Seagate Hard Drive Not Showing Up on Mac? Solutions Here!

Seagate external hard drives are renowned for their unparalleled speed and reliable storage capabilities. With a Seagate external hard drive, you can easily store your favorite music, videos, photos, and other essential documents. They're also incredibly convenient when traveling. Generally, when you connect an external hard drive to a Mac system, it's automatically detected. However, in many instances, Seagate external hard drives fail to work correctly on Mac systems. Before seeking solutions, it's crucial to understand the various reasons behind the connection failure. Here are some common causes of a Seagate external hard drive not showing up on a Mac:

• Logical Failure: Some logical failures include virus attacks, accidental formatting, corruption, and so on.
• Physical Damage: In many cases, the USB port of your Seagate external hard drive might get damaged. There are high chances of your hard drive getting completely damaged due to overheating and water damage.

Figuring out the exact reason why your Seagate external hard drive isn't showing up on your Mac can be frustrating and time-consuming. Try various methods and steps to resolve the issue and enjoy hassle-free use of your Seagate external hard drive.

How to Check a Seagate External Hard Drive for Errors

Sometimes, for straightforward reasons, a Seagate drive won't show up on a Mac. It could be a loose connection, or your Mac isn't recognizing the drive. Here are some simple checks to make sure that there's nothing wrong with the inside of your external Seagate hard drive.

• Reconnect: Many times, when you connect the Seagate portable hard drive to your computer for the first time, it may not work properly. It's recommended to reconnect the external hard drive and check the connection status. • Try a different USB port or cable: Sometimes, faulty USB cables or Mac ports can lead to the failure of connecting the Seagate portable hard drive. Check your Mac ports and replace the hard drive cable. • Test the external drive on another computer: To determine whether the connection issue is due to hard drive damage or a problem with your Mac system, you need to test the Seagate external hard drive on another computer. If it works fine on another system, you should inspect your Mac's settings. • Restart your Mac: If none of the above solutions help, try restarting your Mac and then reconnect the hard drive.

Even after trying all the simple solutions, if your external Seagate hard drive is still not showing up on Mac, you must check the advanced steps and methods enlisted below to get the hard drive working.

Solving the Issue of Seagate External Hard Drive Not Showing Up on Mac

Users can undertake several advanced steps and methods to resolve the issue of Seagate hard drive not showing up on Mac. Here are various approaches:

Method 1: Change Finder Preferences

If your Seagate external hard drive is not showing up on Mac, you need to change the preferences in the Mac Finder. To do this, follow these steps:

Step 1: Open Finder, and then click Sidebar under Preferences.

Step 2. Select “External Disks” in the Sidebar to show the Seagate external hard drive in Finder.

Step 3: Go back to the “General” tab, and under “Show these items on the desktop,” check “External disks.”

Step 4. Once you've done that, your Seagate external hard drive should appear on the Desktop of your Mac.

Method 2: Mount an External Hard Drive with Disk Utility

If your Seagate external hard drive appears in Disk Utility, you can breathe a sigh of relief because there's nothing severely wrong with the drive. Generally, mounting the Seagate drive will make it accessible. Most of the time, the operating system should automatically mount the drive when you plug in the USB. However, if your Seagate drive isn't mounted, you can manually mount the drive by following these steps:

Step 1: Open Disk Utility.

Step 2: In Disk Utility, right-click your external hard drive and select "Mount." You can also click the "Mount" button at the top of the window.

Method 3: Run a First Aid to Fix Seagate External Hard Drive

If your Seagate drive still doesn't appear after manually mounting it with Disk Utility, there may be disk errors. Fortunately, you can use the built-in disk repair tool “First Aid” to fix your Seagate external hard drive. Use First Aid to repair the drive by following these steps.

Step 1: Click the Launchpad icon in the Dock, then search for “Others.”

Step 2: Find and open Disk Utility.

Step 3: Select the unmountable Seagate external hard drive and then click on “First Aid” at the top.

Step 4. Click “Run” to fix your hard drive.

Method 4: Format the Seagate External Hard Drive to a Mac Compatible File System

Even if First Aid couldn't repair the Seagate external hard drive, you're required to reformat the external hard drive. To format the external hard drive to a file system supported by Mac, please follow these steps:

Step 1: Connect the Seagate external hard drive and then look for Disk Utility option from the Launchpad icon.

Step 2. Select the connected Seagate drive and click on the “Erase” option.

Step 3: Name the drive and choose a format that's compatible with your Mac.

Step 4. After selecting the file system format, click the “Erase” button.

Step 5: Click “Done” to finish the process.

However, it is recommended to back up important data before formatting Seagate external hard drive to avoid any complications.

How to Recover Data from Seagate External Hard Drive on Mac

Seagate external hard drive connectivity issues can lead to data loss. To resolve this, the Data Recovery Wizard for Mac tool comes in handy to help users back up all their crucial data. The data recovery software supports various types of recovery, such as recovering formatted hard drives on Mac, recovering from OS crashes, and raw disks. With the Data Recovery Wizard, Mac users can restore over 250 different file types. To recover data from a Seagate external hard drive, users simply need to follow three easy steps, and the recovery process will commence.

Step 1: Search for the Lost File

Connect the external hard drive to your Mac correctly. Launch Disk Drill, the data recovery tool for Mac. Select your external hard drive. Then, click “Search for Lost Data” to look for lost or deleted files on your external device.

Note: Before data recovery, it is recommended that you click “Disk Backup” from the left sidebar to create a backup of your external hard drive to prevent further data loss. After backing up the external hard drive, the software can recover data from the backup of the external hard drive, and then you can remove the external hard drive and use it again.

Step two: filter and find the missing files.

When the scan is over, all file types will be displayed in the left panel. Choose a file type to look for the needed files on the external device.

Step 3: Preview and recover

Click on the file to preview it, then select the files you wish to recover and click the “Recover” button. You can save the data to both your local drive and cloud storage.

Conclusions

There could be multiple reasons why a Seagate external hard drive is not showing up on a Mac. However, there are numerous ways to fix the connection issues. If your Seagate external hard drive is not showing on your Mac, you can try any of the methods enlisted in the article. If you lose data during the connection process, you can use the Data Recovery Wizard tool to retrieve important data.