How to access an external drive that's not showing up on a Mac

How to access an external drive that's not showing up on a Mac

Normally when you plug in an external hard drive to your Mac's USB port you will see it mount on the desktop. You can also see it in the Finder in the left-hand column under Devices. Sometimes though the drive fails to mount usually when you desperately need to access some data stored on it. Should this happen here are the steps to follow to hopefully gain access to the drive. We have this separate article that explains . This article assumes you have an external drive that connects to your Mac via the USB or Firewire port. If you have a NAS drive that connects over the network read this article about . Make sure that your external drive doesnt become damaged in the future by always unmounting the disk properly after using it. Dont just unplug the USB cable. To unmount your drive you can right-click (control-click) on the icon on the Desktop or in the Finder and choose Eject. Apparently most drive issues are caused when the disk is removed without ejecting it properly. Decided there is no hope for your faulty hard drive, we have a round up of some of the best we've seen here: