WD My Passport is not recognised anymore

Question

Level 1

6 points

WD My Passport is not recognised anymore

Hi everyone. I have a WD My Passport Ultra external hard drive and I used to run this said external drive in my macbook air. However, probably after an upgrade of El Capitan, the hard disk doesnt even show up anymore in Finder and Disk Utility. I can still use the hard drive in my HD media player so I am sure that it is not damaged yet. Someone same experience? Any way to repair this? Thanks in advance for any advice!

Macbook Air (13" - mid 2013)

1.7 GHZ Core i7

El Capitan 10.11.14

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2013)

Posted on May 8, 2016 8:26 PM

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Answer 1

culae

Level 1

4 points

Jan 1, 2018 3:12 PM in response to juncotoco

Hi. No one has a solution for this problem?

I have WD Passport 1TB and I had used it with two partitions (Mac OS and NTFS) for years with my Mac Mini 10.6.8. until after a pause of about a year it is no longer recognized by Mini. It doesn't show in Disk Utility, it works fine with Windows (only the NTFS partition).

No one has a solution for this?

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Answer 2

PRP_53

Level 10

84,373 points

May 9, 2016 2:58 AM in response to juncotoco

Had same issue with same WD My Passport Ultra on MBA early 2015.

Resolved by doing a SMC REST and now working fine. Follow the link on how to do this reset

Reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 3

juncotoco Author

Level 1

6 points

May 9, 2016 5:33 AM in response to PRP_53

HI. Tried to reset but to no avail. Feeling hopeless!

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Answer 4

PRP_53

Level 10

84,373 points

May 9, 2016 7:41 AM in response to juncotoco

Have you tried using in another USB Port on MBA? If it still does not appear in Finder or DU, try it on another computer ( Mac or PC ) Does it show-up? If not, it might in fact be dead or damaged 😟

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Answer 5

juncotoco Author

Level 1

6 points

May 9, 2016 2:59 PM in response to PRP_53

Yes the WD works in my friends PC laptop. As for other external drive (other brands), it also works on my mba. This WD Passport is going crazy.

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Answer 6

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,305 points

May 9, 2016 4:33 PM in response to juncotoco

WD has proprietary software installed in their external HDDs which at times creates problems with Macs. Take out the bare drive and install it in a generic enclosure. Connect it to the MBP and see if it then recognized in Disk utility.

Ciao.

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Answer 7

PRP_53

Level 10

84,373 points

May 10, 2016 2:22 AM in response to juncotoco

Can you recover all the files on the WD drive to another drive and as OGELTHORPE said remove the HD and put in enclosure and see if it works?

Are you connecting the WD directly to the MBA or through a usb HUB? Sometimes if connected to a HUB could be a problem.

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Answer 8

Jun 10, 2016 11:48 PM in response to juncotoco

Mine does not show up in itunes anymore! The option is there, but it doesn't load. it goes back to "On my mac" within seconds. Cannot play my movies stored on my cloud to my living room tv anymore. Before I moved I used to watch them with my apple tv from my cloud. Cannot anymore.

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Answer 9

MRidgers

Level 1

4 points

Jun 27, 2016 4:31 PM in response to juncotoco

I am having trouble with the WD Passport too and performing backups and accessing information. I have a 2010 Air and have updated to the OS system. Any assistance would be appreciated.

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