Seagate External Drive Not Recognized

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Seagate External Drive Not Recognized

New MacBook Air 2020 (10.15.4).

New out-of-the box Seagate 1TB expansion drive.

Using a USB hub with one 2.0 and one 3.0 ports.

Mac will not recognize Seagate drive.

- Power is on.
- Light is on.
- I hear it spin.
- Tried both 2.0 and 3.0 ports.
Disk Utility does not show drive.
System Information shows drive.

Went to Seagate Support:

Downloaded NTFS.
Reboot was stuck on Apple logo screen for 20-30 minutes.
Finally got to Finder.
Opened NTFS and nothing. Disk isn't there.

Now Seagate drive light won't come on. It makes a very silent beep-like hum every 2-3 seconds.

Seagate support is non-existent.

Is 10.15 not compatible with Seagate? Is it my USB hub? I have an older Seagate external drive that works just fine.

MacBook

Posted on May 11, 2020 6:49 PM

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Answer 1

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run-midwesty-run Author

Level 1

4 points

May 12, 2020 7:10 AM in response to HWTech

@HWTech -- Thank you for the quick reply.

I bought two Seagates at the same time. Same model. Same capacity.

Took the second Seagate out of the box. Plugged it in to the USB hub. Showed up immediately.

Based on the two drastic experiences. I believe the first drive may be defective.

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Answer 2

May 11, 2020 7:36 PM in response to run-midwesty-run

First off you don't need to use the Seagate proprietary software to use an external drive. Uninstall the Seagate software by following the Seagate instructions.

Within Disk Utility you may need to click on "View" and select "Show All Devices" before the physical drive appears in the left pane of Disk Utility. Erase the physical drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled).

Have you tried connecting the Seagate drive directly to the laptop? I find the quality of many USB hubs to be very poor even from some formerly well respected brands. It sounds like the external drive isn't getting enough power or the external drive/cable is defective.

Have you tried using the other USB-C port?

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Seagate External Drive Not Recognized

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