Missing External Hard Drive after Big Sur update, help please

My thunderbolt external Lacie drive is now not seen in finder however is still seen on the desktop mounted drives so still have access to the files.

I don't understand how "not seen in finder" and "still seen on the desktop" makes any sense. The desktop is the Finder. If you can open the drive from the "desktop mounted drives" you are seeing it in the Finder.

Is it just missing from the Sidebar?

Have you checked the Sidebar tab in the Finder Preferences to make sure drives are included in the Locations section?

I can't get my desktop icons to appear on MacBook Pro 2019 16" desktop. I did it yesterday and it disappeared in less than 1 hr. it took 6 hrs to get them the first time. I now find them in Big Sur in the "about this Mac" and in the "storage section". I can't move them however. and I can't save to one another with Hard Drives and photo memory cards. I still can't get them on my desktop for a second and final time. thank you for the information it is appreciated.

alison black

I have a similar but slightly different experience with Big Sur and Thunderbolt. The core issue is that TB and LAN connectivity randomly disappears and cannot be recovered without a reboot. This occurred immediately after upgrading to Big Sur. Sadly I didn't fall back immediately.

Environment: 2017 iMac 27" Retina 5K, 16GB ram, 3 TB hdd, QNAP 882TB3 NAS, multiple LaCie TB2 & TB3 external hdd's.

The LaCie drives faithfully appear as external drives, and are accessible in the Finder. The QNAP NAS links on start-up, I can log on using the TB3 connection and add NAS drives to the finder accessing them directly from the finder. No worries - at first.

Periodically the QNAP TB connection is dropped at what appears to be random intervals. I have not discovered the trigger event that causes the connections to drop. The NAS as well as the attached drives disappear and cannot be accessed. When this happens, the LaCie external drives almost always remain accessible. This can happen within minutes of start--up or the connectivity may remain stable for an entire work day.

On occasion, I lose all LAN connectivity as well. I cannot connect to either an RJ-45 or wireless LAN. Other devices on the wired and wireless LAN work normally. Attached iPads, iPhones, laptops all are able to access the QNAP NAS and LAN normally.

The only solution I've found is to reboot and hope for the best.

This all occurred immediately after upgrading to Big Sur. None of the OS X upgrades have helped.

I'd like to fall back, but that brings a host of issues as well.

I'm having the same issue. My la ice ext drive and my sandisk card drive are not showing up in finder. However as my computer is now too old, I can't upgrade to Big Sur; this is happening with an upgrade I've just received for Mojave (so downgrading for you guys sounds like it wasn't a solution either).

I can see and access the la cie drives on my desk top but the sandisk card drive is not showing. I can't find either anywhere in applications but if I disconnect either of them the notification is telling me I'm ejecting (improperly) the la cie and the sandisk respectively?

Did anyone find the solution?

Oops...Sorry

Barney-15E

... don't understand how "not seen in finder" and "still seen on the desktop" makes any sense. The desktop is the Finder. If you can open the drive from the "desktop mounted drives" you are seeing it in the Finder.

Is it just missing from the Sidebar?

Have you checked the Sidebar tab in the Finder Preferences to make sure drives are included in the Locations section?

I had not read thoroughly, your response. It was the locations tab. It had closed obviously with the upgrade I had run this morning. I've never known it to do that so it didn't occur to me to check it...

Thank you

I have the same issue. I can's see it neither in finder or in disk utility. I have two G-RAID 8 TB and a Pegasus Promise (12 TB) and none will mount. I do not know what to do.