Aug 20, 2018 We are happy to Assist you for your any kind of Mac’s problem like My Passport for Mac not showing up on Mac. Just sent me the text via Comment box. Just sent me the text via Comment box. Also Enjoy our next tips and tutorials by Join us on Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus, and YouTube. Dec 23, 2016 If you cannot transfer a data/file from your Mac to your external hard drive it may be because the external hard drive is formatted in a NTFS file system which is used for a Windows PC only. Jul 28, 2016 Mac OS X one of the best operating system for Apple computers there are lots of series of computer available in Apple Stores. But sometimes performing several tasks on mac are very difficult in this article we went show you how to migrate folders and files of mac to external hard drive.
In general, when a stable WD My Passport gets plugged into Mac, the drive will be readily available on the Desktop, Finder, and Disk Utility. Then it is possible to has full read-write access to the WD My Passport. However, there are times when your My Passport for Mac is not showing up in Finder or greyed out in Disk Utility. Why does this happen? WD My Passport not showing up. I had a backup on my hard-drive which I wanted to delete (300GB), so I moved to the trash. Deleting most files seemed to be okay, however, it then got to the applications folder and other system related stuff. This took forever and kept freezing my macbook, which I needed for work. Here's how to start over. External hard drive showing up in Disk utility not in Devices. This problem also happened after OS X Yosemite update. Next, the USB was plugged into PC and scanned and fixed it as recommended by Windows 10. I have never used my wd my passport ultra before and it will not show up on my mac. I have a WD My Passport compatible with Mac. I have been using it for a few years, and now when I plugged it in and opened it up I can't see the files, even though they are there. It says that there are '45 items,' 129.18 GB available.' I never hide my files. I have only ever used the device with my Mac computer.
Summary
Are you facing a hopeless situation that your WD external hard drive becomes very slow to open files or boot the operating system? Find solutions to fix the slow WD external hard drive in this post, and let EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard help with file recovery if the slow drive threatens your important data.
May 14, 2014 I have eventually got my personal mac, the problem is I have a WD My Passport portable HD, with all my art, photos, and data I had done with the PC. I wish to copy files from my mac to the drive, it wont allow me. But when I open and copy files from the drive to the mac it works. How do I fix this without formatting the drive?
Problem: WD external hard drive slow transfer rate
'I have a three years old WD My Passport 1TB external hard drive which has been used as a backup drive. About a week ago, something unusual happened. The drive became extremely slow, especially when I was trying to transfer data from my computer or open files on the drive. Is this problem serious? Perhaps is there any way to fix the slow WD external hard drive transfer rate? Please help me.'
If you are one of the WD Elements and WD My Passport (Ultra) external hard drive consumers who are currently experiencing a slow transfer speed, slow response, or slow boot problem, please read this post carefully. It offers information on how to fix a slow WD external hard drive, additionally introduces the EaseUS data recovery solution to protect important data from corrupted or inaccessible slow WD external drive.

What's the risk of having a slow external hard drive?
Once your hard drive is very slow suddenly without warning or reporting errors, be alert! There are some potential risks that might cause even severe damage to your hard drive and the data as well.
A list of risks that might be developed from a slow WD external hard drive:
1. Hard drive starts making clicking sound or noise.
2. Files cannot open anymore, being corrupted.
Best font settings for macos terminal. 3. Windows can no longer detect the hard drive or display the data.
4. Hard drive keeps crashing, hanging or freezing when double-clicking on it or trying to open files.
8 Solutions to WD external hard drive slow and unresponsive
With data fully protected, now you can start to apply every possible workaround to resolve the slow issue on a WD external drive. Altogether, we've picked up five viable solutions for you.
1. Change the SATA data cable.
2. Change the USB 2.0 port to USB 3.0 port.
3. Perform disk fragmentation to optimize the disk.
4. Check and repair hard drive logic errors and bad sectors.
5. Send the drive to a hard drive repair center or simply replace the slow hard drive with a new one.
6. Replace the slow hard drive with a new one
Next, we're going to give a detailed instruction of the sixth and seventh solutions, which people can easily test all by themselves on their PCs.
7. To optimize a slow WD external hard drive
Step 1. Go to Computer (Windows 7) or This PC (Windows 10).
Step 2. Right-click on the slow WD external hard drive and choose Properties.
Step 3. In the tab, click Tools, under the Tools click Optimize.
Step 4. Follow the onscreen wizard to complete the process.
By doing like we taught, you can optimize your drives to help it run more efficiently. It's one of the most applied ways to speed up a hard drive that is suddenly slow, overloaded or sluggish.
8. To check and repair hard disk bad sectors
My Passport For Mac Cable
Step 1. Open the WD external hard drive Properties window likewise.
Step 2. In the tab, click Tools, click Check this time. (This option will check the drive for file system errors that may slow down a hard drive's performance )
Step 3. Follow the onscreen wizard to complete the process or file system checking and repairing.
- Tip
- If the hard drive crashes while you trying to open it by right-clicking, go to check hard drive partition errors and remove bad sectors in the other way.
- Download EaseUS free partition manager software to check and repair bad sectors on the WD external hard drive.
If the slow drive disables you from doing both of the troubleshooting steps, please do a further examination: is its LED light flashing appropriately, or does Windows recognize the disk? If not, it's time to send the drive to a professional repair center or contact the WD support to seek help. Your drive seems to be damaged heavily and it's losing its capability.
How to prevent data from corrupting or becoming inaccessible on a slow hard drive?
When you're faced with a slow hard drive, such as a hard drive of Western Digital or other brands like SanDisk, Toshiba, Kingston or Samsung, try to protect your data from being damaged as soon as possible.
And the best way to access data in a WD external hard drive which can hardly open is to let EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard help. It's the most proficient hard drive recovery software that takes three steps to help WD users find all data they want.
Step 1. Choose the external hard drive
Since you're going to recover data from the external hard drive, run EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard and under the External Devices tab, choose the exact drive where you lost data. Click Scan.
Step 2. Scan for lost data
The software will start immediately to scan all over the selected drive for all lost data. During the scan, you could see more and more data showing up in the results.
Step 3. Preview and recover data
After the scan is over, check the scan results for the desired data. You can preview the file by double-clicking on it. Click Recover and choose another location to save the recovered data.
People Also Ask
1. How do I fix a slow external hard drive?
As illustrated in the troubleshooting guide, there are 5 ways to fix a slow external hard drive by yourself:
How To Transfer Files To My Passport For Mac
1. Change the SATA data cable.
2. Change the USB 2.0 port to USB 3.0 port.
3. Perform disk fragmentation to optimize the disk.
4. Check and repair hard drive logic errors and bad sectors.
5. Send the drive to a hard drive repair center or simply replace the slow hard drive with a new one.
2. Why is hard drive suddenly slow?
There are basically two culprits: software and hard drive corruption. Once hard drive and software lack in good health, it begins to develop bad sectors, viruses, fragmentation, and many serious issues and finally leads to a very slow speed that affects your life and work. Learn how to solve the problem of hard drive very slow suddenly.
3. How can I speed up my external hard drive transfer speed?
Sometimes, it might help increase the transfer speed by converting FAT32 to NTFS. In addition, change the default hardware settings for better performance. Learn how to increase the transfer speed of an external hard drive.
4. Can external hard drive speed up my computer?
How To Transfer Files To My Passport For Mac Mojave California
The external hard drive is meant to give your computer more room for storing and running files, especially for large size of videos, photos, Photoshop, etc. So, in certain circumstances, an external hard drive can speed up your computer, but not sure about speeding up your system.
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.
- Solution 5: Repair the WD My Passport in Disk utility. Disk Utility is a built-in used to erase, format or manage internal disks and external storage devices. The most important feature of Disk Utility is First Aid, which helps detect and repair any issue with your disk. Here is how to run First Aid on your Mac to repair the unreadable WD My.
- Now, I will show you the two methods to format WD My Passport portable hard drive on Mac. Method 1: format WD My Passport portable hard drive on Mac with disk utility. Disk utility is a Mac application, you can run it on your Mac. It will list all the hard drives and devices on your Mac computer. How can I reformat my passport for a Mac?
- Every journey needs a passport. The My Passport™ for Mac drive is trusted, portable storage that perfectly complements your on-the-go lifestyle. Compatible with USB-C™ and USB-A, the My Passport for Mac drive comes equipped to connect with today's latest technology. With a new, stylish design that fits in the palm of your hand, there’s space to store, organize, and share all the photos.
- Step 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.
Everything has flaws. At times, WD My Passport won't show up when you connect it to your Mac computer, the WD My Passport is greyed out in Disk Utility, or WD hard drive's light is on but not working. Even worse, it may become unreadable on your Mac. In either way, your important data on this drive will become inaccessible.
A: Answer Hi Matt The WD My Passport Ultra for Mac comes pre-formatted for MAC OS. The hard drive will work as a plug-n-play hard drive on the MAC computer. You will be able to back up your computer on the external hard drive using Time Machine application.
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.
- Table of contents
- 1. Troubleshoot WD My Passport not showing up on Mac issue
- 2. How to fix My Passport not showing up on Mac issue?
- 3. What to do if My Passport drive is not recognized?
- 4. Understanding why My Passport drive not showing up on Mac
- 5. Bonus tips
Troubleshoot WD My Passport not showing up on Mac issue
As mentioned above, malfunctioned USB port or Mac computer, the broken USB cable and some hardware problems can also make WD My Passport not showing up. You can do some basic checks to troubleshoot whether this issue is resulted from those factors.
1. Safely remove the WD My Passport and reconnect it to the USB port. Try quickly plug and slowly plug, sometimes it just works for no reason.
2. 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.
3. Reboot your Mac computer to see if your WD My Passport drive is not showing up in Disk Utility/Finder or not.
4. 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.
Step 1: Go to Finder > Preferences > General tab.
Step 2: Tick the 'External disks' option to show the WD My Passport for Mac on the desktop.
Step 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:
Case 1: Your WD My Passport drive is detected and showing up in Disk Utility, but it is greyed out or not mounting.
Case 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.
Step 1: Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
Step 2: Click 'Show All Devices' in View option at the left corner of Disk Utility.
Step 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.
Reformat Wd Passport For Mac
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.
Step 1: Go to Disk Utility.
Step 2: Select the WD My Passport for Mac.
Step 3: Click First Aid on the top of the Disk Utility window.
Step 4: Click Done when the reparation finishes.
Solution 3: Erase/Reformat My Passport for Mac
If First Aid was unable to fix the errors in the WD My Passport, which is quite common, the file system of this drive could be seriously corrupted and 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 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 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.
Recover lost data from My Passport for Mac with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac
Step 1: Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on Mac.
Step 2: Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
Step 3: Select My Passport for Mac and click 'Next' button to scan all data on this drive.
Step 4: Preview the searching results, choose files you need, and click 'Recover' to get them back.
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.
Step 1: Go to Disk Utility.
Step 2: Select the WD My Passport for Mac drive in the left sidebar.
Step 3: Click Erase on the top of the Disk Utility window.
Step 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.
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: 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.
Everything has flaws. At times, WD My Passport won't show up when you connect it to your Mac computer, the WD My Passport is greyed out in Disk Utility, or WD hard drive's light is on but not working. Even worse, it may become unreadable on your Mac. In either way, your important data on this drive will become inaccessible.
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.
- Table of contents
- 1. Troubleshoot WD My Passport not showing up on Mac issue
- 2. How to fix My Passport not showing up on Mac issue?
- 3. What to do if My Passport drive is not recognized?
- 4. Understanding why My Passport drive not showing up on Mac
- 5. Bonus tips
Troubleshoot WD My Passport not showing up on Mac issue
As mentioned above, malfunctioned USB port or Mac computer, the broken USB cable and some hardware problems can also make WD My Passport not showing up. You can do some basic checks to troubleshoot whether this issue is resulted from those factors.
1. Safely remove the WD My Passport and reconnect it to the USB port. Try quickly plug and slowly plug, sometimes it just works for no reason.
2. 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.
3. Reboot your Mac computer to see if your WD My Passport drive is not showing up in Disk Utility/Finder or not.
4. 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.
Wd My Passport For Mac Format For Windows
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.
Step 1: Go to Finder > Preferences > General tab.
Step 2: Tick the 'External disks' option to show the WD My Passport for Mac on the desktop.

Step 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:
Case 1: Your WD My Passport drive is detected and showing up in Disk Utility, but it is greyed out or not mounting.
Case 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.
Step 1: Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
Step 2: Click 'Show All Devices' in View option at the left corner of Disk Utility.
My Passport Wd Format For Mac File
Step 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.
Step 1: Go to Disk Utility.
Step 2: Select the WD My Passport for Mac.
Step 3: Click First Aid on the top of the Disk Utility window.
Step 4: Click Done when the reparation finishes.
My Passport For Mac Instructions
Solution 3: Erase/Reformat My Passport for Mac
If First Aid was unable to fix the errors in the WD My Passport, which is quite common, the file system of this drive could be seriously corrupted and 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 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 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.
Recover lost data from My Passport for Mac with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac
Step 1: Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on Mac.
Step 2: Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
Step 3: Select My Passport for Mac and click 'Next' button to scan all data on this drive.
My Passport For Mac Not Showing Up In Disk Utility
Step 4: Preview the searching results, choose files you need, and click 'Recover' to get them back.
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.
Step 1: Go to Disk Utility.

Step 2: Select the WD My Passport for Mac drive in the left sidebar.
Step 3: Click Erase on the top of the Disk Utility window.
My Passport Wd Format For Mac Osx
Step 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.
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
My Passport Wd Format For Macbook Air
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).