Sachin_B

Q: External USB Hard Drive not showing up, after Yosemite update

I recently updated my 13-inch Retina Macbook Pro (Late 2013) to OS X Yosemite (10.10).

 

I have a Western Digital My Passport (2TB) external hard drive and when I plug it in, I can hear the hard drive running but its not showing up in finder, or on the desktop, even though I have the option to show them enabled. The hard drive is showing up in Disk Utility.

 

I have a lot of stuff on this hard drive, so I would like to stay as far as possible from wiping it clean.

 

The external hard drive I'm using is formatted to NTFS (that could be the problem but not quite sure).

 

If anyone has any fixes, please let me know by replying to this thread.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Oct 18, 2014 3:13 PM

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Q: External USB Hard Drive not showing up, after Yosemite update

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  • by wscdancer,

    wscdancer wscdancer Dec 15, 2014 10:06 AM in response to damon242
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Dec 15, 2014 10:06 AM in response to damon242

    Turning off Spotlight is not the solution.  The first thing I did when I installed Yosemite was to turn off Spotlight -- which I've never* used -- on all permanently-mounted external drives.  (Note that this was *before* I had any inkling that Finder and iTunes in Yosemite would randomly decide to not be able to see various of my external Thunderbolt/USB drives -- so far the problem hasn't afflicted any of my half-dozen or so external FW800 drives.  Knock on wood.) Turning off Spotlight did not prevent the problem from occurring.

     

    Also note that I do not know if this is a bug that was introduced in Yosemite since I upgraded directly from Snow Leopard to Yosemite.  For all I know, the bug could have been introduced in any of Lion, Mountain Lion or Mavericks.  (But it seems that most people posting comments on this thread are complaining that it started in Yosemite.)

     

    * except for doing simple arithmetic, a feature that now no longer works in Yosemite.

  • by ranger703,

    ranger703 ranger703 Dec 16, 2014 1:21 PM in response to mmschnei
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 16, 2014 1:21 PM in response to mmschnei

    I have a Western Digital My Passport and this method worked for me. Thank you very much indeed, I now have all my data back!

  • by LAJ Maria,

    LAJ Maria LAJ Maria Dec 20, 2014 2:09 AM in response to Sachin_B
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 20, 2014 2:09 AM in response to Sachin_B

    I ran Kext_Utility.app.v2.6.1

    then restarted.

    My USB Hard Drives showed up again.

  • by wscdancer,

    wscdancer wscdancer Dec 20, 2014 2:36 AM in response to LAJ Maria
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Dec 20, 2014 2:36 AM in response to LAJ Maria

    Restarting always (so far) restores the ability of Yosemite to see previously-disappeared external drives (USB and/or Thunderbolt-to-eSATA), including two iPod Shuffles connected via USB.  I've never had to run Kext_Utility.app or anything else to restore the normal functionality.  Just a simple restart of the iMac.

     

    Mid-2012 iMac.

  • by LAJ Maria,

    LAJ Maria LAJ Maria Dec 20, 2014 2:42 AM in response to wscdancer
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 20, 2014 2:42 AM in response to wscdancer

    well, lucky you.

  • by wscdancer,

    wscdancer wscdancer Dec 20, 2014 2:55 AM in response to wscdancer
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Dec 20, 2014 2:55 AM in response to wscdancer

    And just to add more intrigue to the issue, my brother just reported to me that when he booted his Mac from an external Yosemite backup hard drive (made by SuperDuper!), Yosemite is unable to see the *internal* SATA hard drive in the Mac!!!!  That makes it utterly impossible to restore a backup image onto an old or new internal SATA hard drive if you've booted the computer from an external Yosemite hard drive.  So, instead of booting from an external Yosemite hard drive so he can restore a Mavericks backup onto the internal SATA hard drive, he had to boot from the external Mavericks hard drive so he could restore it onto his internal SATA hard drive.

     

    Un-effing-believable.

  • by Antoniotls,

    Antoniotls Antoniotls Dec 21, 2014 1:27 PM in response to Sachin_B
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 21, 2014 1:27 PM in response to Sachin_B

    Folks, I was having the same issue but solved in a very silly manner. I have a CalDigit FW800, Mac OS formatted external HD. All my itunes and iphoto files are all in it. After upgrading to yosemite the HD didn't show up in finder anymore, even though I could still use the files in iPhoto and in iTunes, and I could also see the HD in Disk Utility. Confusingly Finder did show a MS Windows formatted HD I also use. Well after juggling with it for a while I just tried Finder preferences. And there I just had to choose it to show any external HDs on side bar. Incredibly it worked. Oddly, this preference was somehow automatically unmarked while upgrading. Hope that helps anybody.

  • by hello.cathy,

    hello.cathy hello.cathy Dec 26, 2014 5:03 AM in response to Sachin_B
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 26, 2014 5:03 AM in response to Sachin_B

    Hey guys. If you still haven't found a solution, I did this real quick.

     

    http://www.pcdailytips.com/usb-external-hard-drive-not-showing-on-finder-but-on- disk-utility/

     

    Basically running Disk Repair (this is for HD showing in Disk Utility but not in Finder).

     

    Fixed my missing Toshiba hard drive issue in two minutes saving me a lot of sulking

     

    Good luck.

  • by NormHouser,

    NormHouser NormHouser Dec 26, 2014 9:05 AM in response to hello.cathy
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Dec 26, 2014 9:05 AM in response to hello.cathy

    Thanks, hello.cathy. What machine are you on? I ask because it seems that iMacs have a better success rate than MBPs. Your post brought back fond memories of when I tried this over and over again for about 30 minutes based on another post here from about two months ago.

  • by hello.cathy,

    hello.cathy hello.cathy Dec 28, 2014 6:27 AM in response to NormHouser
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 28, 2014 6:27 AM in response to NormHouser

    I have an early 2011 MBP!

  • by Jamal Morelli,

    Jamal Morelli Jamal Morelli Dec 30, 2014 9:01 PM in response to Sachin_B
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Dec 30, 2014 9:01 PM in response to Sachin_B

    Here's some great news (if it also works for you):

    MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2.53GHz, Mid 2009)

     

    After my 1TB stopped showing up, I found suggestions from WD that it was either 1) an old hard drive or 2) the smartware didn't like Yosemite.   They suggested avoiding an update and / or buying the USB Y-adapter 3.0.

     

     

    I bought a USB Y-adapter 3.0 (one of the suggestions) - and while it didn't work at all on my MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2.53GHz, Mid 2009), it allowed the hard drive to be found on my PowerBook G4.

     

    Here's how it's worked:

    First, there was nothing on the G4 but then...

    I ran the old reliable Alsoft Disk Warrior on the G4 - it found my malfunctioning 1TB hard-drive.  I successfully rebuilt the directory (severely damaged, it said) - and now I have access to everything on the 1TB drive.

     

    Warning - Later, after my success of saving my data, I tried putting the drive back on my MacBook Pro, it screwed everything up again.   There's a clear Yosemite / WD something-ware issue.    I've since restored it again using the above Disk Warrior rebuild. 

     

    I'm quite happy now -

  • by oldcache,

    oldcache oldcache Jan 1, 2015 10:47 AM in response to katzmannn
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jan 1, 2015 10:47 AM in response to katzmannn

    This earlier suggestion from katzmannn worked for me too:

     

    "clicked on the Finder, clicked on Preferences and under the General tab there's a section that says, "Show these items on the desktop," where I simply checked "External Drives." All is well now!"

  • by wscdancer,

    wscdancer wscdancer Jan 1, 2015 11:32 AM in response to oldcache
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jan 1, 2015 11:32 AM in response to oldcache

    It won't last. 

  • by Jinxednfallen,

    Jinxednfallen Jinxednfallen Jan 5, 2015 7:32 AM in response to Sachin_B
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 5, 2015 7:32 AM in response to Sachin_B

    Hi,

     

    I had the same issue and now have managed to fix it. Don't know if the issue is similar for everyone else, but thought of posting it in case it helps. Okie so I noticed the problem was with my USB 3.0 compatible HDDs whereas the USB 2.0's worked fine. A lil research on the internet also told me others were facing similar issues with USB 3.0.

     

    Therefore I just went ahead and used a USB 2.0 HUB instead of directly connecting my HDD to my MBP and ...**bam** it worked. I presume you could also give it a try. If you have a USB2.0 hub or even an USB 2.0 cable extender/adapter, try connecting this as "middleman" instead of directly connecting to the MAC. Another friend of mine tried the same and it worked for him as well. Specifically with WD hard drives. Have not tried on others.

     

    Well best of luck!!!

  • by Juphilli98,

    Juphilli98 Juphilli98 Jan 11, 2015 5:36 PM in response to Sachin_B
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 11, 2015 5:36 PM in response to Sachin_B

    I corrected this problem by finding this reference for Seagate - it fixed it right up.  Basically the original formatting from the factory isn't compatible and you have to reformat to be compatible with the mac

    http://support.seagate.com/kbimg/flash/213059/213059_EN.HTML

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