Seagate External HDD won't show up.

Thread hijack 😟

Too many problems with bus-powered drive devices, and you would be better served in the MacBook Pro forum.

MacBook Pro

Networking Issues

MacPerformance

Thanks for this rwraysmith. Mine WAS plugged into the electrical socket, and with the blue light on the drive showing I assumed it was all good. I also tried connecting it to my older macbook pro which worked. But after reading your post I tried the electrical cord in another power outlet and discovered that was the problem. The blue light must have only been from the usb power which is obviously not enough to power the drive correctly! Still don't understand why it worked on the 2011 mb pro but not on the 2013 mb pro though. ?!

If you're a Mac user setting up or erasing this drive up with your computer is super easy follow these steps.
1. Plug in the the drive
2. Open up disk utility found in your applications folder inside the utilities folder
3. Next select the newly plugged in a drive and on the right-hand side you should see partition click on that.
4. Then inside that screen on the partition layout drop-down choose how many partitions you'd like to set up. I generally go with one partition and just use folders to organize my files.
5. Then on the right-hand side you can name the partitions and select the format. If you are transferring video files I highly recommend you choose Mac OS Extended (If you want to use it with Time Machine this is the choice you need to make) as it can handle files over 4GB. Sometimes it's good to make two partitions and one using "MS-DOS fat" or "ExFat" if you might be transferring files to and from a Windows machine. The reason is Windows machines and Macs can read and write to the "MS-DOS fat" format but your files will need to be under 4 GB each as that's the maximum file size it can handle.***6. One thing you need to do though when you re-formatting the drive is go to the option button under partition In the disk utility application. You need to select GUID partition table. That way it will be bootable by Mac OS.7. Then click apply and your Mac will create all the partitions you wanted and you're good to go.
*** The ExFat format is new to Mac OSX 10.9 Mavericks and doesn't have a 4gb file size limit the "MS-DOS fat" or Fat32 does but not all devices like cameras & digital devices can't read or write to it.
I hope this helps and be sure to always have backups of your important data. Take it from somebody was lost a lot of data to hard drive failures always backup and Time Machine is so transparent if you're using a Mac you should be using Time Machine.

Thank you gobsmacker, this totally worked! Now I do not have to throw my Seagate Backup Plus 1TB in the trash or buy another one (would definitely be a different brand). I WILL NOT be using it as my Time Machine Backup anymore though!

Hello,

I seem to be having trouble with this too. But I looked in Disk Utility and the drive won't show up there either. There is no place where I can find my Seagate drive on my Mac (2014 Retina Pro, 10.10.3). It happened when I just jostled the cable a little by accident and I got the error message saying that I didn't properly eject the disk. So I replugged the disk back in all the way and nothing showed up. Over the next week I plugged and unplugged several times but nothing ever showed up or happened. The device's light goes on and I can feel it working, though. I don't know what to do.

- Go to Apple icon in upper left>About This Mac>System Report and look under USB. What is listed for the drive? You should see both the enclosure chip and the hard drive listed.

- What if yo connect it to another computer?

- Can you try another cable?

- Is the drive powered by the USB bus?

Thank you! It is showing up and working now after I inspected it in System Report.

I'm having this problem as well, the light comes on on my portable hard drive which indicates to me that it's connected or working, but it won't show up even when external hard drives are selected in finder, or in disk utility. It shows up in system report under USB I think, but I can't seem to do anything from there? It's brand new and supposed to be mac compatible.

hi. i have the same problem. my 1TB seagate backup plus external harddrive doesn't show up on finder nor disk utility. i came across ur response and tried the first option. it appears at the system report under USB. but then what do i have to do to make my harddrive appear in finder? i'm new to this so i was hoping u could help. thank you.

Do lights light? on the enclosure?

Can hear/fell it spinning?

Do it work/show on another computer?

What shows in System Profiler?

Post a screenshot of what appears

How to take a screenshot on your Mac

yes. lights light

no. but there's a beeping sound when i connect the hd to my mac but only for a few seconds

no. i tried on other laptop but it didn't appear too

here's a screenshot:

i just bought the hd two months ago and it worked just fine until today. i accidentally pulled out my hd without ejecting it properly. when i tried connecting it back again it didn't appear in finder or disk utility at all. is there anything i can do? thank you for replying.

I have the same problem as well, it blinks but does not show up anywhere. I went to check in the System report and it was not there. I have tried using a different cable and connecting it to another computer but neither works. I have some really important things on the drive so I would like to know a way in which I could get it working while still keeping all my previous files.

My drive is a Seagate Backup Plus Portable Drive and the model is SRD00F1.

If anyone could help me, it would be greatly appreciated as I have been trying for a couple of days.

Here's a screenshot of what is shown in the System Report with my drive connected and blinking:

Does the external drive work when connected to another computer?

Does this computer see other external drives OK?

Maybe the drive died.

The drive doesn't show up either when connected to another computer but the computer does see other external drives.

What could be done if the the drive did die?

If you could help it would be much appreciated.

That would indicate a problem with the cable or with the electronics in the enclosure. Likely the disk inside is still good.