My WD My Passport for Mac is not connecting to Mac. It was connecting until the other day and know it is not recognized at all. It isn't even found in the disk utility. Also, the portable hard drive is brand new. Suggestions...
MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9), Early 2011 Model
I'm having the same problem with My Passport WD 1TB. It was working yesterday, then this afternoon I plugged it back went about the usual routine of unlocking it...and now it doesn't appear. I've tried Disk Utility, Disk Warrior and even the WD Utilities. It doesn't appear at all.
When I clicked on it in the WD Utility, it says no volume. The light is on but I can't find it even via Terminal
I've got very important archives and I don't want to lose them.
I've had this problem numerous times now. I fond that this was happening when I didn't eject the drive correctly. Either my computer shutdown because of no power or I just pulled the USB out without ejecting properly first. When I plugged the drive back in it wouldn't show up in Finder and it wasn't showing in Disk Utility. I did the following:
Open terminal and type the following command:
$ diskutil list
this will show you your Mac HD and it should list your external drive. Usually named disk2
$ diskutil mountDisk /dev/disk2
It should now show up in finder and disk utility.
Completely repartition the drive and reformat. If you have installed any WD software on your computer be sure to remove it completely.
Drive Partition and Format
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
If you are preparing an external or a non-startup drive, then open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.
Yes, others listing same on WD drives on Mavericks, see here:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5475136?start=255&tstart=0
😊
Note WD is aware of the issue, has posted about it on their website, and are working on finding a fix. The issue would likely be the enclosure, since there shouldn't be an issue with the bare drives.
Oh, I know about WD releases, Ive had my eyes GLUED to that issue from the beginning.
Yes, the bare drives themselves arent the issue, but the OP mentioned "WD My Passport"
And, alas WD (same as Seagate does) includes lots of nice "helpful" (translate counterproductive and useless) software packages with their external USB and RAID drives.
....I did notice today that the local Apple store had pulled ALL the WD MyBook for sale... Hmmm.
Here is what you mentioned:
(but once the external is repartitioned its all a "close the door after the horse is gone" situation, even with the "fix")
WD is happy to announce the release of WD SmartWare Version 1.3.6 for Mac 10.5-10.9.
Fixed an issue related to reports of some customers, under certain conditions, experiencing data loss when updating to Apple's OS X Mavericks (10.9)
Thanks for the quick responses... I do not have nay software from wd on my mac... I also cannot delete data from my HD... I have also restarted, have tried to do a SMC restart (i think that is what it was called) and other things relating to those mentioned.
A SMC reset would solve nothing on your external in most all cases.
Verify same on another Mac if you can....if the same,.....its a SATA bridge card 8 times out of 10...>
In that case you very likely have a damaged SATA bridge card, an extremely common problem in fact (of all external HD)
This note I wrote on same explains this issue:
Your dead external hard drive is likely fine! Great hope for your 'faulty' external HD
It worked on a pc when I tested it....
What is it formatted as? 😊
You stated--- "It was connecting until the other day" (to the Mac)
What you and most people dont understand (logically I see why) is that it makes "no logical sense that it will mount on ONE machine and not another" (however as per your mention it would be a minor power variance to the SATA card as different slightly between the Mac and PC)
however this bizarre behavior is actually typical for a dying SATA bridge card, they produce 4 extremely counter-intuitive diagnostic issues (as mentioned in the LINK).
(this is why SATA bridge issues are often called 'haunted hard drive syndrome', due to illogical behavior)
On a side note, the "WD for Mac" doesnt mean anything,....
the drive is just marketed that way,.... there is no such thing as a "MAC HD" or a "PC HD", all HD are just blank bricks and formatted for either PC or Mac or for both (ExFat).
FAT32 (File Allocation Table)
NTFS (Windows NT File System)
HFS+ ((((MAC FORMAT)))) (Hierarchical File System, a.k.a. Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Don't use case-sensitive)
EXFAT (FAT64)
I believe it is HFS+ formatted...
if that were the case it wouldnt show up on a PC ......unless you had something like Paragon's little-known HFS+ for Windows
😊
Verify its format on your PC (as you say it will mount to same).
Ultimately HD are cheap as dirt, and you should consider ASAP to salvage data from the HD (which could be dying,...however more likely the SATA card).
Worse case scenario is you have a dying HD and you buy a $65 new 1TB drive and reload the salvaged data from your WD Passport HD
âš Hard drives suffer from high rates of what has been termed "infant mortality". Essentially this means new drives are highly prone to failing in the first few months of usage. This is because of very minor manufacturing defects or HD platter balancing, or head and armature geometry being less than perfect; and this is not immediately obvious and can quickly manifest itself once the drive is put to work.
Hard drives that survive the first few months of use without failing are likely to remain healthy for a number of years.
âž• Generally HD are highly prone to death or corruption for a few months, then work fine for a few years, then spike in mortality starting at 3-4 years and certainly should be considered end-of-life at 5-7+ years.
do you run 10.9? please provide full tech specs
my wd disc are not showing up anymore since 10.9
After searching the web for hours and trying everything I finally found the answer to this.
I have a MAC Book Pro and also have the WD Passport, it was working just the other day and now it wasn't.
I could hear it working and see the white light on but it was NOT showing up in devices but WAS showing up in disc utility.
Here's what I did;
With my WD Passport plugged in I went to;
FINDER
APPLICATIONS
DISC UTILITY
Click on the WD Passport (in My case it said 1TB WD My Passport) at the left hand side so it's highlighted
Then click on FIRST AID in the middle section
then at the bottom right hand side click on VERIFY DISC
This gave me some errors that needed to be fixed, and then I clicked on REPAIR DISC and in a few minutes it was fixed.
Now, I don't know if this was a problem for you, but when I clicked below the 1TB WD My Passport where I named my passport "Modella2014" (you will have a different name obviously) in the bottom section it said MOUNT POINT "not mounted"
So I went back up to "Modella2014" and right clicked (on the mac track pad that's a 2 finger click) and selected "Mount Modella2014" and in a few seconds that was mounted.
Hope this helps, feel free to share and save someone else the 4 hours it took me to figure this out. Now back to editing!
what if in the case of not shown in disk utility..!?
same WD My passport, 1TB.
mine is MB, 13", Mid 2010, Mavericks..!
WD My Passport not connecting...
