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WD My Passport Can't Access

• Wd My Passport Ultra Not Detected Mac Pro
• Can't See Wd My Passport On Mac

My Western Digital is not getting detected which was working 1 week before. Suddenly this was not detected and following is happening after connecting in my laptop (Win 7 64 bit OS) a) Light appearing on the drive. B) Hearing sound from the drive. But not detected. Please help me on this. With WD Discovery™ software, you can also work across both Mac and PC. We provide a downloadable HFS+ driver for Windows® 10, 8.1 or 7 to enable you to read and write to your My Passport Ultra for Mac drive without reformatting. Password Protection with 256-bit AES Hardware Encryption WD Security function within WD Discovery helps keep your.

1. I have WD Passport 1TB and I had used it with two partitions (Mac OS and NTFS) for years with my Mac Mini 10.6.8. Until after a pause of about a year it is no longer recognized by Mini. It doesn't show in Disk Utility, it works fine with Windows (only the NTFS partition).
2. Step 2: In the sidebar, select the not mounting WD My Passport for Mac hard drive. Step 3: Click the 'First Aid' button. Step 4: Click Run. People also ask, how do I fix my WD Passport not recognized? How to Fix WD My Passport Ultra not Detected. Connect the Drive With Alternative USB Cable. Open the Hardware and Devices.
3. After plugging in the device, go to device manager (In run type 'devmgmt.msc') In Device manager go to 'Universal serial bus controllers' It should list the storage devices that you have connected to your PC. Right click and then click 'Uninstall. Remove the USB drive and restart your system. Try connecting the device again.

'When I connected my 1TB WD My Passport external hard drive to my desktop, Windows 10 prompts me with an error message saying you need to format the disk before you can use it. I wouldn't do that because data is still there. I tried to eject the drive and reconnected it for the second time, but the error is still there. It seems that I can't access the WD external hard drive nor my data without formatting, can anyone help?'

If you're one of the Western Digital hard drive customers and happen to use the My Passport type, you must be interested in this post. A commonly seen issue with Western Digital My Passport hard drives is that sometimes, you cannot access the drive's data. The typical symptoms are, the power LED is on but the drive is not accessible. Meanwhile, you'll receive error messages like:

• You need to format the disk before you can use it.
• Drive X: is not accessible. Access is denied.

Besides the exact error messages, when you check the drive's status, you may see other different signs. For example:

• In Disk Management, The disk 0 or disk 1 shows as unknown, not initialized, or the type of file system is RAW.
• In the drive's properties, the hard drive shows 0 bytes used and 0 bytes free.

How to Access, View or Recover Data from Inaccessible WD External HDD

When WD My Passport shows you an error and you can't access the data, don't worry, as the files can be easily rescued. Just download EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to recover the data from a corrupted or inaccessible drive. It's the top-ranking hard drive recovery software that reduces the worry and risk of losing your data when disk storage devices, such as WD drives, cannot be accessed or opened.

Step 1. Select the drive where you lose your data and click 'Scan'.

Step 2. Use 'Filter' or 'Search' to find the lost files on the selected hard drive.

Step 3. Select all the files you want and click 'Recover', and browse another secure location to save them.

How to Repair Not Accessible WD My Passport External Hard Drive

As explained, you cannot access an external hard drive for many reasons, for most of the time, the consequence results from either a hard drive connection problem or hard drive self corruption.

So, when you cannot open a connected drive as usual in Windows 10/8.1/8/7, first look over the data cable, is it loose? Data cables can degrade over time from bending and flexing. The connectors can get bent or the internal pins may corrode from contact with contaminates. To check the data cable, you can:

• Use a different data port
• Use a different data cable
• Use a different computer, if possible

Next, proceed with WD My Passport repair tools as recommended here if the data cable is perfectly intact.

What are the WD My Passport repair tools?

You can feel free to use many Windows inbuilt programs as perfect WD My Passport repair tools, including Windows Disk Management, Windows CHKDSK Comand Prompt, and Windows Troubleshooter. They are all supposed to tackle hardware device problems of not recognizing, not detecting, not working or not reading, etc. Make sure that you've extracted the data from the inaccessible drive with the help of EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard before the repair process. This is the most guaranteed way to protect data from permanently gone.

1. Windows Disk Management

It's for performing a quick format, to solve most of the hard drive corruption problems, such as the file system is RAW. When a hard drive turns to RAW, it's not seen in the File Explorer, and it's a good idea to check if it's showing in the Disk Management. Otherwise, you need to convert the RAW external hard drive to NTFS or FAT32 so that Windows can read your WD My Passport normally.

Step 1: In Windows 10/8.1/8/7, press Windows + R keys to bring up the Run box, type diskmgmt.msc and hit Enter.

Step 2: Right-click on the WD My Passport external hard drive, you'll see a context menu of many options, among which choose 'Format'.

Step 3: Follow the onscreen wizard. Choose a proper file system and complete the process of fixing a not accessible WD My Passport external hard drive with Disk Management.

If the issue persists, try changing the drive letter by following the steps below and check again.

Step 1: Choose 'Change Drive Letter and Paths...' this time.

Step 2: Among 'Add, Change, and Remove', click the 'Change' button, and then select a drive letter from the list. Click 'OK' to assign a new drive letter to the WD My Passport.

2. Windows CHKDSK Command Prompt

When hard drive becomes inaccessible and access denied, it's because bad sectors grew. To check and repair bad sectors that prevent users from accessing hard drive data, the CHKDSK command is a good choice. If you want to check for errors or repair the hard drive, always try the below command.

Step 1: In Windows 10/8.1/8/7, press Windows + X keys to bring up a context menu, and choose Command Prompt (Admin).

Step 2: Type chkdsk H: /f /r and hit enter.

H represents the drive letter of your WD My Passport external hard drive. Replace it with the correct drive letter of your own drive.

Use CHKDSK Alternative to Fix Problematic Device

Click to  DOWNLOAD EaseUS CleanGenius and install it on your computer. Let's start checking and refixing file system error on your device now.

Step 1. Click 'File Showing' to enter the next step.

Step 2. Choose the target device and tick the box of 'Check and fix file system error'. Click 'Execute' to start fixing the problematic device.

Step 3. When the fixing process completes, click 'here' to open and use your device.

3. Windows Troubleshooter

This troubleshooter checks for common issues and makes sure that any new device or hardware attached to your computer was installed correctly.

Step 1: In Windows 10/8.1/8/7, press Windows + R keys to bring up the Run box, and type control and hit Enter to open the Control Panel.

Step 2: Find Troubleshooting and click in.

Step 3: Click 'View all' on the left pane.

Step 4: Find and run 'Hardware and Devices'. Follow the onscreen instruction to til the end.

The defect is probably in the WD My Passport Ultra controller. These all in one drive and controllers from WD, Seagate, etc. Are notorious for 'crapping out'. Often they have controllers that have the USB and SATA interfaces in one circuit board so if they die, both the drive and the circuit board, are useless. Equipped with USB-C technology, the My Passport Ultra for Mac portable drive offers an easy way to expand your storage. Learn more: https://www.wdc.com/produ. There's an important difference between these WD drives apart from formatting and colour, which theluggage alluded to - My Passport for Mac works with USB 2 and 3; My Passport Studio works with FireWire 800 and USB 2. So if you want to use USB 3 you need the silver Mac version.

Summary: WD My Passport for Mac is not showing up Mac? Follow the tutorial in this article to fix WD My Passport not working issue and recover data from unrecognized WD My Passport for Mac.

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 hard drive's light is on but not working after macOS Big Sur update
• My Passport WD external drive won't open the password application on M1 Mac
• Mac didn't unlock the My Passport WD drive but asking for WD Drive Unlock application
• My Passport WD 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.

Troubleshoot WD My Passport not showing up on Mac issue

Usually, malfunctioned USB port or Mac computer, the broken USB cable and some hardware problems could make WD My Passport not showing up.

You can do the following basic checks before go further troubleshootings.

• Safely remove the WD My Passport and reconnect it to the USB port. Try quickly plug and slowly plug, which sometimes just works for no reason.
• 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.
• Reboot your Mac computer to see if your WD My Passport drive is not showing up in Disk Utility/Finder or not.
• Connect the WD My Passport to another Mac computer or Windows PC, which will find out if it is the incompatible file system of the drive that makes this WD My Passport undetectable.

How to fix WD My Passport not showing up on Mac issue?

If the WD My Passport for Mac still does not work or not show up on Mac after the basic checks, go ahead to try out the solutions as below to make it show up on Mac.

Solution 1: 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 is stopping your WD My Passport drive showing up.

In other words, you didn't allow the connected hard drives showing 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 Sidebar tab, tick 'External disks' under 'Devices' to show your WD My Passport for Mac in Finder.

Solution 2: Check My Passport for Mac in Disk Utility

If the WD My Passport for Mac drive is still not showing up in Finder or on the desktop, you can see whether it is showing up in Disk Utility or not.

When checking WD My Passport in Disk Utility, you could have two results:

1. Your WD My Passport drive is detected and showing up in Disk Utility, but it is greyed out or not mounting.

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.

Method 1: Mount WD My Passport for Mac in Disk Utility manually

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 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 Disk Utility window.

Instead, you can also click on the mount icon beside the drive to mount it immediately.

Method 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 your Mac computer's Disk Utility, which is able to analyze and repair basic hard drive problems especially with file systems and catalogs, extends, volume bit maps. You can follow the instructions to fix this problem.

• 1. Go to Disk Utility.
• 2. Select the WD My Passport for Mac.
• 3. Click First Aid on the top of the Disk Utility window.
• 4. Click Done when the reparation finishes.

Solution 3: Install the Latest WD Utilities

This has been discussed a lot that Western Digital hard drives not working after Big Sur update or when connecting to an Apple Silicon M1 MacBook Air.

Typically, you'll receive a similar message as follows and you can't open or unlock your WD drive (My Passport):

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 password unlock the drive (unless you enable auto unlock for this computer) each time you:

1. Shut down or restart your Mac
2. You disconnect and reconnect the WD My Passport
3. Mac wakes up from sleep mode

And you have to unlock it with passwork though you have uninstalled the WD My Passport software from your Mac.

To fix that Western Digital My Passport hard drives not working or unlock (only if you know the right password) after Big Sur update, simply download, update, and install the latest WD Discovery Utilities for macOS 11 Big Sur.

2.2 definition of derivativeap calculus. If unfortunately,you can't remember the password, you can only reformat the WD drive (My Passport for Mac) to make it work again, at the expense of data loss.

Solution 4: Erase/Reformat My Passport for Mac

If First Aid was unable to repair the errors in the WD My Passport, meaning the disk file system has been damaged, which is quite common, then you have to fix the WD My Passport for Mac not showing up on Mac problem by reformatting.

The situation is, reformatting will assign a new file system but will erase all your data on this drive as well.

To avoid the loss of important data, please make sure you have a backup copy of data. Without a backup? It's not necessarily the end of the world. You can at first recover lost data from the WD My Passport for Mac with professional Mac data recovery software, like iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.

iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is free hard drive data recovery software for Mac that is able to recover deleted files on Mac, recover lost data from formatted, inaccessible, corrupted, unmountable, unreadable hard drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, memory cards, etc.

It's compatible with macOS Big Sur 11/Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra/Sierra 10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7, on both Intel- and M1-based Macs

1 Recover lost data from My Passport for Mac with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac

• 1. Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on Mac.
• 2. Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
• 3. Select My Passport for Mac and click 'Next' button to scan all data on this drive.
• 4. Preview the searching results, choose files you need, and click 'Recover' to get them back.

2 Reformat My Passport for Mac in Disk Utility

After recovering data from this drive, you can now courageously proceed to erase your WD My Passport for Mac drive with no fuss.

• 1. Go to 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 drive (such as new format, partition scheme, and so on) and click Erase.

What to do if the WD My Passport drive is not recognized/detected?

If My Passport for Mac hard drive is not showing up in Disk Utility at all, it means the WD hard drive is not recognized. Very probably, your My Passport for Mac may have some hardware problems. It's better to send it to a local reparation center.

Wd My Passport Ultra Mac

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 drive not showing up issues are caused by unsafe ejection and sudden power outrage. In order to maintain 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).

Summary: This article analyzes why the WD My Passport for Mac drive is not mounting/working on Mac and how to fix this issue. If you worry about losing data, you can recover data from the WD hard drive with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac at first.

This page will analyze why WD My Passport drive won't mount on Mac, and provides 7 possible solutions to this issue.

• 1. Show the mounted WD My Passport for Mac hard drive on Mac destop
• 2. Force Mount the WD Mac hard drive in Disk Utility
• 3. Run First Aid to fix WD My Passport for Mac not mounting error
• 4. Check the power supply of the WD My Passport for Mac drive
• 5. Check the USB cable
• 6. Check the USB port of your Mac
• 7. Check for driver update

What is meant by mounting a WD My Passport drive on Mac?

The WD My Passport for Mac hard drive is specially designed for Mac mini computers, iMacs, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. You can access My passport for Mac drives only when macOS recognizes the format of the drive. This process is called mounting.

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. Such error could be caused by virus infection, sudden power failure, sudden power outage, unwanted interruption during transferring data, etc. If the external hard drive won't mount, you can't open this WD My Passport for Mac drive and access your important files.

Here is one typical case from forums:

WD My Passport for Mac hard drive (2 TB) won't mount on my MacBook Air, grayed out in Disk Utility. I have 1 TB family photos on this hard drive, which are very precious for me. How to fix if WD My Passport for Mac not working on Mac? Any data recovery solution? Thanks a lot!

If you haven't got an effective workaround when WD My passport hard drive fails to mount in Finder or Disk Utility, this page will help. You'll know how to mount the Western Digital my passport drive on Mac again.

How to fix the unmounted WD My Passport hard drive on Mac?

The connected WD My Passport drive should be automatically mounted on the desktop, in Finder and Disk Utility. When it won't mount on Mac as you expect, you can try these methods.

1. Show the mounted WD My Passport for Mac hard drive on Mac destop

Sometimes, the My Passport drive is recognized and mounted by the Mac, and you just don't see it. You can go to Finder > Preferences and confirm if the 'External Disks' under 'Show these items on the desktop' is selected. This will ensure if the external drives connected to this Mac are allowed to show on the desktop.

But if your WD My Passport drive is not even showing up, it's reasonable that you can't see it mounting on Mac. Then, you shoud check the connections and some hardware issues.

2. Force Mount the WD Mac hard drive in Disk Utility

You can go to Utility and see if this hard drive appears in the left sidebar. If your WD My Passport for Mac drive for Mac is not mounting but grayed out in Disk Utility, you can right-click and select the 'Mount' button to force mount the hard drive. However, if this external hard drive is corrupted, the 'Mount' button will not be available and you need to try the next solution.

But sometimes, you can't mount a hard drive on Mac because of internal disk errors like file system corruption, partition table lost, the directory is corrupted, etc. You WD My Passport for Mac drive won't be recognized by your Mac in these cases. Fortunately, you can fix the hard drive not mounting issue with the native disk repair tool, First Aid.

3. Run First Aid to fix WD My Passport for Mac not mounting error

First Aid is a Mac built-in tool to verify and check minor problems of a hard disk. Whenever you can't mount a WD hard drive or My Passport for Mac is not working, First Aid should be a good disk repair tool.

• Step 1: Go to /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility/, then click Continue.
• Step 2: In the sidebar, select the unmounted WD My Passport for Mac hard drive.
• Step 3: Click the 'First Aid' button.
• Step 4: Click Run.

If Disk Utility reports that the WD My Passport for Mac hard drive appears to be OK or has been repaired, you're done. Otherwise, this WD My Passport drive has been corrupted. You have to retrieve your data from this corrupted hard drive as soon as possible.

When those methods didn't make any difference and the WD My passport for Mac hard drive is not mounting still, you need to check some hardware issues that get involved in the disk connection.

Let's start with some basics factors.

4. Check the power supply of the WD My Passport for Mac drive

It's well known that insufficient or no power supply in USB ports could also lead to hard drive not mounting issue. Therefore, you should make sure the WD My Passport for Mac hard drive is getting the appropriate power. If the drive came with a Y-cable, use both USB connectors. Moreover, do not connect the drive through a USB hub, connect it directly to the Mac. Make sure the power adapter is connected directly to a wall outlet, not to an extension cord.

Wd My Passport Ultra Mac And Pc

5. Check the USB cable

Wd My Passport Ultra Mac Driver

When external hard drive is not showing up on Mac, ensure the cable is properly connected to both the drive and computer. Then try connecting your WD My Passport for Mac hard drive with a new USB cable if you can fetch another one.

6. Check the USB port of your Mac

If the problem still continues, try using a different USB port. Perhaps your Mac has two USB port - the back and front ones. Assuming the My passport driveis plugged in the front USB port, try to insert the drive to the back USB port.

7. Check for driver update

If the hardware seems to be OK, let's check the software that related to this disk problem. The My passport disk driver, a software component, bridges the operating system and the drive to communicate with each other. But the files of My passport driver could be deleted, outdated, or corrupted for virus invasion or misoperation.

So, when the WD My Passport drive is not working or the external hard drive won't mount on Mac, check the disk driver.

• Step 1: Click the Apple icon and select 'App Store…'
• Step 2: Click Update (NOT UPGRADE!) to install a specific update or Update All to install all available updates.

Sometimes, WD My Passport for Mac driver, software, and WD disk tool are needed, especially when you want to open a WD My Passport for Mac drive that is locked. You can go to WD official website and download software for WD My Passport troubleshooting and for WD My Passport driver update.

How to fix WD My Passport for Mac hard drive not mounting error without losing data?

Western Digital My Passport Ultra Mac

However, if WD My Passport for Mac hard drive still won't mount on Mac, the last solutions is to reformat the hard drive. But reformatting will delete all data stored on the hard drive, and most of the time, many important files are stored on the WD My Passport for Mac hard drive.

If you haven't backed up important files, how can you recover files from the WD My Passport drive? It's high time to recover lost data from the unmounted hard drive first.

Step 1: Recover lost data from unmountable hard drive with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac

As for Mac data recovery, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is highly recommended as it's a free Mac data recovery software. It can easily retrieve files from WD Passport drives. This software can recover lost data from corrupted hard drive, unreadable hard drives, formatted hard drives, unrecognized hard drives, unmountable hard drives, inaccessible hard drives, and recover lost data from uninitialized hard drive.

You can use this hard drive data recovery software on macOS Big Sur 11/Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra 10.13/10.12 Sierra and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.

• 1. Free download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
• 2. Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac and select the unmounted WD My Passport for Mac hard drive.
• 3. Click 'Scan' to search for all lost files on this drive.
• 4. Preview the listed scanning results, choose files we want, and click 'Recover' button to get them back.

Wd My Passport Ultra Not Detected Mac Pro

Hopefully, you'll get all your files off after the WD My Passport is not working nor mounting.

Step 2: Fix WD My Passport for Mac drive not mounting error by reformatting

After getting lost files back, you can fix WD My Passport for Mac hard drive not mounting error by reformatting without worrying about losing data. This will reset the WD My Passport hard drive.

• Guide to reformat WD My Passport for Mac external hard drive

Conclusion

WD My passport for Mac hard drives always offer quick and easy way to expand the storage space of your computer. It has amazing features like cloud storage, password protection with hard drive encryption, and compatiblity with Apple's Time Machine backup software, so that you can store a massive amount of photos, videos, music and documents.

But the WD My Passport for Mac drive not mounting issue will call a halt on all these good things. You need to repair the WD My Passport for Mac that is not working or corrupted first, and recover data with the assistance of iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.

Can't See Wd My Passport On Mac

For any questions or suggestions, please email us below.