Plug it to another USB port. In situations where you are unable to detect your hard drive. Therefore, if a WD my passport external hard drive is not recognized by Mac OS, but it is able to be compatible with Windows OS, you only need to format it to HFS+ file system which is able to be recognized by Mac OS. WD My Passport Does Not Show up due to Virus Attack. Troubleshoot WD My Passport not showing up on Mac issue. As mentioned above, malfunctioned USB port or Mac computer, the broken USB cable and some hardware problems can also make WD My Passport not showing up.
A few days ago while I was trying to transfer files from the WD My Passport Ultra 2TB to the Time Capsule, it suddenly became unrecognizable. I've replaced the cable (no difference) and also run the Disk Utility on it. Disk Utility displayed the drive as uninitialized. It allowed me to run first aid, but then it just said 'operation successful' and there's no change to the drive. Please help!
Similar to what happened above, when WD My Passport is uninitialized on Mac, Disk Utility may show the drive uninitialized and all partitions get lost. Most of time, Disk Utility doesn't even read the drive. In this case, each time you plug into your WD My Passport, the operating system can't recognize it, making all data on the drive inaccessible. Have no idea of what goes wrong? Just keep reading. This passage will focus on how to fix WD My Passport uninitialized on Mac without data loss.
How to fix WD My Passport uninitialized on Mac?
Unfortunately, First Aid can only repair some tiny disk errors, WD My Passport uninitialized issue is beyond its capability. Under this circumstance, initializing the external disk is the most effective and easiest way. But if you have useful data, please back up before initializing. Forget to make any backup?iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery can help you.
Recommend: recover lost data from uninitialized WD My Passport on Mac at first
As free Mac data recovery software, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac enables you to recover lost data from uninitialized WD My Passport on Mac and other brands of external hard drive,recover lost data from uninitialized AppleAPFSMedia, even recover lost data after initialize a disk, whatever the drive is formatted to APFS, HFS+, HFS, exFAT, FAT32. It is compatible withmacOS Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra 10.13/Sierra 10.12/10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.
Besides, it can alsorecover lost data even emptied from Mac Trash Bin, recover lost data from formatted drive,recover lost data from unmountable drive, recover lost data from unreadable drive, recover lost data from inaccessible hard drive, USB flash drive, SD card, memory card, pen drive, digital camera, etc.
Step-by-step tutorial to recover lost data from uninitialized WD My Passport on Mac
Step 1: Install windows 10 el capitan boot camp. Download, install and launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on your Mac.
Step 2: Click 'Find Lost APFS Partitions' on the top right corner and then choose the uninitialized WD My Passport to scan all lost partitions on this drive.
Step 3: Select the partition where you lost data and click 'Next' to scan all lost files on this partition.
Step 4: Preview the scanning results, and click 'Recover' to finish recovery process.
Step 5: Go through to ensure you have got all lost files back.
Try to initialize WD My Passport on Mac
If you have made a backup of WD My Passport or you don't care about the data on the drive, you can directly initialize the drive in Disk Utility.
Step 1: Launch Disk Utility from Utilities.
Step 2: Select the uninitialized WD My Passport on the left part of the window.
Step 3: Click the Erase on the top of the Disk Utility window.
Step 4: Complete the related information (name, format, scheme, etc.), then click Erase button.
Common reasons for WD My Passport uninitialized on Mac
If you want to find out the cause of WD My Passport uninitialized on Mac, please recall what operations you did with the external hard disk before your hard drive not initialized. Did you plug the drive into unsafe computer? Did you interrupt the process when trying to partition the drive? Did you experience power failure or system crash when using the portable drive? Here are some general reasons for WD My Passport uninitialized:
1. File system corruption.
2. Virus infection.
3. Bad sectors.
4. Head volume corruption.
5. Connection problem.
According to your own situation, you can determine what might be the real cause. Even so, the most important thing is to fix WD My Passport uninitialized on Mac.
See also: How to fix when WD external hard drive for PS4 not recognized/not working?
Passport Hard Drive Not Working
Still have questions?
Background
It could be troublesome if your wd my passport cannot be recognized or my passport not showing up in Windows 10 this pc or file explorer. This page introduces free fixes for my passport not showing up errors.
If data matters, recovering files from wd external disk for free
Why wd my passport not showing up in file explorer or this pc
Western digital my passport may suffer logical damages or physical damages that could make it no longer visible in your computer no matter the file explorer or this pc.
If your western digital external disk is not showing up in file explorer, or it is not visible under this pc, you may go to disk management to see whether it would show up there.
#1 - My passport shows up in disk management, however it is not detected in file explorer
It would be lucky if your disk can still work under disk management. It would be much easier to fix the disk error under such situation. Simply format it if it still shows up under disk management no matter it shows as raw state or uninitialized, or blank..
Fix #a, format it.
Fix #b, If it cannot be formatted, delete it and then load it again, initialize it or create new partition for it.
#2 - my passport is not detected neither in disk managment nor this pc
If my passport no matter 1tb, 2tb, 4tb or 5tb could not be detected neither under disk management nor the file explorer, here are the fixes for you.
Step 1: Reload it in device manager by uninstalling it at first
Step 2: Reconnect it, scan for hardware changes to reload it
Not working? Here are 6 more fixes to repair wd external usb not showing up
FAQ - Why my passport detected but cannot open on Windows 10
Answer: the disk may have suffered logical errors that can be mostly fixed by chkdsk or simply by reformatting it.
More useful tools
Mac? Also see: how to fix wd my passport not recognized on mac
Last updated on Aug 30, 2021