Oct 26, 2020 • Filed to: Solve Mac Problems • Proven solutions
There is no doubt that getting quick access to the Mac HD directory can be quite helpful in many situations. You can easily access several folders, such as System, Users, Applications, and Library. All these folders contain data that any Mac user access on a regular basis. Sadly, macOS High Sierra may not display you the Macintosh HD folder on your desktop or Finder by default. It makes access to files difficult.
USB devices,that are formatted in MAC format. It's format type is hfs. You cannot open the USB devices in windows. If you want to use the USB devices in win. There are many options you can choose between, such as hard drive, USB flash drive and many others. Usually, when you plug the external device into your Mac, it appears as an icon on the desktop or can be found on the sidebar in Finder. However, sometimes you can't find external drive on Mac, and there are several reasons for that. How to use Mac formatted external hard drive on Windows? I had information from a broken Mac backed up at Best Buy, but because my Mac broke, now I only have a Windows computer. It seems they formatted the drive to the Mac format, but I have no way to access the data, at least I think?
The good news is that there are some ways to show the hard drive on Mac. Here, in this post, you will get to learn that, and also, you get to know how to find the external hard drive on Mac.
Part 1. Why You Can't See Hard Drive on Mac?
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Well, there are a number of reasons why you can't see the hard drive on your Mac. Here, we are going to mention the most common ones:
- Preference Issue: You may have not set preferences that make the hard drive visible on your Mac Finder or desktop.
- Connector Issue: It might be the case that you fail to connect the hard drive to your Mac USB port correctly. And maybe the cable you're using for connection is damaged or non-functional.
- Corruption of File system: It might also case that the file system of the hard drive is corrupt due to bad sectors, logical errors, etc. Sometimes, your hard drive file system damage leads to non-mounting HD in Finder.
- Hard drive failure: It might be the case that your drive is physically damaged due to component failure, head crash, or etc.
Part 2. How to Show Hard Drive Icon on Mac Desktop?
It is the Finder's job for displaying the desktop and its icons, which include storage devices icon too. You can show or hide Mac's main hard drive from the desktop of your Mac with ease and all you need to do is to adjust some of the Finder options. If you want to keep your hard drives icon on the desktop so that you can access the data easily, then here's what you have to do to show HD on Mac.
To begin with, you need to first have the Finder option in the foreground. For this, check if there is the word 'Finder' in your Mac menu bar. If no, then all you have to do is to tap on the 'Finder' icon from the Dock of your Mac to appear it in the foreground.
Once you are able to do it, follow the below steps to show the hard drive on a Mac desktop:
- Go to the Menu bar, and then, move to 'Finder'. Next, click on the 'Preferences' option.
- Next, select the 'General' tab when the Finder preferences window appears on your Mac screen.
- After that, check the box 'Hard disks' under 'Show these items on the desktop'.
- Finally, the Mac hard drive icon should now appear on your desktop as shown in the below figure.
As you can see how much it is easy to show and hide Mac hard disks or drives on your desktop. Whenever you want quick access to the data on your Mac, all you have to do is double-click on your Mac HD drive from the desktop and you'll be navigated to the place where all of your Mac data is stored.
Part 3. How to Find External Hard Drive on Mac?
Is your Mac not detecting the external hard drive? In many cases, an external hard drive doesn't show up on your Mac. There is no doubt that it is quite frustrating, especially when you want to transfer something very important right then. Besides this, there can be a change that data present on an external hard drive is corrupt, which is one of the reasons why your Mac can't detect an external drive.
The good news is that there are some solutions that can help you to come out of this problem with ease. Let's look at them:
1. Mount the External Hard Drive on Mac
It could be the case that your Mac already detects an external hard drive, but it just not showing its icon on your desktop screen. If it is the case, then you can easily mount and access your drive again and all you have to do is to follow the below steps:
- To start with, move to the Finder menu and here, choose Preferences.
- In the Finder preferences window, choose the General tab.
- Here, you need to make sure that the 'External disks' option under 'Show these items on the desktop' is ticked.
![Open External Hard Drive On Mac Open External Hard Drive On Mac](https://cdn.instructables.com/F4C/XVTP/G5KPALJ4/F4CXVTPG5KPALJ4.LARGE.jpg?auto=webp&&frame=1)
Also, you can set your Mac to display an external hard drive in Finder. For this, go to 'Finder'>' Preferences'>' Sidebar'. Here, you need to tick the option 'External disks' under the 'Locations' menu.
This method will probably help you to show the connected external hard drive on your Mac. If it doesn't, then you can go for the next solution. And if you need to make a USB flash drive detected, the solutions might be more feasible: Fix USB not showing up on Mac.
2. Launch Disk Utility to Run First Aid
There might be a case that your external hard drive is going through some problems you are unaware of it. In this case, you can try to resolve them yourself using Disk Utility to run the First Aid tool. Afterward, you can even access your files. The tool will inspect the disk for issues and errors and then, try to repair it as required. It is quite helpful when it comes to verifying and repairing a wide range of problems related to external and HD drive.
Here is the step-by-step guide on how you can run First Aid on your external hard drive:
- To start with, launch Disk Utility. You can search for it using Spotlight Search or go to 'Finder'>' Application'>' Utility'
- After that, you need to check on an external hard drive. Next, click on the 'First Aid' tab and choose 'Run' to begin running diagnostics.
If First Aid tools become successful in fixing problems, then your external hard drive should now be available for you to mount. What if the tool fails to repair issues? Then, your drive is badly broken or maybe formatted through a file system that your Mac can't read. In this way, we recommended that you should recover data from the damaged hard drive. Check out the next section to learn how to get back and how hard disk data on Mac.
Part 4. How to Recover and Show Hard Drive Data on Mac?
Have you ever wondered what if you found that you can't access the data stored on your Mac hard drive due to sudden power failure, or virus attack? Or if the above methods fail to fix 'external hard drive not mounting Mac'. In such cases, data recovery software can help you to easily get back hard drive data on your Mac.
1. Recoverit - The Best Software to Recover Mac Files:
Whenever you experience a data loss situation, Recoverit Data Recovery Mac will help you to retrieve it. This data recovery software will come in handy even when you've never made a backup of your device. You now know how to partition Mac hard drive and un-partition it. But knowing how you can recover the lost or deleted files from the drive is also necessary.
2. How to Recover Lost Word Files on Mac:
Step 1: Select a Location
Launch the software and select the drive from where the data files are lost. If you don't know which drive to search, tap on the 'I can't find my partition' option, and hit the Start button.
Step 2: Scan the Location
Typically, the software will run an All-Around Recovery scan and search for the lost and deleted files on the entire drive.
Step 3: Preview and Recover
When the scan completes, the files will be listed on the screen. The software will sort out the files according to format to make the search easier. You can select multiple files at a time and have a preview of them.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that creating and removing a Mac drive partition is not that tough. You just have to careful during the process. And in case of a mishap, Recoverit is always here for your help so that you don't have to suffer from data loss situation.
What's Wrong with Mac
- Recover Your Mac
- Fix Your Mac
- Delete Your Mac
- Learn Mac Hacks
Is your external hard drive running slow when open or transfer files on Mac? You need to follow tips here to fix slow external hard drive on Mac and improve the slow Mac external hard drive performance, at the same time, protect important data from being corrupted or inaccessible on the slower and slower external hard drive with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac.
Help! External hard drive becomes incredibly slow after High Sierra update
'I'm experiencing a very slow external HDD since the High Sierra update on my iMac. As soon as I connect it and want to browse, it freezes a lot, takes an age to load contents and open files. I left it for several hours and reconnect it but it still won't work properly. Now, it warns me that it's inaccessible and needs format.'
Are you facing the same issue that the external hard drive becomes very slow suddenly for no reason? To speed up a very slow external hard drive on Mac and improve its performance without losing data, you are arriving at the right place.
Workable Solutions | Step-by-step Troubleshooting |
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Part 1. Recover Data from Slower and Slower External Hard Drive | Step 1. Download EaseUS data recovery software for Mac |
Part 2. Fix a Slow External Hard Drive on Mac | Fix 1. Clean up useless duplicated files..Full steps |
How to Recover Data from Slower and Slower External Hard Drive
First of all, you must need a Mac data recovery program to extract data from an inaccessible external hard drive on your Mac after it's getting slower and slower. And, don't format the drive before a complete data recovery if the error message appears and says it needs to be formatted before you can use it.
To safely export data from a slow external hard drive on Mac, download EaseUS Mac drive recovery software and follow the three steps.
Resize a pdf mac. Step 1. Select the disk location (it can be an internal HDD/SSD or a removable storage device) where you lost data and files. Click the 'Scan' button.
Step 2. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac will immediately scan your selected disk volume and display the scanning results on the left pane.
Step 3. In the scan results, select the file(s) and click the 'Recover Now' button to have them back.
Open My External Hard Drive
How to Fix a Slow External Hard Drive on Mac OS X?
For your information, many factors would affect the performance of an external hard drive on Mac OS X and decrease its speed in file transfer or hard drive loading. The following are some examples.
- Logic Errors & bad sectors on external drive
- Large size apps on the external hard drive
- Duplicate video, pictures and other files on external hard drive
- Too many apps are running while the drive is in active mode
- Long time in external hard drive defragmentation
- The external hard drive is too old
Next, you are going to grasp the unique solutions this page provides and quickly solve the problem of a slow external hard drive on Mac after transferring all your data files to a safe place with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac.
Solution 1. Clean up useless duplicated files from Mac external hard drive with Mac cleanup software
Large duplicate files, such as videos, photos and music take a considerable amount of disk space, and the accumulative garbage will make your Mac har drive run slower and slower. So, to increase the external hard drive speed on Mac, the primary action you need to take is to clean up all the duplicate files in order to free up some disk space.
Here, we recommend you EaseUS CleanGenius, the best Mac speedup software for you to deal with a burdensome Mac external hard drive.
Step 1. Launch EaseUS CleanGenius and click on Duplicate Finder;
Drag and drop folders to scan or click Folder icon to add folder for finding duplicate files;
External Hard Drive Mac To Windows
Step 2. Select target folder and click Open so to scan and find duplicate files;
Step 3. Right-click found file and select View to identify which one is the file that you want to keep;
Select unwanted duplicate files and click Delete to remove from Mac.
Solution 2. Repair Disk Utility to resolve the slow external drive problem
Many users don't know that repairing the Mac Disk Utility would help improve the performance of a slow external hard drive, and it's also worth your try immediately.
Step 1. Press down the Command + S keys to boot your Mac computer into the single-user mode.
Step 2. Type the behind command: fsck -fy
Step 3. After the fsck command, you will receive a message 'file-system modified'.
Step 4. Now reboot the Mac to continue the repairing process.
Mac External Hard Drive Pc
Other Mac external hard drive speedup tips
1. Activity Monitor Lookup: Watching and monitoring a close look at the Mac activity monitor can sometimes help in improving the slow running external drive performance.
2. Proper StartUp items management: When you start a Mac, too many icons starts automatically in the Mac OS background. Properly managing the StartUp items can also helpful in improving the slow external drive performance.
3. Visual effects Turning Off: Turning off the visual effects on Mac OS can also useful in improving the performance of an external drive.