Partition Drive.
I erased the external drive I was using for Time Machine intending to partition it, but now it no longer appears on my desktop, how do I access it now to continue the process?
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Original Title: Lost Drive
Mac mini, macOS 26.3
Finder menu > Settings > General tab, tick the box to show External Disks. Change the same setting on the Sidebar tab, if you like.
If those boxes are already checked, then open Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility, select View menu > Show all devices. Does it show up there, and if so, can you mount it?
If you have a Mac laptop computer (not applicable to Mac desktops), accessories must be allowed to connect. Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessories, try changing it to Automatically allow when unlocked or Always allow.
There were a few prior posts on this forum from users who couldn’t access their external drive due to the drive manufacturer’s software that they used to encrypt the drive. Lacie/Seagate, Samsung, SanDisk, etc., all provide 'drive management' software on their drives and using such 3rd party software can cause issues when macOS is updated and the 3rd party software becomes incompatible. Not sure if that's the issue here, but FYI the best practice with a new external drive (SSD/HDD, not applicable to NAS drives) is to use Disk Utility to complete erase it, format it as GUID/APFS and apply encryption if desired.
Finder menu > Settings > General tab, tick the box to show External Disks. Change the same setting on the Sidebar tab, if you like.
If those boxes are already checked, then open Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility, select View menu > Show all devices. Does it show up there, and if so, can you mount it?
If you have a Mac laptop computer (not applicable to Mac desktops), accessories must be allowed to connect. Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessories, try changing it to Automatically allow when unlocked or Always allow.
There were a few prior posts on this forum from users who couldn’t access their external drive due to the drive manufacturer’s software that they used to encrypt the drive. Lacie/Seagate, Samsung, SanDisk, etc., all provide 'drive management' software on their drives and using such 3rd party software can cause issues when macOS is updated and the 3rd party software becomes incompatible. Not sure if that's the issue here, but FYI the best practice with a new external drive (SSD/HDD, not applicable to NAS drives) is to use Disk Utility to complete erase it, format it as GUID/APFS and apply encryption if desired.
Open the Disk Utility app.
Just click the Add button in Time Machine Settings. It should show all the drives available.
If you Go > Computer (Cmd-Shift-C) in Finder, you should see it there. If not, it isn’t mounting for some reason.
Thanks to all who contributed to this thread. I now have access to Two partitions as I had hoped
How do I access an erased external drive for Time Machine partitioning?
