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How to Fix External Hard Drive Not Showing Up On the Desktop But In Disk Utility?

I found my external hard drive is not showing on my desktop. It's still running but not displaying. I try to restart the computer but nothing. I checked in Disk Utility and it was there. Then I have run both Verify and Repair disk and they said the dive appears to be OK. I ejected it and plugged it back, but it still not appear anywhere but Disk Utility. I checked the preferences to verify the box is checked to show the external HD. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Best Answered by

iBoysoft author Eudora Liu

Eudora Liu

Answered on Sunday, June 8, 2025

Well, it is easy to fix your external hard drive not showing up on the desktop. You mentioned that you have run First Aid and checked the preference, but nothing. So you can try to format your external hard drive.

  1. Go to Launchpad > Other > Disk Utility and double-click to open.
  2. Select your external hard drive and then click Erase in the toolbar.
  3. Edit the disk name, and select a format and a scheme.
  4. Click Erase.

After that, try to mount your drive again and check whether it shows on the desktop.

But before you format your external hard drive, you need to back up your data. If any data loss from corrupted drive, you can use iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac to recover it.

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