Home > Questions

How To Fix An External Hard Drive Is Seen In Disk Utility But Not Finder?

My external hard drive can be seen by Disk Utility but not by Finder. Also, Disk Utility says the hard drive is full. I have tried this hard drive on both Windows computers and other Macs, neither of which had any issues accessing the files. I also have another external hard drive that I use for the Time Machine, and it can be seen by both Finder and Disk Utility. Hoping someone on here can help me!!

Best Answered by

iBoysoft author Vain Rowe

Vain Rowe

Answered on Wednesday, November 26, 2025

Hi there, since you have mentioned that Disk Utility can see your hard drive without a hitch, I can tell the hard drive works fine on your computer. As the issue that the hard drive shows up in Disk Utility but not in Finder, I recommend you check the Finder preferences: 

Step 1: Go to Finder > Preferences > General tab and select "External disks" to make external hard drives show on the desktop.

Step 2: Go to Finder > Preferences > Sidebar and make sure the "External disks" under "Locations" are ticked. Then your external hard drive will appear in a Finder window.

Step 3: Go to Desktop/Finder and check if your external hard drive is showing up.

 

People Also Ask

Read More Questions

Read More Advice From iBoysoft's Computer Experts

create windows 10 installation media

How to Create Windows 10/11 Installation Media/Bootable USB?

This post provides three ways to create Windows 10/11 installation media, you can follow the detailed steps to create a Windows 10/11 bootable USB via the windows media creation tool, Rufus, and CMD.

icloud backup

iCloud Backup: A Feature for iPhone and iPad to Back Up

This post is an introduction to the iCloud Backup function on iPhone and iPad, including what the iCloud Backup is, how to back up iPhone/iPad with iCloud, how to restore from iCloud Backup, etc.