Fix G-Drive External Hard Drive Not Showing Up on Mac

Normally, when you connect a G-Drive external hard drive to your Mac, it appears on the desktop, in Finder's sidebar, and Disk Utility. If you can't find the disk, it's likely not mounted or even not recognized by the operating system.

The G-Drive may stop showing up suddenly or after a macOS update. This is concerning as you can't access files on the drive or use it properly. But don't worry! We'll help you troubleshoot the issue and fix the G-Drive on Mac.

Since a G-Drive refers to a line of external hard drives produced by G-Technology (a subsidiary of Western Digital) and SanDisk Professional, this guide applies to all issues below:

Why is my G-Drive not showing up on Mac?

Four categories of reasons can lead to G-Drive not showing up on Mac, including connection issues, preference settings, disk corruption, and hardware problems. To be specific, it may result from one of the following issues:

If you notice a different potential cause. Please share with us!

How to fix G-Drive not showing up on Mac?

If your G-Drive external hard drive is not showing up on Mac, you're likely facing one of the following three situations:

• G-Drive external hard drive mounted but not displayed on Mac
• G-Drive external hard drive not mounted on Mac
• G-Drive external hard drive not detected on Mac

To decide what situation you're in, check your drive status in Disk Utility:

Check the current status of the G-Drive's partition:

▸ If your G-Drive appears in Disk Utility properly, it's mounted. The next course of action is to modify the Finder settings to ensure it's set to show external disks on the desktop or in Finder.

▸ If your G-Drive appears in Disk Utility but is grayed out, it's not mounted either due to disk issues or encryption. In this case, your focus will be mounting the drive on Mac.

▸ If your G-Drive isn't showing up in Disk Utility, it's likely not detected, which is the worst-case scenario. To get the drive to appear on Mac, you need to check the connection.

Besides, you can take a look at the drive's file system.

▸ If it says NTFS, the drive is read-only on Mac. You'll need an NTFS for Mac driver to write to it

▸ If it reads FAT32, exFAT, APFS, or Mac OS Extended (Journaled), the drive has read/write access on Mac.

Case 1: G-Drive Showing up in Disk Utility but not on desktop

If your disk is mounted in Disk Utility but doesn't show up on the desktop, reset assured that it doesn't have serious issues but a setting problem.

External drives are defaulted to show up on a Mac's desktop and in the sidebar of Finder. However, a system upgrade or other factors may disable it and cause the G-Drive not to appear. To modify the settings, take the following steps:

Now check if your SanDisk or G-Technology external hard drive appears on the desktop.

Case 2: G-Drive showing up in Disk Utility but is grayed out

If your G-Drive is grayed out in Disk Utility, it's detected by your system but not mounted. To mount the G-Drive on Mac, try the solutions below.

Fix 1: Force Mount G-Drive in Disk Utility

There's a Mount button in Disk Utility allowing you to manually mount a drive on Mac. If you haven't tried it, open Disk Utility, select the G-Drive, then click Mount.

This may enable you to access the drive if lucky. If not, it can fail with an error like com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error 49153. Or, if it's APFS-encrypted, you'll be asked to enter a password to unlock the disk.

Fix 2: Repair the drive with First Aid

First Aid is also a common way to fix unmountable drives on Mac. It can check the file system structure for errors or inconsistencies and automatically repair them. Here's how to repair the G-Drive on Mac:

Fix 3: Unlock the G-Drive if encrypted

When a drive is encrypted, it won't mount on a Mac unless it's unlocked. Do you recall your G-Drive being encrypted? If it was used on a Windows computer, it may be encrypted with BitLocker, which isn't compatible with Mac. To access a BitLocker-encrypted disk on Mac, use iBoysoft BitLocker for Mac. It specializes in managing drives with BitLocker encryption on Mac.

If the G-Drive is encrypted using another method, find a way to unlock or decrypt it. Nevertheless, if you don't remember using any encryption, try another solution.

Fix 4: Mount NTFS drives on Mac

Is your G-Drive NTFS formatted? If it is, an incompatible NTFS for Mac driver may be the culprit that's causing the G-Drive to not display on Mac.

To fix the unmountable NTFS G-Drive, you can uninstall the incompatible NTFS for Mac tool and use a reliable NTFS driver for Mac like iBoysoft NTFS for Mac. This NTFS mounter can mount your G-Drive with full read/write access while keeping all your data intact.

However, if you don't need data on the drive, you can reformat it with a Mac-compatible format.

Fix 5: Recover data and reformat G-Drive

The last straw is to format the grayed-out G-Drive with a clean, new file system. This will remove all files on the drive, so you should recover the essential data before starting the process.

iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is highly recommended for restoring data from unmountable G-Drives. It's a professional data recovery tool with millions of users around the world. You can count on it to get back your videos, documents, audio, photos, and other files from a G-Drive that's not showing up on Mac.

Follow these steps to recover data from the G-Drive external hard drive on Mac:

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

Step 2: Select your G-Drive and click Search for Lost Data.

Step 3: Preview files from the external drive for free.

Step 4: Select files you'd like to recover and click Recover.

Step 5: Choose a location other than the G-Drive to save the recovered files.

After your data is secured, you can reformat the external drive on Mac.

Share this post to help others fix G-Technology or SanDisk G-Drive not showing up on Mac!

Case 3: G-Drive Not Showing up in Disk Utility

If you can't find the G-Drive in Disk Utility, you should first try to make it appear there. Once it does, you can proceed with the corresponding solutions.

Fix 1: Check the USB cable

The USB cable or port is the first thing you need to look at. For the cable, it's best to use the one that came with your drive. If unavailable, make sure the replacement is high-quality and in good condition. Try different cables if you can.

Fix 2: Check the USB port

USB devices draw power from the USB port they are plugged into. If the port cannot supply enough power, the device may not function properly or may disconnect intermittently. You can check if your G-Drive is receiving enough power:

If it's not showing up in System Information or not receiving enough power, try a different USB port.

Fix 3: Try it on a different computer

Suppose your G-Drive is still not showing up on Mac, then it's advisable to use it on a different computer, ideally, a Windows PC or another Mac. If it works on a Windows computer, repair it using Windows's functionality. If it works on another Mac, get your data off the drive and reformat it.

Fix 4: Contact G-Technology or SanDisk support

If nothing helps, consulting with the support may be helpful. I've heard users resolve the G-Drive not being recognized on Mac with the assistance of G-Technology support.

I hope this article is useful to you. If you're positive about the content, share it to benefit those whose G-Drive HDD doesn't show up on MacBook.