- How To Set Up Wd Elements External Hard Drive For Mac Pro
- How To Set Up Wd Elements External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc
WD External Hard Drive Automatic Backup in Windows7/8/10; WD External Hard Drive Automatic Backup in Windows7/8/10. WD external hard drive is a good location for automatic backup, and free AOMEI Backupper will help you to easily achieve files, system, disk, or partition auto backup to Western Digital external hard drive within Windows 7/8/10. An external hard drive is subject to the access permission set up by OS X for all files and folders on the system. When you use the device on another computer with a different OS, the permission settings with it may not be recognized or prevent access to the files on the hard disk.
Summary: This post shows how to access a WD hard drive that's not recognized by Mac. To avoid data loss when fixing the unrecognized WD external hard drive, you can recover lost data from the WD hard drive for free with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
Just like Seagate external hard drive not recognized on Mac, WD hard drive not recognized is a question frequently asked by Mac users in Apple related forums. It happens to WD My passport, WD My Book, WD Elements and Easystore, etc.
If you are one of those who are wondering:
- Why Mac won't recognize my WD hard drive?
- How can I make the WD hard drive detected and work on Mac again?
- Can I fix this issue without losing my important data?
You are in the right place for a solution!
First, See How Mac Recognizes a WD External Hard Drive
The process of Mac recognizing an external hard drive is a little complicated even though you can't see it. Specifically, when you plug a WD hard drive into a Mac computer, macOS would be notified. Then macOS will call all related hardware and software to read, recognize, and show this hard drive on the Desktop and in Finder, so that finally you can access your data on the drive on your Mac computer.
So, we usually simplify this process in 4 steps:
- The WD hard drive is supplied with power, so that Mac can detect this storage device.
- macOS reads partition information of the WD hard drive.
- macOS recognizes the file system of each volume.
- Users access data on the WD hard drive.
However, if any part of this process goes wrong, hard drive problems like Mac won't recognize your WD hard drive would occur. As a consequence, you can't access, copy, write to or transfer data stored on it.
Now, Follow the Guide to Fix WD hard drive not recognized issue on Mac
So, based on the process of Mac recognizing a WD hard drive, we need a thorough check to know which part makes the WD hard drive not working on Mac, and then fix it.
1. Try Quick fixes when WD hard drive is not recognized by Mac
A proper connection is the most basic condition that Mac can access the WD hard drive. Or else the external hard drive would not even show up in Disk Utility. When your Mac can't recognize an external hard drive, you can always do the following quick fixes at the very beginning.
- Make sure the WD hard drive is externally plugged into a wall outlet if it's a WD desktop hard drive like WD Elements Desktop and My Cloud.
- Connect the WD hard drive directly to the computer and do not use a USB Hub.
- Try a different USB cable and port for power and data supply, especially if the My Passport external hard drive is not showing up in Disk Utility.
- Try a different USB-C adapter to connect the WD hard drive if your Mac only has the Thunderbolt 3 port.
- Try to connect the WD hard drive with a different Mac computer to check if the WD hard drive can be recognized on that Mac.
- Try to plug the WD hard drive in to a Windows PC to check if the file system of the WD hard drive is not compatible with Mac.
The WD hard drive lights on but is not recognized by Mac still?
Wait! Do you allow your Mac to show the recognized WD hard drive in the Finder and Desktop?
2. Show the WD hard drive in the Finder and Desktop
Sometimes, you think WD hard drive is not recognized by Mac because the WD external hard drive isn't showing up on Mac, neither in Finder nor on the desktop. However, the fact is that the WD hard drive is detected by macOS but it is not set to show up on Mac.
In this case, you can show the WD hard drive by changing the preferences:
Step 1: Go to Finder > Preferences > General, make sure the 'External disks' option is ticked. This will make the recognized WD hard drive show up on the Desktop.
Step 2: Select Sidebar tab on the top, make sure the 'External disks' option under Locations is also ticked.
The WD hard drive is not working on Mac still?
Well, it seems that Mac really can't recognize the WD hard drive. We need to take advantage of some tools for further check.
3. Update incompatible WD Apps with WD Discovery for Mac
WD Discovery is a desktop software for Mac and Windows for delivering WD software, updates and notifications for WD external hard drives.
When WD hard drive is not recognized, you can download WD Discovery for Mac to update WD Drive Utilities, WD Security, WD Backup, etc. Possibly, your Mac doesn't recognize the WD hard drive because the WD software is not compatible with your macOS.
4. Check if the WD hard drive is password locked
If you are using WD hard drives like My Book Drive and it is not recognized by Mac now, you can check if the hard drive is password protected. macOS can't read the partition information and mount the volumes if the WD hard drive is password locked. You can download and install WD Security to unlock the WD hard drive if a password has been set to protect the hard drive.
The WD hard drive is not encrypted? Then the reason for Mac not recognizing the WD hard drive is that macOS fails to access the partition and file system information.
5. Repair the unrecognized WD hard drive in Disk Utility
Disk Utility is a built-in disk management and repair tool on Mac computers. When a WD hard drive is not recognized or not working due to inner disk errors, you can try to repair the unrecognizable WD hard drive with Disk Utility.
Tips: Before you try to repair the unrecognized WD hard drive in Disk Utility, if the WD hard drive shows up in Disk Utility but not mounted, you can select the Mount option first then the WD hard drive will be mounted on the Desktop.
Step 1: Go to Applications > Disk Utility.
Step 2: Click 'View' and choose 'Show All Devices'.
Step 3: Select the unrecognized WD hard drive from the sidebar.
Step 4: Click on First Aid on the top. Wait while First Aid verifying and fixing possible errors of the WD hard drive.
If First Aid can't repair the external hard drive, or Disk Utility doesn't recognize the volumes of the drive, probably, the WD hard drive could be corrupted caused by bad sectors.
6. Use WD Drive Utilities when WD hard drives not working on Mac
WD Drive Utilities for Mac is a specialized utility for WD hard drives to run drive diagnostics (fix potential drive failures, slow disk performance, and bad sectors), Manage RAID configuration (For RAID supported models), Erase and format WD hard drives, etc.
If a WD hard drive won't work normally on a Mac due to bad sectors or other parameter errors, you can download WD Drive Utilities for Mac to have a diagnosis of what happens to your hard drive.
Qm windows free download. Step 1: Install WD Drive Utilities on your Mac and then launch it.
Step 2: Plug the unrecognizable WD hard drive into the Mac.
Step 3: Click on 'Diagnose' and choose 'Run Quick Drive Test' to check the WD drive completely.
7. Fix the unrecognized WD hard drive by reformatting
If the unrecognizable WD hard drive can't be repaired by WD Drive Utilities, the file system of the WD hard drive might be seriously damaged or corrupted. In this case, you have to reformat or erase this WD hard drive. Before that, it's necessary to recover lost data from unrecognized WD hard drive with free hard drive data recovery software for Mac, like iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac, to avoid data loss.
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is professional in external hard drive data recovery on Mac. It supports Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, Samsung, and hard drives of other manufacturers. This data recovery software can recover lost data when hard drive is unrecognized, unmountable, unreadable, corrupted on Mac. Besides, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac can recover lost data from Macintosh hard drive, USB drives, Pen drives, SD cards, memory cards, CF cards as well as other storage devices.
Tutorial to recover lost data from unrecognizable WD hard drive with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac
Step 1. Download, install, and launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
To recover your important photos, videos, music, documents, emails from this unrecognizable WD hard drive, you can free download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on your Mac.
Step 2. Scan for lost data on the WD hard drive.
When the data recovery software is launched, you will see your unrecognizable WD hard drive in the interface. You need to select this corrupted WD hard drive and then click the 'Scan' button to scan for data on this drive.
Step 3. Preview and recover files.
When WD hard drive is corrupted, you can't access your data on this drive. But you can use iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac to preview the data on the drive, which will help you make sure your files are not corrupted before you finally click 'Recover' to recover them.
Tutorial to reformatting WD hard drive that is not recognized by Mac
1. Drawing noir comics online. Go to Disk Utility and select the unrecognized WD hard drive from the sidebar.
2. Click on Erase on the top.
3. Follow the instructions to finish the reformatting process.
After reformatting WD hard drive process finished, you will hopefully see the WD hard drive recognized and showing up on Mac correctly.
However, if the external hard drive is not showing up in Disk Utility at all, the great chance is that the WD hard drive is physically broken. As a result, Mac can't read and recognize it. In this case, we advise you to check if the serial number of the WD hard drive is still in warranty so that you can ask for a repair or replacement service.
How To Set Up Wd Elements External Hard Drive For Mac Pro
WD provides no-limited warranty unless your WD hard drive was purchased from an authorized distributor or authorized reseller like Amazon. So, if your WD hard drive is dead for disk corruption, please free free to contact their support team for warranty status review and product replacement.
Conclusion
In the issue of WD hard drive not recognized, be it on Mac or Windows, data rescue should come first. This is also important when USB flash drives, SD card, or other external hard drives that are not showing up on Mac.
You can recover data from the unrecognized hard drive with free data recovery software like iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac. Then, you can fix the error in different ways without worrying about data loss.
The scenario
Western Digital (WD) hard drives
How To Set Up Wd Elements External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc
Western Digital is one of the most popular hard drive manufacturers, and produces hard drives (includes HDDs and SSDs) for laptop and desktop PCs to save data. These hard drives or external hard drives contain My Passport, My Book, WD TV, My Cloud, Elements, ShareSpace, etc. In order to backup your Western Digital Elements hard drive, we will walk you through the solutions to help you out.
WD Backup Software
As far as I know, the Western Digital offers different series of hard drive with different WD drive utilities to backup hard drive.
- For My Cloud drives, the WD SmartWare backup software is available.
- For My Book or My Passport drives, the WD Anywhere, WD SmartWare backup software or the third party backup tool that you can use.
- For WD TV drives, you could backup data to a NAS included in that drive.
- For WD Elements hard drives (WD Elements Portable/Desktop/SE), there is no any backup software comes with hard drive.
Therefore, if you are planning to backup a WD Elements drive, you might turn to other backup software for help.
Windows Backup Software Comparison
There are several backup solutions that you might pick to backup WD Elements drives. Windows built-in backup software like File History (Windows 8.1, 10), Windows Backup and Restore (Windows 7, 8.1, 10), and the most powerful free WD backup software - AOMEI Backupper will do you a big favor. But, there are some differences according to the following Windows backup software comparison form:
Windows Backup Software Comparison
According to this chart, AOMEI Backupper Standard is more powerful and comprehensive to backup and restore data.
- You could use it to do File, disk, system backup, and restore them to identify location;
- You are allowed to restore individual files if required;
- You could set an automatic file or folder sync task in Daily, Weekly, or Monthly mode to keep your data safe.
Thus, to backup WD Elements drives, we will show you how the AOMEI Backupper Standard works in Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10.
Backup WD Elements hard drives easily in Windows 7/8/10
First of all, you have to download the best free WD Elements backup software – AOMEI Backupper Standard, prepare an external hard drive to save all the data from WD Elements hard drive and connect it to your computer. Then use it to backup WD Elements hard drives, the steps are listed below:
Download Freeware
Win 10/8.1/8/7/XP
Secure Download
1. On the main console, choose Backup -> Disk Backup.
2. Enter a proper Task Name for your disk backup task.
3. Click + Add Disk to Choose the WD Elements HDD as the source disk.
4. Select the destination external hard disk to save all the data from WD Elements hard drives.
5. Click Start Backup to backup WD Elements hard disk in Windows 10/8/7.
★Tips:
✍You can backup multiple hard drives simultaneously by re-adding them.
✍Options: you could encrypt (paid), comment, compress, split backup image, enable email or SMS notification, use VSS, pre-command and post-command for you to set up run specified program or script before or after the backup task, etc. Pre-command and post-command are premium features.
✍Scheme: It’s available in AOMEI Backupper Professional or other editions, provided for you to delete old backup image files automatically to free up space while the backups exceed the number you specified.
✍Schedule: Set a schedule backup to perform WD Elements automatic backup, which allows to automatically backup via daily, weekly, monthly, event triggers, USB plug in. Please upgrade to AOMEI Backupper Professional or other advanced editions to enjoy the last two features.
✍You can backup multiple hard drives simultaneously by re-adding them.
✍Options: you could encrypt (paid), comment, compress, split backup image, enable email or SMS notification, use VSS, pre-command and post-command for you to set up run specified program or script before or after the backup task, etc. Pre-command and post-command are premium features.
✍Scheme: It’s available in AOMEI Backupper Professional or other editions, provided for you to delete old backup image files automatically to free up space while the backups exceed the number you specified.
✍Schedule: Set a schedule backup to perform WD Elements automatic backup, which allows to automatically backup via daily, weekly, monthly, event triggers, USB plug in. Please upgrade to AOMEI Backupper Professional or other advanced editions to enjoy the last two features.
All the above steps could be used to backup data to WD Elements hard drive as well. This software applied to backing up drives in other brands, like Toshiba, Samsung, HP, ADATA, Maxtor, Kingston, HITACHI, Seagate, etc.
After a while, the WD Elements drive will be backed up safely. You have to keep the external hard drive carefully. In some day, you might use the backup image file to restore your hard drive and all the data.
In some cases, you will want to backup external hard drive to another external hard drive, or backup SD card, USB flash drive, CF card, SSD to other location, this freeware will help a lot.
Conclusion
As the best free WD Elements backup software for Windows PCs, AOMEI Backupper Standard provides you many other powerful features to protect your operating system, like partition backup, sector-by-sector backup, create WinPE bootable media, etc.
The advanced edition - Professional offers you encrypt the image backup file, command line backup tool, incremental and differential backup, restore to dissimilar hardware computer, backup in event triggers mode, real-time sync files or folders, etc. Try Server or Technician Plus edition if you are a Server user.