- Seagate External Hard Drives Troubleshooting
- How To Use A Seagate External Hard Drive On Mac Youtube Download
Summary: Seagate external hard drive not recognized/showing up on Mac? Have no data backup? Feel very upset when finding you can't see any file on the external hard drive? Now download free external hard drive data recovery software for Mac - iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac to recover lost data from unrecognized Seagate external hard drive.
It's a dime a dozen that Seagate external hard drive is not showing up or recognized by Mac computers. Some users even say that they can see the Seagate external hard drives' light blinking but the computer just won't give any response.
If the file system in WD/Seagate external hard drive is NTFS, you have to format it for Mac at first. Run the Disk Utility on Mac, then click on 'Erase' button, choose file system, then erase it for your Mac. Then run DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac on your Mac computer, now it can wipe the WD and Seagate hard drive. Nov 10, 2020 As this tells you how quickly you can use the Seagate Backup Plus on your Mac. Plugging In The Seagate Backup Plus On Your Mac. To use your Seagate Backup Plus on your Mac the next thing you'll want to do is plug on in. All the Seagate Backup Plus' external drives use USB 3.0 connections. And come with a USB cable to plug into your Mac. Double-click on the external drive. The window will change to a display of the contents of the external drive. On the top bar of the window, choose Edit. Alternatively, you may right-click on blank space within the window and a drop-down menu will appear. Using a third-party disk utility that allows you to see Macintosh formatted volumes is an alternative to using FAT32 file system for the external hard drive. MacOS to MacOS: Some Seagate external drives, such as the FreeAgent Go for Mac and FreeAgent Desk for Mac, come formatted in MacOS Extended format, which is supported by Mac OS 8.1 and later.
Hopefully, in this article, you can find out how to fix if you can't find Seagate external hard drive on Mac and how to recover lost data from unrecognizable hard drives easily.
- Seagate external hard drive isn't showing up in Finder/on the desktop
- Seagate external hard drive is recognized, but not mounted in Disk Utility
- Seagate external hard drive is not recognized/showing up in Disk Utility
Why Seagate external HDD not recognized & showing up on Mac?
Seagate external hard drives are likely to be damaged or corrupted when backing up or transferring data among computers. So, you could plug the external hard drive into your Mac, only to find that the Seagate external hard drive is not recognized by your Mac all of a sudden like this user: Mac sierra antivirus.
'I have a MacBook Pro with macOS El Capitan. My WD hard drives are recognized, but my new Seagate 1T drive is not showing up. The light on the drive works, which tells me that it is drawing power from the computer. But the computer does not recognize the drive. Anyone knows how to fix Seagate external hard drive not recognized, showing up, or detected on Mac or at least recover files from the drive?'
You may be wondering 'Why my external hard drive is not recognized/showing up on Mac?' Well, the reasons behind hard drive problems could be varied and there are some common ones.
- Bad USB port
- macOS update issue
- System failure
- File system corruption
- Motherboard issue
- Virus infection
- External drive damage or corruption, etc.
Check if Seagate external HDD is showing up in Disk Utility/Finder?
To fix the unrecognized Seagate external hard drive on Mac, the very first thing is to check whether it's the USB port's issue. Plug in the drive to another USB port or a different computer, and check if the drive is recognized, detected or shows up on Mac.
If yes, congratulations. Both the external hard drive and the data on it are secure. But to access files on this drive, you need to move forward to do some basic checks and try out the solutions according to your situations.
Important thing: Check if the Seagate external hard drive is showing up in Disk Utility/Finder?
Usually, if your external hard drive is recognized/showing up by your Mac, you will see this drive on the desktop and Finder. But for many Mac users, when they can't find their disk drives in Finder or on the desktop, they would say the drive is not recognized by the computer.
But actually, most of the time, even if a Seagate external hard drive doesn't show up in Finder, it still can be found in Disk Utility. So please check whether the drive is showing up in Disk Utility/Finder.
There are three possible outcoms. Just check them one by one and go head to fix this issue.
Scenario 1: Seagate external hard drive isn't showing up in Finder/on the desktop
When a hard drive is plugged into a Mac, the first impression for most users is that the icon of this drive will show up on the desktop and in Finder. But why your Seagate external hard drive is not showing up in Finder or on the desktop? Indeed, it is because you haven't set up your Mac to do so.
1. Adapter software free download. Show Seagate external hard drive in Finder Easiest way to win money at casino.
- Step 1: Go to Finder > Preferences > Sidebar tab.
- Step 2: Select 'External disks' under 'Locations', and then your Seagate external hard drive will show up in Finder.
https://vsphhc.over-blog.com/2021/01/suite-for-iwork-8-1-download-free.html. 2. Show Seagate external hard drive on the desktop
- Step 1: Go to Finder > Preferences > General tab.
- Step 2: Tick 'External disks' to show the Seagate external hard drive on the desktop.
Scenario 2: Seagate external hard drive is recognized but not mounted in Disk Utility
If the Seagate external hard drive shows up in Disk Utility but is just not mounted, it at least means the drive is recognized by your Mac. Mounting a hard disk makes it accessible by the computer, enabling the operating system to read and write to files on the disk. Most of the time, the operating system will automatically mount your disk when you connect your USB drive to this Mac, but you if you find the Seagate external hard drive unmounted in Disk Utility, you have two solutions.
Seagate External Hard Drives Troubleshooting
Solution 1: Manually mount the Seagate external hard drive
You can simply right-click this external hard drive in Disk Utility, and choose Mount or click the Mount button on the top of the window. You will be able to access your files if it can be mounted successfully.
Solution 2: Repair the Seagate external hard drive with First Aid
However, if the Seagate drive is unmountable or the Mount icon is greyed out, it could be some disk errors that prevent your Mac to recognize/detect the drive correctly. Fortunately, there is a native disk repair tool called Disk Utility on your Mac and you can repair this external hard drive with the following steps.
- 1. Click on the Launchpad on the Dock and find Other.
- 2. Locate Disk Utility and open it.
- 3. Select the unmountable external hard drive in the left sidebar and choose First Aid at the top.
- 4. Click Run to repair this Seagate hard drive.
Solution 3: Fix the unmountable Seagate external hard drive by reformatting.
If First Aid failed to repair this drive, the file system or the partition table of this external hard disk could be corrupted. In this case, reformatting is a feasible method to fix the corrupted file system or partition table.
However, it will also erase all data stored on it. So, to avoid unnecessary data loss, you should firstly make sure you have a copy of data backup or recover files from this drive with reliable data recovery software.
How to recover data from Seagate external hard drive on Mac?
When an external hard drive is not working, not recognized, not detected, or not showing up on your Mac, you will feel very terrible because you can't access files nor the drive at all.
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is useful data recovery software, which can recover lost data from unrecognized Seagate Backup Plus drives and unreadable Seagate external hard drives. Moreover, this program supports file recovery from hard drives of Seagate, WD, Toshiba, Samsnug, etc.
Generally, it can recover lost data from formatted, unmountable, inaccessible, unreadable or corrupted hard drives. This powerful data recovery software can also recover lost data from Macintosh HD drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, memory cards, etc. on Mac.
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac now is fully compatible with macOS 11 (Big Sur), 10.15 (Catalina), 10.14 (Mojave), macOS 10.13 (High Sierra), macOS 10.12 (Sierra) and Mac OS X 10.11 (El Capitan), 10.10 (Yosemite), 10.9 (Mavericks), 10.8 (Mountain Lion), 10.7 (Lion). Adobe latest version for windows 10.
- Step 1: Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
- Step 2: Select the Seagate external hard drive and click 'Next' button to scan for all the lost data.
- Step 3: Double-click to preview your images, videos, word files, etc. in the searching results.
- Step 4: Choose files you need and click 'Recover' to get them back and save the recovered files to another usable disk drive.
After recovering target files from this Seagate external hard drive, you can now reformat the drive in Disk Utility without worrying about data loss.
• How to reformat Seagate external hard drive on Mac?
Scenario 3: Seagate external hard drive is not detected in Disk Utility
However, if the Seagate external hard drive is not even showing up on Mac or not detected in Disk Utility, it is possible that the drive has some hardware problems like bad sectors. Google onedrive for mac.
Usually, the symptoms would be:
- The external hard drive makes clicking/beeping noise.
- Files get missing/disappeared/invisible/inaccessible.
- Documents or Folders become empty.
- Disk information like storage capability or files system is not showing normally in Disk Utility.
- Some other abnormal symptoms.
Confronted with such kind of hard drive failure, you'd better seek help from a local disk recovery and repair service for good.
Conclusion:
Sometimes, the Seagate external hard drive not recognized/showing up on Mac problem is just that Seagate external hard drive not showing up in Finder, not showing up on Mac desktop, or not mounted in Disk Utility, which can be easily solved. However, your any attempts to fix the unrecognized Seagate external hard drive may write new data to the drive and overwrite the original one.
Thus, if you're facing such kind of problems, you should firstly recover lost data from the Seagate external hard drive with a professional data recovery software like iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac before you set about fixing this problem.If you encontered the the problems on a Windows computer, then this article: Why and how to fix the Seagate external hard drive not showing up would be of great hlep to you.
See also: How to fix external hard dirve for PS4 not recognized when you use Seagate Game Drive for PS4.
Summary: When plugging your Seagate Backup Plus into a Mac computer, you may find the drive stops working and is not mounting in Disk Utility. Have you been troubled by the issue? This post will give you 7 workable solutions to fix Seagate Backup Plus drive not mounting/working issue on Mac.
Seagate Backup Plus external hard drive is often used for Time Machine backup. But many users reported that they were unable to mount Seagate Backup Plus drive on Mac computers. And some say their Seagate Backup Plus couldn't work on Mac after plugged in.
Here is a real example:
'I really need your help. My Seagate Backup plus just stopped getting detected (led not working anymore) with my MacBook Pro 2016 model (with USB Type C to USB 3 connector) suddenly. It was working fine 1 month before. I tried this backup disk with a Windows computer and the LED light is working in that case but I am not able to get it to work with my MacBook Pro anymore. Any idea guys?'
In fact, this issue is very common, especially for those who frequently share the same drive between different computers. This page will help when Seagate Backup Plus drive doesn't work on Mac.
7 solutions to Seagate Backup Plus not mounting/working on Mac
For some reason, Seagate external hard drives could not be recognized by Mac. If you can't mount the Seagate Backup Plus drive in Disk Utility, the hard drive won't work on Mac. And you can't access the data stored on it. So it's very urgent to fix the problem to make it work again.
Here are solutions to the Seagate Backup Plus not working or mounting issue.
How To Use A Seagate External Hard Drive On Mac Youtube Download
- 1. Basic checks like the USB cable, USB port, and power resource.
- 2. Check whether the Seagate Backup Plus is showing up in Disk Utility
- 3. Check if the Seagate Backup Plus drive is mounted in Disk Utility
- 4. Show the Seagate Backup Plus on the desktop
- 5. Repair Seagate Backup Plus drive via First Aid
- 6. Update the software on Mac
- 7. Fix the not mounting or working Seagate Backup Plus drive by reformatting
1. Have some basic checks
Sometimes, the Seagate Backup Plus drive won't mount on Mac is due to the bad USB port or cable. Thus, once the Seagate Backup Plus drive stops working, you can first do some routine checks as below.
- Step 1. Check if the cable of the Seagate Backup Plus drive is connected properly to your Mac
If the drive isn't properly plugged in, it will fail to mount as it received not enough or even no power. - Step 2. Make sure the USB cable is not at fault
Try using a different USB cable to see if that fixes the problem. - Step 3. Check if the USB port is damaged
Plug the Seagate Backup Plus into another USB port if you have another one. Otherwise, insert another external storage device in this USB port. - Step 4. Check whether the Seagate Backup Plus external hard drive is powered properly
In general, the current of USB port 2.3 and 3.0 are enough for the most external portable hard drives. But sometimes this amount of current may be insufficient while the drive is spinning up. - In this situation, you can try to connect the Seagate Backup Plus with a USB Y cable if you have one. And for Seagate Backup Plus Hub and Expansion Desktop, a power adaptor is required for power supply.
- Step 5. Access the drive on other Macs
Connect the Seagate Backup Plus drive to another Mac computer to see whether it works on that one or not. If the drive works on another Mac computer, there is something wrong with your Mac computer rather than the drive. What you should do is to ask for help from Apple support. - Step 6. Check if the format of Seagate hard drive is supported by macOS
For example, a Windows BitLocker encrypted drive will not be working on Mac originally. Your Mac computer is not able to mount it. To fix the problem, you can plug the Seagate Backup Plus into a PC and then access the drive on Windows.
2. Check whether the Seagate Backup Plus is showing up in Disk Utility
To troubleshoot this problem, you first need to know if this Seagate hard drive is detected by your Mac. Open the Utilities folder in your Applications folder. Launch Disk Utility and check the left pane then. If you can't see the external hard drive in macOS, the drive probably has been physically damaged. In that case, you should send the drive to the local repair shop. Otherwise, you can move to the next solution.
3. Check if the Seagate Backup Plus drive is mounted in Disk Utility
If the Seagate Backup Plus is mounted in Disk Utility, you should blame the wrong computer settings or outdated computer. Fortunately, it's easy to fix these issues. Just try solution 4 and solution 5. If the external hard drive is greyed out in Disk Utility, it's not mounted. You can try right-clicking the Seagate Backup Plus and choose the 'Mount' button. If that doesn't work, the drive has some file system problems. Please follow the solution 6 to repair the problem.
4. Show the Seagate Backup Plus on the desktop
If the Seagate external hard drive is mounted in Disk Utility, but it still doesn't show up on Mac. First of all, you should make sure the settings in Finder display drive icons on the desktop.
- 1. Go to Finder > Preferences > General tab.
- 2. Select 'External disks' under 'Show these items on the desktop' and then the connected external hard drive will appear on the desktop.
5. Repair Seagate Backup Plus drive via First Aid
Seagate Backup Plus not mounting issue on Mac can be caused by file system problems. Disk Utility's First Aid is a built-in tool on Mac to deal with errors related to disks, such as file system corruption. So you can try to fix the unmountable/corrupted Seagate Backup Plus external hard drive in Disk Utility by following the steps below.
- 1. Go to Utilities Disk Utility.
- 2. Click 'View' in the top menu bar (Or click 'View' on the top window). Then select 'Show All Devices'.
- 3. Select the Seagate Backup Plus external hard drive from the left sidebar.
- 4. Click 'First Aid' on the top of the Disk Utility window.
- 5. Click 'Run' to perform hard disk diagnostics and fix the not mounting/not working Seagate Backup Plus.
6. Update the software on Mac
Software updates keep your computer and programs secure, deal with quite a few bugs, and provide new features. Out-of-date software can cause a variety of issues. It's possible that the operating system will become sluggish and the connected device may not function properly. Fortunately, you can easily update the software on Mac.
Case 1. Update the software on macOS Mojave or Catalina. If you upgrade to macOS Mojave or macOS Catalina, you should choose 'System Preferences' from the Apple menu, then click 'Software Update' to check for updates. If any updates are available, click 'Update Now' to install them.
Case 2. Update the software on earlier macOS versions. Just launch the Mac App Store, click the 'Update' tab on the top and then choose the 'Update All'.
7. Fix the not mounting or working Seagate Backup Plus drive by reformatting
If First Aid failed on the external hard drive, it might have some serious errors that are beyond its reparation capability. In that case, you need to recover lost data from the Seagate Backup Plus external hard drive as soon as possible.
Step 1. Recover lost data from the unmountable/corrupted Seagate Back Plus
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is free external hard drive data recovery software. It can easily recover files when the hard drive is not working or mounting on Mac. Also, it canrecover deleted photos and lost data from formatted drives, unreadable drives, corrupted drives, and recover deleted/lost partitions, etc. It's compatible withmacOS Big Sur 11/10.15/10.14/10.13/10.12/10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.
- 1. Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on Mac.
- 2. Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
- 3. Select the Seagate Backup Plus and click the 'Scan' button to scan for all lost data.
- 4. Preview the searching results, choose files you want to get back, and click the 'Recover' button.
Here is a short video tutorial which shows you how to recover lost data from unmountable/corrupted external hard drives:
Step 2: Reformat the Seagate Backup Plus to make it work
After recovering data from the unmounted Seagate Backup Plus, you can now go to Disk Utility and reformat it without worrying about data loss.
• Steps to reformat Seagate Backup Plus external hard drive
If unfortunately, you can't reformat the Seagate Backup Plus drive, it must have physical issues. In this case, you have to look for help from a local data recovery company.
Bonus Part: Introduction to different Seagate Backup Plus drives
You probably use a Seagate desktop drive like Backup Plus Hub and Expansion. Or you could use a Backup Plus Portable drive like Ultra Touch and Slim. No matter which Seagate Backup Plus drive you choose, it could not work on the Mac for some reason.
Therefore, it's important to know the differences between those Seagate Backup Plus drives. This helps you to use the Seagate Backup Plus drive more correctly and efficiently, and then avoid hard disk corruption.
- Seagate Backup Plus Hub: This Seagate Backup Plus Desktop drive has large capacities with cross-platform compatibility, which means you don't have to format the drive for both Mac and Windows again. It's an all-in-one data hub and recharging station for tablet, smartphone and camera.
- Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch: Backup Plus Ultra Touch portable hard drives feature password protection and hardware encryption, USB-C compatibility, and file sync. You can't open the Seagate Backup Plus drive on Mac until it's unlocked. Moreover, an NTFS for Mac software is needed to use Backup Plus Ultra Touch on Mac, as it's preformatted with NTFS.
- Seagate Backup Plus Slim: Seagate Backup Plus is small enough for a loaded laptop bag. It's an ideal external hard drive with easy portability and enough storage space. But avoid dropping your Seagate Backup Plus drive during transportation, in case it's damaged and not working.
- SeagateBackup Plus Portable: Backup Plus portable drives offer easy-to-use software tools like Seagate Dashboard, so that you can schedule automatic backup and mirror folders easily.
Conclusion
No matter what caused Seagate Backup Plus not mounting, working, or readable issue on Mac, such as logical problems and physical damages, the most important thing is to back up important data or recover lost data with free Mac data recovery software. iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is a powerful and reliable data recovery tool on macOS which supports various external drives, including external hard drives, SD cards, USB flash drives, etc.
If you have any suggestions to solve this issue or experience any questions when using iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac, please feel free to let us know.
