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[Fixes] External Hard Drive Not Showing Up on Mac Desktop

I noticed that the external HD is not on my Mac desktop. It is running, but not displaying on the desktop. My first step is to restart but nothing happens. Today, I opened the Disk Utility and the drive shows up. I have run both Verify and Repair disk to the external HD and after the scans it says the HD appears to be OK. I can also eject the HD from the Disk Utility. After it is ejected I can unplug it and plug it back in and it will display in the Disk Utility, but nowhere else. It does not show up on the desktop. I have also gone into to preferences to verify that the box is checked to show the external HD. Any help?

Best Answered by

iBoysoft author Sherry Song

Sherry Song

Answered on Tuesday, August 5, 2025

Hello, according to your description, maybe there is something with your drive or Mac. Therefore, before fixing the issue, you'd better recover all the data and do a backup. iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is a good choice, which can recover data from the problematic drive or Mac effectively.

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After recovering all the data, you can try:

(1) Check the Finder seetings. Ensure you tap the External disks in the General in Finder settings.

(2) Boot you Mac in Safe Mode.

(3) Repair the drive in Disk Utility with the First Aid.

(4) Reformat your external hard drive. Be careful to do a backup.

(5) Reset NVRAM and SMC on Mac.

(6) Updata your Mac in the settings.

Hope you can see the drive on your Mac.

Also read: Fix External Hard Drive Not Showing up or Recognized on Mac

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