How to connect maxtor external hard drive to mac

How to access an external drive that’s not recognized on a Mac

There's a good chance that the drive you connected will appear after restarting. Try different cables and ports. Run First Aid on the drive. Disk Utility includes some drive repair functions that can get a malfunctioning drive working again. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder. Select your drive and click the "First Aid" button.

Click "Run" to begin scanning the drive for errors.

Fixing an external hard drive that’s not showing up on Mac

Allow the utility to fix any errors it finds. This may allow you to start using the drive again. Be aware that if errors have appeared, this could be an early warning sign of impending disk failure. Consider replacing the drive. All hard drives eventually fail. The probability that you hard drive will fail increases with each year that you use it. Even new drives fail at a rate that would surprise most people. If your drive is four years or older and isn't appearing no matter what you do, there's a very good chance that it's simply dead.

You can try plugging it into a different computer to see if it appears. If it's not appearing anywhere, it may be time for a new drive. Yes No. Not Helpful 0 Helpful 3. I have an external hard drive that it is attached to the new Macbook pro via an adapter. How can I access the drive?

• 1. Change the Finder settings!
• install ubuntu with virtualbox mac;
• Before We Begin: Read-Only Volumes and NTFS.
• 1. Connect Your Drive and Check /Volumes/;
• mac impassioned vs speak louder.

If it has the correct format, it will show up in you desktop. Not Helpful 1 Helpful 4. The contents will only be erased if you format or partition the connected hard drive. Not Helpful 0 Helpful 2. Bryan Beege Berry.

This depends on the external hard drive. On drives, files follow some "file format," depending on the computer that set up the drive. Windows uses a format called NTFS. Mac can read files from this format, but it doesn't know how to write files to this format. You would need to reformat the drive in order to write to it. Reformatting a drive will delete all data from the drive.

If you do reformat, you have options. The FAT format will allow read and write from anything and to anything, but the maximum size of files is 4GB.

The exFAT format does not have the file size constraint, but it is less safe - it doesn't guarantee safe writing of files, creating the possibility of bad files. Not Helpful 0 Helpful 1. If my hard drive is connected to my MacBook and I erase files off the laptop, are they also erased off the external drive? It depends on the location of the file. Erasing a file from your internal hard drive or 'off the laptop' will not affect any files on the external hard drive. If you actually erase a file directly from the external drive, then yes.

Not Helpful 0 Helpful 0. Unanswered Questions. No partition was done on my external hard drive, now that it's full I can't access it. What should I do? Answer this question Flag as Flag as What do I do if I can't get past any folder on my Macbook Pro, into my external hard disk? What do I do if the files on my external drive aren't showing on my MacBook and I want to copy them before formatting the drive?

How can I connect my external hard drive to my Apple Macbook without erasing its data? Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered. Already answered Not a question Bad question Other. Edit Related wikiHows. Article Info This article was co-authored by our trained team of editors and researchers who validated it for accuracy and comprehensiveness. MacBook In other languages: Is this article up to date? I bought an ext HD today and as soon as I saw the format advice in the instructions my blood froze.

Start a Discussion

You are such a lifesaver!!!!! Thanks to your post, I managed to hook it up in 20 seconds flat!! Gracias, merci, danke schon, dank u wel!!!! Hi I agree, your instructions seem clear. However, I have bought a maxtor external drive so I can use it at home on my Mac and at school on my PC I am a teacher and so need to use it to work at home and transport to work.

Can you suggest any way I can format the drive with partitions. Mind I am not a super genius on these things but from my pc days I remember drives were often partitioned. Thanks, Jenni. Just wondering can you please send me an email so I can give you the instructions? Thanks so much for the simple instructions…now if only Macs would automatically recognize that the drive needs to be formatted the way windows does instead of giving cryptic error messages when attempting to write to the drive the way mac fans claim macs never do.

Thanks very much! I was taught years ago to go into Disk utilities but then to select partition. Your way does work fine. Have I been doing it wrong all the while, or is it essentially the same end result? Thanks for your comments. Your way of doing things does work as well, and you have more options too! Thanks got a maxtor drive and trying to back up all my stuff but couldnt write onto it….

This question might sound dumb but Im new to how External Hard drives work. So hopefully someone can ansewer a question for me:. The reason Im asking is because I would like to partition my mac with osx If I do this I will lose all of my software. So Im hoping if I use an external hard drive, I can copy all my software to it. Then partition my mac, and then send all my software back to my mac. I have a lot of third party software on my computer that I cant get again, they are all in my applications folder sooo I was hoping to copy the contents to the external HD then put it back.

If only I came across this earlier this week. It would have simplified my life!

External Hard Drive Not Showing Up on Mac? Here's How to Fix It

You are amazing! Fortunately, I had backed up all of my data on an external hard drive. I would never have found out how to get everything working properly on my new MAC without this advice! Once the hard drive is formatted, simply copy the files back onto the hard drive. Additional bonus… Apple immediately asked if I wanted to use my external HD for the time-machine function.

Thank you very much for this post, it was really really helpful and saved us from throwing the hard drive across the room in a fit of rage! One of the best things about using macs is the support you can find on the internet which is absolutely invaluable. This is exactly what most of us need, someone to explain things in noddy language. Thanks mate! Hello David, First of all congratulations on a first class site that explains and guides in a so simple way, I for one am very grateful. I look forward to hearing from you when convenient,.

The drive is recognized on my PowerBook, but when I try to drop something inside the drive, I get this: This is a brand new drive and nothing has been stored on it. In the utilities there is no external drive visible, even though it is connected with USB and running.