WD MyBook will not mount on Mac

Question

WD MyBook will not mount on Mac

I have two WD MyBooks attached to a Mid-2015 15" MacBook Pro (MBP) running El Capitan 10.11.5. Both drives are formatted with OS X Extended (Journaled). We had a power outage last evening. This morning I rebooted the MBP and the 2nd MyBook would not mount. I rebooted and fussed around to no avail. The drive powers up and seems to be spinning but does not show in Disk Utility or the terminal Disk Utility command. I dl'd HFSExplorer and installed it on a Windows 7 laptop. This utility allows a Windows pc to read, but not write to, a Mac formatted disk. I attached the MyBook2 to the Windows 7 laptop, launched HFSExplorer and, lo and behold, it can read the mac formatted disk. So, what can I do to get the MacBook Pro to mount this drive? I am at a loss!

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5)

Posted on Jun 19, 2016 8:05 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

omikhail

Level 1

4 points

Jul 4, 2017 9:23 PM in response to jonathanfrommorristown

I just had the same problem.

You must have added a security password to the WD MyBook. If you did, then next time you plug the WD MyBook to the Mac, the WP Unlocker will not start automatically - it is a glitch i have seen only with the MyBook. Since the unlocker will not show up, the hard drive will remain unseen by the mac. I have a WD My Passport and this problem does not exist. The WD Unlocker starts just after I plug the My Passport. The solution which i did to mount the MyBook is to manually start the WD Unlocker (I kept a copy on the Desktop), then use it to unlock the MyBook, at that point the MyBook will mount.

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Answer 2

Jun 19, 2016 10:55 AM in response to jonathanfrommorristown

Fixed it! Nothing very elegant. I shut down the MacBook Pro (MBP), swapped the USB 3 cable from the recognized MyBook (MB1) with the unrecognized MyBook (MB2), rebooted the MBP and the MB2 is recognized. I swapped the cables again to their original drives and all work. Why? I have no idea!

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