how to force format external hard drive mac

This is a pretty common trick to solve such problems. If everything is fine here, move on to the next step. Secondly, some drives have two ports, and both must be plugged into the computer. The power they get from Mac’s USB port is sufficient.īut if you have a big hard drive that requires external power, ensure you satisfy that. Small hard drives, SSD, and pen drives might not require additional power. Make sure the drive is powered adequately If the options are already checked, move on to the next fix. Next, click ‘ Sidebar‘ and make sure ‘ External disks’ is checked.Make sure ‘ External disks‘ is checked.Click Finder at the top menu bar and choose Preferences. The first step is to ensure that external drives are allowed to show up on Mac’s desktop. Change Finder preferences to show the drive on Mac Access the drive using macOS Disk Utilityġ.Make sure the drive is powered adequately.Change Finder preferences to show the drive on Mac.External Hard Drive Not Recognized on Mac How to fix an external hard drive not recognized on Mac Now that you know the basics, let’s look at the fixes.

You will have to buy a new cable or contact a data recovery service like DriveSavers. Note: If it’s either of the last two, the mentioned fixes won’t work.

How to force format external hard drive mac