Wd My Passport For Mac Not Showing Up On Windows

Wd My Passport For Mac Not Showing Up On Windows 10
Wd My Passport For Mac Not Showing Up On Windows Update

WD My Passport Does Not Show up due to Virus Attack. As mentioned above, an external hard drive must be formatted properly so that it can be detected by Windows or Mac OS. However, sometimes, virus infection might corrupt the file system of WD my passport external hard drive and make it not show up when you connect the external to your computer. My WD Passport Ultra 2TB external hard drive is not showing up in explorer when I plug it into the USB port in a 'normal way'. I have to connect it through a 'bizarre way' to make it show up in explorer. I realizes there were threads related to the same issue, but it's not what I am looking for. Let me explain the 'normal way'.

By Katrina | Posted to Home > Mac Data Recovery Tips, updated on August 20th, 2021User rating:

Summary: Here you will find 5 methods to fix WD My Passport for Mac drive not showing up or working on Mac. To avoid data loss, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac can help save your data to a safe place.

Everything has flaws, even the WD My Passport for Mac drive that you used for years.

It happens frequently that:

WD My Passport won't show up when connecting to your Mac computer
WD My Passport is greyed out in Disk Utility
WD external hard drive light on but not working after macOS Big Sur update
WD My Passport drive won't open WD unlocker application on M1 Mac
Mac didn't unlock the WD My Passport drive but asking for the WD Drive Unlock application
WD My Passport Ultra becomes encrypted or unreadable on your Mac

Either way, your important data on this drive will become inaccessible and concerns you a lot.

If the WD My Passport is not showing up on Mac desktop, Finder, or Disk Utility after connecting to your Mac, how to find it and make it work? If you can't see files from WD external hard drive on Mac, how to access data? You'll get answers here.

Solutions for fixing WD My Passport drive not showing up on Mac

Method 1: Do the basic checks
Method 2: Check Finder Preferences
Method 3: Install the latest WD drive unlock application
Method 4: Check & repair drive in Disk Utility
Method 5: Recover data and erase the drive
Method 6: Repair your WD hard drive in local shop

Fix 1: Do the basic checks

Usually, malfunctioned USB port or Mac computer, the broken USB cable, and some hardware problems could make WD My Passport not showing up.

Before going further troubleshooting, do the following basic checks is very necessary.

1. Safely remove the WD My Passport and reconnect it to the USB port. Try quickly plug or slowly plug, which sometimes just works for no reason.

2. Check whether the USB cable or USB port is bad by connecting other hard drives to this USB port or cable and see if that makes a difference.

3. Reboot your Mac computer to see if your WD My Passport drive is not showing up in Disk Utility/Finder or not.

4. Connect the WD My Passport to another Mac or Windows PC, which will find out if it is the incompatible file system of the drive that makes this WD My Passport undetectable.

If the WD My Passport for Mac still doesn't show up or work on Mac after the basic checks, go ahead to try out the solutions as below to make it show up on Mac.

Fix 2: Check Finder Preferences

If your WD My Passport is not showing up in Finder and desktop, it's possible that the configuration of the Finder Preferences prevents your WD My Passport drive from showing up.

In other words, you didn't allow the connected external hard drives to show up in the Finder or on the desktop.

Now, follow the guide below to set Finder Preferences and make the WD My Passport for Mac show up in Finder or on the desktop.

1. Go to Finder > Preferences > General tab.
2. Tick the 'External disks' option to show the WD My Passport for Mac on the desktop.
3. Go to the Sidebar tab, tick 'External disks' under 'Locations' to show your WD My Passport for Mac in Finder.
4. Go to Desktop or Finder and check if your WD My Passport is showing up. If not, download, install iBoysoft Data Recovery on your Mac and then check if your WD My Passport is detected by iBoysoft Data Recovery.
5. If your WD My Passport is recognized by iBoysoft Data Recovery, follow the wizard to recover data and then format WD hard drive.
If your WD My Passport drive is not detected by iBoysoft Data Recovery either, send WD hard drive to an expert for reparation.

Solution 3: Install the latest WD drive unlock application

Typically, if you have received a message like 'You must run the WD Drive Unlock application from the WD Drive Unlock CD associated with the drive you want to unlock' and you can't open or unlock your WD drive (My Passport):

This has been discussed a lot that WD hard drive not working after the macOS Big Sur update or when connecting to an Apple Silicon M1 MacBook Air.

If you have used WD Utilities or have created a secure password to keep others from accessing the files on the drive, you have to type the password to unlock the drive (unless you enable auto-unlock for this computer) each time:

Wd my passport for mac not showing up on windows

You shut down or restart your Mac.
You disconnect and reconnect the WD My Passport.
Your Mac wakes up from sleep mode.

Besides, you have to unlock the WD drive with your password even if you have uninstalled the WD My Passport software from your Mac.

To fix that Western Digital My Passport hard drives not working or unlock (though you know the right password) after the macOS Big Sur update, simply download, update, and install the latest WD Discovery Utilities for macOS 11 Big Sur.

If unfortunately, you can't remember the password, you can only reformat the WD My Passport for Mac hard drive to make it work again, but at the expense of data loss. So, recovering your data with iBoysoft data recovery software in advance.

Fix 4: Check & repair drive in Disk Utility

If the WD Passport hard drive is not showing up in Finder after trying the above methods, you can see whether it is showing up in Disk Utility or not.

Usually, you could have two results:

Case 1: Your WD My Passport drive is detected and showing up in Disk Utility, but it is greyed out or not mounting.

Case 2: Your WD hard drive is not recognized, so it's not showing up in Disk Utility at all.

Here, we'll show you solutions to case 1.

1. Manually Mount WD My Passport for Mac in Disk Utility

Sometimes, hard drives cannot be automatically mounted in Disk Utility, even though Mac has detected the hard drive. So it's possible that you'll see the WD My Passport for Mac drive not mounting in Disk Utility.

In this situation, you can manually mount the hard drive.

1. Go to Finder>Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility.
2. Click Show All Devices in View option at the left corner of Disk Utility.
3. Select your WD My Passport for Mac drive from the left sidebar and click the Mount button on the top of the Disk Utility window.

Instead, you can also click on the mount icon beside the drive to mount it immediately.

2. Repair WD My Passport for Mac drive with First Aid

If you can't mount the WD My Passport for Mac manually, there should be some file system problems in this drive.

But don't worry. There is a native repair tool called First Aid in Disk Utility, which can analyze and repair basic hard drive errors especially with file systems and catalogs, extends, volume bit maps.

To run First Aid to check the WD My Passport hard drive:

1. Go to Disk Utility.
2. Select the WD hard drive.
3. Click First Aid on the top of the Disk Utility window and then click Run.

After running First Aid, try to mount the WD Passport hard drive again to check if it can be mounted and accessed now.

If your WD My Passport drive cannot mounted, try next solution to recover data and then erase the drive.

Fix 5: Recover data and erase the drive

If First Aid was unable to repair the errors in the WD My Passport, it means that the file system of the WD drive has been damaged. Common, to fix the WD My Passport for Mac drive that's not showing up on Mac, you have to reformat it.

The question is, reformatting will assign a new file system but will also erase all data on this drive as well. Hence, firstly, recover data from WD drive with iBoysoft Data Recovery.

Tutorial to recover data from My Passport for Mac hard drive:

1. Download, install and launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on Mac.
2. Select My Passport for Mac and click the Scan button to scan all data on this drive.
3. Preview the searching results, choose files you need, and click Recover to get them back.

Next, you can courageously proceed to erase your WD My Passport for Mac hard drive with no fuss.

Wd my passport for mac not showing up on windows free

1. Open Disk Utility.
2. Select the WD My Passport for Mac drive in the left sidebar.
3. Click Erase on the top of the Disk Utility window.
4. Complete the information for your WD drive (such as new format, partition scheme, and so on) and click Erase.

Fix 6: Send your WD My Passport drive for repair

If My Passport for Mac hard drive is not showing up in Disk Utility, it means that the WD hard drive is not recognized or detected by the Mac. Very probably, your My Passport for Mac has some hardware problems. You'd better send it to a local reparation center.

Understanding why My Passport drive not showing up on Mac

Sometimes, an external hard drive not showing up on Mac just because the USB cable or the USB port on your Mac is bad. In addition, the following reasons may also lead to WD My Passport for Mac not showing up or not working.

Recent macOS update issue
System failure
Virus infection
Motherboard issue
WD My Passport drive damage or corruption

Bonus Maintenance Tips for WD My Passport drives for Mac

Apparently, most hard drives not showing up issues are caused by unsafe ejection and sudden power outage. In order to keep your WD My Passport for Mac in good condition, you should pay attention to:

Make sure that your WD My Passport doesn't become physically damaged.
Always safely and properly eject the WD My Passport for Mac drive after using it.
Don't just unplug the USB cable, on the contrary, unmount your drive by right-clicking (control-click) on the icon on the Desktop or in the Finder and choose 'Eject'.
Properly use WD software like WD Drive Utilities, WD Backup software ( to back up important files to your My Passport drive), and WD Discovery ( to organize and share your files to the My Passport drive to backup your online social life).

Final thoughts

Actually, My Passport for Mac hard drives are just like other external hard drives, which may not show up after connecting to a Mac. This article offers a full guide to help you fix the WD drive not showing up issue in different situations. It's worth mentioning again that once this issue happens, rescue files from your WD Passport hard drive with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac first, or you'll face permanent data loss.

Summary: WD My Passport for Mac is not showing up Mac? Follow the tutorial in this article to fix WD My Passport not working issue and recover data from unrecognized WD My Passport.

Everything has flaws. At times, WD My Passport won't show up when you connect it to your Mac computer, the WD My Passport is greyed out in Disk Utility, or WD hard drive's light is on but not working. Even worse, it may become unreadable on your Mac. In either way, your important data on this drive will become inaccessible.

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If the WD My Passport is not showing up on Mac desktop, Finder or Disk Utility after connecting to your Mac, how to find it and make it work? If you can't see files from WD external hard drive on Mac, how to access data? You'll get answers here.

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Table of contents: 1. Troubleshoot WD My Passport not showing up on Mac issue; 2. How to fix My Passport not showing up on Mac issue?; 3. What to do if My Passport drive is not recognized?; 4. Understanding why My Passport drive not showing up on Mac; 5. Bonus tips

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. You can do some basic checks to troubleshoot whether this issue is resulted from those factors.

1. Safely remove the WD My Passport and reconnect it to the USB port. Try quickly plug and slowly plug, sometimes it just works for no reason.

2. Check whether the USB cable or USB port is bad by connecting other hard drives to this USB port or cable and see if that makes a difference.

3. Reboot your Mac computer to see if your WD My Passport drive is not showing up in Disk Utility/Finder or not.

4. Connect the WD My Passport to another Mac computer or Windows PC, which will find out if it is the incompatible file system of the drive that makes this WD My Passport undetectable.

How to fix WD My Passport not showing up on Mac issue?

If the WD My Passport for Mac still does not work or not show up on Mac after the basic checks, go ahead to try out the solutions as below to make it show up on Mac.

Solution 1: Check Finder Preferences

If your WD My Passport is not showing up in Finder and desktop, it's possible that the configuration of the Finder Preferences is stopping your WD My Passport drive showing up. In other words, you didn't allow the connected hard drives showing up in the Finder or on the desktop.

Now, follow the guide below to set Finder Preferences and make the WD My Passport for Mac show up in Finder or on the desktop.

Step 1: Go to Finder > Preferences > General tab.

Step 2: Tick the 'External disks' option to show the WD My Passport for Mac on the desktop.

Wd App For Macbook

Step 3: Go to Sidebar tab, tick 'External disks' under 'Devices' to show your WD My Passport for Mac in Finder.

Solution 2: Check My Passport for Mac in Disk Utility

If the WD My Passport for Mac drive is still not showing up in Finder or on the desktop, you can see whether it is showing up in Disk Utility or not.

When checking WD My Passport in Disk Utility, you could have two results:

Case 1: Your WD My Passport drive is detected and showing up in Disk Utility, but it is greyed out or not mounting.

Case 2: Your WD hard drive is not recognized, so it's not showing up in Disk Utility at all.

Here, we'll show you solutions to case 1.

Method 1: Mount WD My Passport for Mac in Disk Utility manually

Step 1: Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.

Step 2: Click 'Show All Devices' in View option at the left corner of Disk Utility.

Step 3: Select your WD My Passport for Mac drive from the left sidebar and click the Mount button on the top of Disk Utility window.

Instead, you can also click on the mount icon beside the drive to mount it immediately.

Method 2: Repair WD My Passport for Mac drive with First Aid

If you can't mount the WD My Passport for Mac manually, there should be some file system problems in this drive. But don't worry. There is a native repair tool called First Aid in your Mac computer's Disk Utility, which is able to analyze and repair basic hard drive problems especially with file systems and catalogs, extends, volume bit maps. You can follow the instructions to fix this problem.

Step 1: Go to Disk Utility.

Step 2: Select the WD My Passport for Mac.

Step 3: Click First Aid on the top of the Disk Utility window. Mdf for mac.

Step 4: Click Done when the reparation finishes.

Solution 3: Erase/Reformat My Passport for Mac

If First Aid was unable to fix the errors in the WD My Passport, which is quite common, the file system of this drive could be seriously corrupted and you have to fix the WD My Passport for Mac not showing up on Mac problem by reformatting.

The situation is, reformatting will assign a new file system but will erase your data on this drive as well. To avoid the loss of important data, please make sure you have a backup copy of data. Without a backup? It's not necessarily the end of the world. You can at first recover lost data from the WD My Passport for Mac with professional Mac data recovery software, like iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.

iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is free hard drive data recovery software for Mac that is able to recover deleted files on Mac, recover lost data from formatted, inaccessible, corrupted, unmountable, unreadable hard drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, memory cards, etc. It's compatible with macOS Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra/Sierra 10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.

Recover lost data from My Passport for Mac with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac

Step 1: Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on Mac.

Step 2: Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.

Wd Desktop App For Mac

Step 3: Select My Passport for Mac and click 'Next' button to scan all data on this drive.

Step 4: Preview the searching results, choose files you need, and click 'Recover' to get them back.

Reformat My Passport for Mac in Disk Utility

After recovering data from this drive, you can now courageously proceed to erase your WD My Passport for Mac drive with no fuss.

Step 1: Go to Disk Utility.

Wd App For Mac Windows 10

Step 2: Select the WD My Passport for Mac drive in the left sidebar.

Step 3: Click Erase on the top of the Disk Utility window.

Step 4: Complete the information for your drive (such as new format, partition scheme, and so on) and click Erase.

Wd My Passport For Mac Not Showing Up On Windows 10

What to do if the WD My Passport drive is not recognized/detected?

If My Passport for Mac hard drive is not showing up in Disk Utility at all, it means the WD hard drive is not recognized. Very probably, your My Passport for Mac may have some hardware problems. It's better to send it to a local reparation center.

Understanding why My Passport drive not showing up on Mac

Wd My Passport For Mac Not Showing Up On Windows Update

Recent macOS update issue
System failure
Virus infection
Motherboard issue
WD My Passport drive damage or corruption

Bonus Maintenance Tips for WD My Passport drives for Mac

Apparently, most hard drive not showing up issues are caused by unsafe ejection and sudden power outrage. In order to maintain your WD My Passport for Mac in good condition, you should pay attention to:

Make sure that your WD My Passport doesn't become physically damaged.
Always safely and properly eject the WD My Passport for Mac drive after using it.
Don't just unplug the USB cable, on the contrary, unmount your drive by right-clicking (control-click) on the icon on the Desktop or in the Finder and choose Eject.
Properly use WD software like WD Drive Utilities, WD Backup software ( to back up important files to your My Passport drive), and WD Discovery ( to organize and share your files to the My Passport drive to backup your online social life).

Create a partition folder for backing up the system data and choose the partition format as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) from the Format drop-down menu.
Click the Apply button after partitioning your hard drive.
Next, create a backup of your system data using the Time Machine Backup feature.
Click the System Preferences icon at the Dock or click the Apple menu and select System Preferences from the drop-down menu.
In the System Preferences window, click the Time Machine icon and select the Add or Remove Backup Disk option.
Now, choose the created partition on your WD easystore hard drive to start backing up your files.
Click the Use Disk button and check the “Back up Automatically” checkbox under the Time Machine icon.
Also, check the “Show Time Machine in the menu bar” checkbox from the Time Machine window.
If you wish to start a backup for the next time, click the Time Machine icon at the menu bar and select the Back up Now button.
You can also use the WD Discovery app for accessing the WD Backup software to back up your data.