I have reached out to WD Customer Support and exhausted all troubleshooting suggestions with them. Since my device reached End of Support in 2013, there really isn’t anything more they can do. Maybe someone else has seen this issue and might be able to help! I’m pasting below all of the troubleshooting steps I performed based on my interactions with WD Customer Support.
Since I submitted my Incident, I have upgraded my iMac to macOS Big Sur version 11.3. And the issue remains the same.
There is no error to capture in a screen shot, because the device is not recognized at all. When connecting it to the iMac, it spins on, like it should, and the tiny light comes on, but nothing happens on the iMac to actually recognize the device.
However, once your computer fails to recognize that format (also known as file system), the WD My Passport for Mac hard drive is not mounting on Mac computer. Why is WD My Passport for Mac not mounting? WD hard drives, including My Passport and Easystore, won't mount on Mac when the disk format is not recognized. Apr 22, 2017 WD My Passport for Mac Not Showing Up. Hello, we just had our Mac fixed after it's screen froze and was unable to restart properly. The repair was getting a new hard drive. We still have the same computer, and had been backing up the old one with My Passport for Mac. However, the device became quite full, and we had it unplugged for about 160. My Passport Not showing up. WD External Drives External Drives for Mac. Caseyz October 15, 2015, 1:29am #1. I’ve had the 320 WD My Passport for about 3 months, its been stationary on my co-workers computer that entire time. He ejected the disk–unplugged the drive and gave it to me to transfer some files onto. Here's how to Fix WD My Passport Ultra Not Detected in your Windows 10 & macOS.
I am including a screenshot of Disk Utility, where you can see that nothing appears for the device. You can that a different Western Digital device is connected correctly, it is a 3TB device that is formatted as 2 volumes, one for regular use, and one used specifically for Time Machine Backups. Please note that I have connected the 3TB device into the same USB port on this iMac as the one I have currently plugged the My Passport into, and the USB port functions correctly with the 3TB device.
The My Passport drive was accessible and functioning properly approximately 2 months ago on my old 2009 iMac running OS X El Capitan. I just recently tried to connect it to my new late 2020 iMac, and it will not connect, just like many others who I’ve read that are having the same connectivity issues since using macOS Big Sur.
There is no physical damage to the My Passport device. And as stated above, it connected properly to my old iMac. I have not tried another USB cable, because 1) it is a special cable that is needed to connect this My Passport device, and 2) it worked just fine with my old iMac.
I went through all of the steps that were possible in the article/link you provided. I will provide a response for each step listed in the article. 1) There is no power adapter, it gets its power from the USB cable connected to the iMac. 2) As stated above, I did not change out the cable because it is not a standard USB cable and the device worked fine on my old iMac. 3) I have tried multiple USB ports on my new iMac and the results are the same, and other devices function properly in each of those USB ports. 4) I turned off the iMac, let it restart, waited a full hour, and then retried connecting the device, and it still did not work. 5) As I already stated, it worked on my old iMac. I do not agree, that there is any issue with my new iMac, every other device, including a Western Digital 3TB device, all work correctly. I am not contacting Apple about this issue, this is a Western Digital My Passport issue. 6) Since it showed up correctly on my old iMac, the device has not failed.
“I have a 1TB WD Elements external hard drive and use it to store all my photos. Today, I connect it to my Windows 10 PC and will copy the photos from it to my PC, but the drive does not appear in This PC and I cannot access it. I reconnect it again and again, change to another USB port, try another USB cable, but still not work. Is there any any way to fix this issue? I really don’t want to lose all my photos.” - Cash
Actually, when you find your connected WD external hard drive won’t show up on your computer, you will change the USB cable, USB port and check the power adapter if it needs, etc. You also can check the software driver for the WD external hard drive. If it still can’t make your WD external hard drive be recognized by your computer, you can try the methods below to fix this issue. Of course, if you lose your files during the fixing processes, we will show you how to get the lost files back.
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Fix 1. Create New Volume if it shows unallocated.
First of all, open Disk Management (Click This PC > Choose Manage > Click Disk Management) on your computer. If you find your WD external hard drives shows unallocated, just create a volume for it. Right click the Unallocated space and choose ‘New Simple Volume’, then follow the wizard to create a new volume. After that, open This PC (or My Computer) to check if the WD external hard drive is showing up.
Fix 2. Assign a new drive letter for your WD external hard drive.
In most cases, your WD external hard drive can’t be recognized by your computer is caused by drive letter conflict or having no drive letter. It is easy to fix this issue by adding a new drive letter for it. Open Disk Management, find the WD external hard drive and right click it, choose Change Drive Letter and Paths. If the device doesn't already have a letter, click Add and choose one. If it does, click Change and try another one.
Fix 3. Format the WD external hard drive using Disk Management.
If your WD external hard drive gets crashed or the file system of it is incompatible, you can format it so that it can be recognized by your Windows computer. Open Disk Management > Right click the WD external hard drive > Choose Format to format it.
Fix 4. Recover lost data from unrecognized or formatted/initialized WD external hard drive.
Data recovery software can help you recover files from your WD external hard drive whether you have formatted/initialized it or not. Now, follow the steps below to get all files back.
Step 1. Download a reliable WD data recovery program - such as Magoshare Data Recovery. It can help you find all existing files, hidden files, deleted/formatted and lost files from your WD external hard drive.
Step 2. Make sure the WD external hard drive has been connected to your computer and run Magoshare Data Recovery. Select the WD external hard drive to start data recovery.
Step 3. Click on Scan button, Magoshare Data Recovery will deeply scan the WD external hard drive and find every recoverable file.
My Passport For Mac Not Showing Up On Pc Screen
Step 4. Once the scanning is completed, you can preview all recoverable files. Then select the desirable files and save them to your computer. Don’t save the recovered files to the WD external hard drive.
Fix 5. Repair crashed WD external hard drive with AweEraser.
AweEraser is a safe, powerful and easy-to-use data erasure & disk management program. If you have installed it on your computer, you can use it to help you repair your crashed WD external hard drive.
1. Open AweEraser on your computer and choose Disk Tools. If you can see the WD external hard drive in the drive list, just select it then click on Repair button. This tool will scan the crashed WD external hard drive and help you fix minor logical errors. Mostly, it will fix the errors by formatting it.
My Passport For Mac On Pc
2. If you are going to sell, donate or trade in your WD external hard drive, you can use Erase Hard Drive mode to help you fix the crashed WD external hard drive and permanently wipe all data from it so that no data can be recovered by the next owners.
Open AweEraser, choose data erasure mode - Erase Hard Drive. This mode will help you wipe and format your WD external hard drive. After erasure, all data on the WD external hard drive will be erased permanently, can’t be recovered by any data recovery method.
My Passport For Mac Not Showing Up On Pc Windows 7
Select the WD external hard drive and click on Erase button. AweEraser will format and wipe the WD external hard drive. 100% safe.