modified. Even if one of the image file is damaged, you still can restore files from backup.
◑ This version of software is only suitable for Windows 7/8/10/XP/Vista. If you are using server computer, you could consider upgrading to AOMEI Backupper Server.
How to view files on Seagate Backup Plus?
In the minds of many users, where is my backup file may be a question. Here I will show you the answer. To view files on Seagate backup drive, such as, Seagate Backup Plus, you could delete old backup using Seagate Dashboard or use the built-in explore image feature in AOMEI Backupper. Details are below.
Method 1: View files using Seagate Dashboard.
Open Seagate Dashboard, select the BackupPlus in the Dashboard, click Info and View Files to go to the target path.
Tip: Also, you can see your files in the Seagate external hard drive. You can go to (My) Computer and the backup drive, open the folder named Backup and with your PC name subsequently, click on the C folder and go to Users > Username>Documents, then double-click the files to check it.
Method 2: View files in virtual partition.
How To Check Progress Of My Passport For Mac Backup Tool
You can launch AOMEI Backupper Professional, go to Tools > Explore Image, select backup image and time point, then click Save As and select a path for the image file, then wait until the process is completed. Finally, go to the path and see your files.
How To Check Progress Of My Passport For Mac Backup Software
Note: If you just want to check the integrity of backup files, you can click Settings at the lower left corner and tick Check backup integrity on complete. It’s much convenient.
How to delete backup files from seagate external hard drive?
Some users reported that Seagate Backup Plus slim full. Do you have similar questions? See below and I’ll show you how to delete backup files from Seagate external hard drive. Here are 2 ways.
How To Check Progress Of My Passport For Mac Backup Download
Method 1. Delete backup files using Seagate external hard drive.
You can select PC Backup on the home page and then backup task, click the drop down menu and choose Delete to delete this task. If this is a Seagate automatic backup plan, please select the box next to Delete backed up files and click Delete.
Method 2. Delete backup image regularly with AOMEI Backupper.
You can Go to Home, click the three bars icon > Edit Backup > Backup Scheme > Enable Backup Scheme, then select a scheme settings from the drop-down menu. After that, it will automatically delete old backups by a specific role.
The meaning of creating one or more backups are to continuously protect your data and OS. If you delete all the backups, it is against the original meaning. And you may delete the latest backup mistakenly. Thus, the second way is more useful. It will keep the latest backup and delete other backups with a specific role.
Conclusion
Honestly, it’s necessary to backup files on Seagate external hard drive, because the backup image could protect and recover your files in case of system crash, virus attack, etc. Of course, if you can create a Seagate automatic backup, so much the better.
All of the given solutions can help you do this. But if you don't want to backup all files everytime, the last one will be a better choice. Its incremental/differential backup can backup the changed files only after the full backup.
In addition, this software still supports many useful features, such as, three compression level, encryption, backup scheme to delete backup files, event trigger backup, system backup, disk backup, universal restore, replace HDD with SSD, create bootable media etc. Any interest? Please download this software to enjoy these features.