Written by
Vain Rowe
Summary: Tutorial to fix Toshiba external hard drive not mounting on Mac and recover lost data from unmountable Toshiba external hard drive with Mac data recovery software.
I have a Toshiba 2TB External drive which I have used for the past 5 or 6 months to keep copies of my iPhoto Library and my Time Machine backups on. Yesterday, I plugged the drive into the USB slot to find it no longer appeared on the desktop. In Disk Utility, it was not mounted and I cannot do anything but format it which I don't want to do. Any suggestion to fix Toshiba external hard drive not mounting on Mac?
Toshiba's external hard drive is so famous that numerous people are using it. However, it also brings you many troubles. The most common one is Toshiba external hard drive not mounting on Mac. What causes Toshiba external hard drive not mounting issue? There are various reasons, such as virus attack, power failure, damaged volume header, file directory corruption, etc. In this post, you will get solutions to Toshiba external hard drive not mounting on Mac without data loss.
Read this guide to learn different ways to (force) mount an external hard drive on Mac and the solutions to common external hard drive mounting problems on Mac.
How to fix Toshiba's external hard drive not mounting on Mac?
Toshiba external hard drive won't mount in Disk Utility? Can't stand the loss of important files? There are two effective solutions to Toshiba's external hard drive not mounting on Mac.
If you get the error reading "com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error 49153" after manually mounting the drive, read this guide to learn different solutions that don't require reformatting.
Fix 1: Repair unmountable Toshiba external hard drive with Disk Utility
Fortunately, Mac has a built-in repair tool to check and verify minor errors on disks called First Aid. No matter what problems you are meeting on a disk, First Aid is your first choice to repair it.
Step 1: Launch Disk Utility.
Step 2: Choose the grayed-out Toshiba external hard drive.
Step 3: Select First Aid in the top center and click Run.
Fix 2: Perform data recovery before reformatting
If Disk Utility cannot repair your disk which is unmountable, the last solution is to reformat the unmountable external hard drive, but in order to avoid data loss, you have to recover lost data from the unmountable external hard drive as soon as possible.
Step 1: Recover lost data from Toshiba external hard drive on Mac
As the best Mac data recovery, iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery is able to recover lost data if the external hard drive not mounting, recover lost data from unreadable, corrupted, inaccessible external hard drive, hard drive, USB flash drive, SD card, memory card, etc. It supports to recover of lost data from APFS, HFS, HFS+, exFAT, and FAT32 drives on macOS 13 Ventura/12 Monterey/macOS 11 Big Sur/Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra 10.13/Sierra 10.12/10.11 and it works fine on M2, M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max Mac.
- Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on Mac.
- Launch this program. Select the unmountable Toshiba external hard drive and click "Next". The program will start scanning this drive for recoverable files.
- After the scanning process finishes, you can click the found files and preview.
- Choose what you want to get back and click "Recover".
- Go through the recovered files and make sure all desired files are back.
Step 2: Fix Toshiba external hard drive not mounting on Mac by reformatting
- Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
- Select the unmountable Toshiba external hard drive and click "Erase" on the top.
- Provide a name and a format to format the drive.
- When finished, you can mount your Toshiba external hard drive on Mac and use it again.
If your Toshiba's external hard drive is formatted with exFAT, you can read this guide to learn what to do if it's not mounting or showing up on Mac: How to Fix exFAT Drive Not Mounting/Showing Up on Mac?
If the Toshiba external hard drive starts to have mounting issues on macOS Sequoia, this guide will be helpful: Fix External Hard Drive Not Showing Up/Mounting on Mac Sequoia
