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Summary: If you receive the error message: 'The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer' when plugging a WD external hard drive into your Mac, try 5 solutions to repair unreadable external hard drives in this article. Worry about losing data? You can recover files from this WD drive with iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery at first.
External hard drives make it much easier to store, transfer, and back up files on Mac. That is the reason why WD external hard drives are preferred by so many users. However, it is possible that your WD hard drive becomes unreadable suddenly. Shocked when your computer can't read your external hard disk?
As a matter of fact, external hard drives becoming not readable on Mac is a general issue. But you don't have to worry now because this article will tell you why your WD exterbnal hard drive is not readable by your Mac, and then it will include 5 solutions to repair this unreadable external hard drive easily.
If you plug a WD external hard drive to your Mac but your computer is unable to read it, you may be facing the same disk problem as the following query from Apple Community:
I tried to connect my 1TB WD external hard drive to my MacBook Pro today. It makes a musical, three 'note' sounds. But then my computer tells me: 'The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer'. I am totally at a loss. I don't know why my drive becomes unreadable and I really need the files on the drive. Is there any method that can fix this not readable WD external hard drive? Can I get my lost files back?
The truth is, most people are noobs, and they use external hard drives just for simple storage and backup. As a result, when their hard disk suddenly won't work on Mac computers, they are left high and dry.
Then exactly, why your WD external hard disk suddenly becomes unreadable?
Why your external hard drive is not readable by Mac computers?
What causes external drive not readable by this computer? The reasons are varied.
Here are the main reasons:
File system corruption: Mac can't read your external hard drive because of the file system corruption. Most of the time, if your drive is infected with virus, or you ejected this drive without unmounting it, the partition table or directory structure of this drive could be damaged. And these internal file system errors would make your hard disk unreadable.
Component failure: This is one of the most common causes, especially when the unreadable HDD is producing some unusual sounds like ticking, buzzing, etc. If this is your case, you'd better send this disk to some disk repair services because your external hard drive probably has been physically damaged.
Also, factors like faulty connections, power failure, etc. could also be the troublemaker. But no matter what the reason is, this problem needs to be fixed as soon as possible for sure.
How to fix/repair WD external hard drive not readable on Mac?
There are 5 solutions you can try to solve this 'disk not readable' issue, and you can check them one by one.
Solution 1: Reconnect this external hard drive to your Mac
First of all, you can try your luck by re-connecting. Simply unmount it and eject it safely. Then, plug this WD external hard drive into your computer and attempt to access it again. If this error still pops up, you could move on to the next method.
Solution 2: Check if your USB drive is supplied with enough power
Lack of power could be the cause that your Mac won't read this drive. Therefore, you can check this power information and then fix your disk problem possibly.
Step 1: Click on the Apple logo at the upper left of your desktop.
Step 2: Choose About This Mac and select System Report.
Step 3: Find and select USB in the left sidebar, then your USB devices will be listed in the right.
Ad blocker for mac. Step 4: Select your WD external hard drive and go through its information.
Step 5: You will find the Current Available (mA) and Current Required (mA) columns. You can do your math and see if your disk drive is lack of power. If so, you can eject some unnecessary devices so that this WD drive can have enough power supply.
Solution 3: Update your USB driver
Still can't access this drive? Well, if your disk is connected through USB port instead of Thunderbolt, then you can check whether your USB driver is outdated or not.
To check if any updates are available, please do the following:
Step 1: Click on the Apple in the upper left corner of the screen
Step 2: Select App store...
Step 3: Any software or macOS updates available will be listed here, and you are able to download them. Or else, you will be told your software is up to date.
Solution 4: Repair WD external hard drive not readable with Disk Utility
However, if none of those options has worked and your WD external drive still is not readable by your Mac, then this disk could have some disk errors that need to be repaired. Fortunately, the Mac built-in disk repair tool, Disk Utility can help you out.
Here are the steps:
Step 1: Click Launchpad at the dock of your Mac and go to Other.
Step 2: Find and open Disk Utility.
Step 3: Choose the unreadable WD external drive on the left sidebar.
Step 4: Click First Aid in the top center and then click Run to repair this disk.
But if the external hard drive is greyed out in Disk Utility, you need to move to the next solution.
Solution 5: Recover data and reformat the WD external hard drive
If First Aid is unable to repair this disk, the file system of your drive could be seriously damaged or even corrupted. In this case, you can only reformat the drive with a new file system.
Tips: You should not erase this disk immediately if you have important files on this drive, because reformatting will delete data on this drive and you will lose your files consequently. So, please make sure that you have a copy of data backup. If you didn't make any backup before, then you can recover these files with a reliable data recovery tool.
If you don't worry about data loss and just want to repair this external drive, you can move forward to Step 2 in this part.
How to recover data from unreadable WD external hard drives?
There is a large amount of data recovery software available online, so you can select a professional and good-quality utility to have a try. Here iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery is used as an example.
iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery is free data recovery software that can recover data from unreadable external hard drives. It can recover files from external hard drives of WD, Seagate, Toshiba, etc. Moreover, this data recovery program can recover data from unrecognized external hard drives and recover data from corrupted/formatted/unmountable external hard drives. If files like photos are deleted from SD cards, USB flash drives, memory cards, etc. iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery can also be a helper. You can use this Mac data recovery on macOS 10.14/10.13/10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.
Step 1: Recover data from unreadable external hard drives with iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery
1. Download and install iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery on Mac.
2. Launch iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery.
3. Select the not readable WD external hard drive and click 'Next' button to scan all lost data.
4. Preview the searching results, choose files we need, and click 'Recover' to restore files.
5. Have a check to ensure we have got all lost data back.
Step 2: Reformat the unreadable WD external hard drive
After successfully recovered all lost data, you can fix not readable WD external hard drive by formatting. The operation below is about how to reformat an external hard drive on a Mac computer.
Conclusion:
Hope this article can help you to fix the 'disk is not readable' issue without losing any file. If you can't repair this disk with the solutions above, it's better to recover data from this unreadable external hard drive with iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery, and then send it to a local repair store for good.
Most of the time, when you connect an external hard drive to your Mac’s USB port, you soon see it mount on the desktop. Apple likes to ensure these are easy to find, so they also appear in the Finder in the left-hand column under Devices, since Mac’s treat them the same way as another computer.
However, sometimes, an external hard drive doesn't show up. It’s annoying, especially when you need to transfer something right then. And besides, there can be a risk that data on the external USB pen, hard, or flash drive is corrupt, which means you can’t transfer what you need between devices at all.
Open an External Drive Not Showing on Mac
Get a huge set of top utilities for troubleshooting external hard drives not mounting on a Mac
Corrupt data can be one reason your Mac won't recognize an external drive, but there are other reasons too. Let’s take a look why this is happening and how you can get an external drive to appear on your Mac and get recover data to access to your documents.
How to fix an external disk drive that won't show up on a Mac
Why an external disk drive is not showing up? There could be a few reasons why a USB flash drive isn’t making an appearance.
Start with the basics:
Unfortunately, if none of those options has worked and the external drive still isn’t visible, then it could have crashed, or be well and truly broken. But there might still be a way you can recover the data on the external drive.
How to show connected devices in Finder
In the Sidebar tab you can choose which folders and devices will be shown in the left-hand column of the Finder window.
How to add cloud storages to Finder
You can also mount cloud storage as local drive on your Mac. By connecting Google Drive, Dropbox, or Amazon to your computer, you get more space for securely accessing and sharing files. For your ease, add cloud drives to Finder with CloudMounter app, so that you keep them close at hand. You can read detailed instructions on managing cloud storage as local drives here.
Repair the failed external drives with First Aid
If your drive is having problems, you can try to fix them yourself with First Aid and therefore get access to your files. First Aid tool will check the disk for errors and then attempt a repair as needed. It helps to verify and repair a range of issues related to startup HD and external drive problems. If you are able to fix the hard drive or SSD in your Mac (or an external drive) using Disk Utility you will hopefully be able to recover your files.
To run Fist Aid on an external hard drive:
If First Aid successful in fixing errors, the external drive should be available to mount. If the utility unable to repair issues, your drive truly is broken or formatted using a file system that the Mac cannot read - in this way we suggest you follow the next steps to recover data from a damaged disk drive.
How to recover data from a crashed drive
Thankfully, there is an app for that. Disk Drill is the world’s premier data recovery software for Mac OS X. Powerful enough to retrieve long-lost, mistakenly deleted files from Macs, external hard drives and USB drives and camera cards.
Format flash drive for mac. Get a file recovery app
With Setapp you get a pack of professional tools for file recovery and Mac maintenance.
An easy way to recover lost files on an external hard drive
Providing you already have Disk Drill Pro version, which you can get automatically by downloading from Setapp:
Disk Drill does have other ways to recover lost files but assuming there aren’t complications, this method is the most effective. Disk Drill Pro recovery app is available from Setapp, along with dozens of Mac apps that will make your life easier. Never have to worry about a crashed or corrupted external drive again.
A few more tips on getting your files back
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Alternative ways to recover data from an external hard drive
Reset the System Management Controller (SMC) if your Mac shuts down when you plug in an external hard drive. Then use a different port to connect the external hard drive. If you’ve got a battery that you can’t remove:
For Macs with removable batteries, you need to switch them off, remove the battery, then press and hold the power button for 5 seconds. After that, put the battery back in, plug in the power adapter and switch the power on again.
What’s your file format? One reason your Mac isn’t recognizing the hard drive is the file format. Windows uses NTFS file formats, while Macs, up until the introduction of Sierra, have used HFS+. Now, Apple has introduced the Apple File System (APFS) for newer operating systems. It is possible to format a hard drive so it can be read on Mac and Windows computers, providing you format using exFAT. However, if you’re having problems accessing the files and the issue is due to formatting, you will need to connect it to a device it can be read on, and then format the files correctly for the computer you are going to use it on next.
How to make Ext2/Ext3 drives readable on Mac
The common issue is Ext2- and Ext3-formatted drives are not readable on macOS. There are two ways to access such external drives on your Mac – via Linux OS or FUSE system. The easiest would be installing Linux to a secondary drive or virtual machine.
If you go with Linux installation, dual boot your Mac with Linux on another drive and use FAT32 as a transfer intermediary. If you don’t have a drive to install Linux to, use virtual machine as an interface for it. Transferring can be done the same way – with FAT32, or via network.
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Another option for reading Ext2/Ext3 disks is mounting disk with Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE). Basically, it works as an extra interface enabling file system access via specially installed modules. Here’s how to mount drives with FUSE:
Wd External Hard Drive Driver For Mac
And that’s not the only case where Terminal helps you access external drive.
Employ the handy all-powerful Terminal, which always comes forward with solutions for difficult problems. Especially if System Information does recognize the USB or hard drive, but continues to hide it from you, disconnect the drive and try to find it using the Terminal, which you can find in Applications > Utilities.
Console is also reliable when it comes to solving tricky problems, although it isn’t always that easy to use. You can find Console under Applications > Utilities > Console. Console shows if an external drive or any error is detected under the Errors and Faults tab. If no errors show up, then the problem is not caused by the device.
Wd External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc
To sum up, there are lots of potential solutions for a Mac not reading an external hard drive. If we were to pick one, Disk Drill seems to be the most well-rounded, offering plenty of customizations and power in an easy-to-use interface. Disk Drill Pro recovery app is available via Setapp, along with 150+ Mac apps that strive to make your life much much easier. At the very least, you’ll never have to worry about a crashed or corrupted external drive ever again.
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