External drive won't connect to Mac

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External drive won't connect to Mac

When I connect my G-Drive external hard drive, the folder with the hard drive won't appear & the other folder called 'G-Utilities' which contains stuff like user instructions/installation guide won't allow me to disconnect from my 2019 Macbook Air.

I've tried:

pressing the eject button
right-clicking on the drive to manually eject it
shut down & restarted my machine

to no avail :(

I saw that someone had a similar problem as I do and it was resolved by itself so I'm wondering if I should just wait like they did? Or is it very likely the drive is damaged & cannot save my data (w/o spending a lot of money)? I'm asking because my situation seems a little unique because there are two folders that appear when I connect the drive and the one with my backed-up files is missing/won't connect.

Thank you for any help or advice :)

Posted on Jun 18, 2024 2:00 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 18, 2024 5:11 PM in response to orbitapple

I would think your issues is that the drive was preloaded with 'G-Utilities' software. when you use software from just about any manufacturer for their storage device you can run into compatibility issues. you also run the risk of that same software not being compatible with macOS updates / upgrades. it can cause the software to stop working. at best this will cause you a headache. at worst it can render your data inaccessible. it is always best to use disk utility to erase and format a drive before use to remove any preloaded software.

if you are using such software, i think your options are somewhat limited.

you may want to contact G-Drive and see if there is an update for their software.

alternatively, if you have a backup you can revert your macOS to the version of macOS that the drive was working on and transfer your data to another storage device and then erase and format the G-Drive device before putting it back into service.

please see Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support

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External drive won't connect to Mac

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