External Drive not recongized

WD External and Portable SSD External SSD for macOS
1

I have a 1 TB that has been working flawlessly for about 2 years but now it’s not able to connect to my macbook pro. It’s not recognizing at all in the finder window or on the desktop. However, I can see it in disk utility but it is greyed out and not mounted. I tried to hit mount under disk utility on my mac but it did not do anything. Nothing changed and I did not get an error message.
The hard drive’s LED switches on and blinks as if it is trying to connect I tried in other PC’s both Mac and Windows and still no response. I need to access this information ASAP. Please HELP!!!

2

Any luck with Tech support?

3

Unfortunately, no. I sent something here and on their support site and I have not received a response. I have tried everything I can think of and Google! But, still have not been able to access the information.

4

When the drive is power on with LED on, can you feel or hear clicking sound? If you can hear it making clicking sound then the drive is not good anymore.

5

Hi Jenna,

The disk is corrupt if it is greyed out in Disk Utility. You can erase the drive but you will loose the files on it. Better recover the data first with a recovery software and then only go for disk erasure.

6

I found an article, it described How to Fix External Hard Drive Not Showing Up On Mac, hope it works for you to solve the problem.

7

First, open Disk Utility, right-click the grayed-out drive, and select Get Info to check its file system (such as APFS, Mac OS Extended, or exFAT) and encryption status. If the drive is not encrypted, restart your Mac and try again. If it still fails to mount, try the following methods:

  1. Update macOS
    Go to the Apple menu > System Settings > General > Software Update.
    Your Mac will automatically check for updates, which include the latest disk drivers.
    After updating, restart your Mac and reconnect the external hard drive.
  2. Run First Aid to repair the drive
    Open Finder > Applications > Utilities and launch Disk Utility.
    Click View in the top toolbar and select Show All Devices.
    Choose your external hard drive from the left sidebar.
    Click First Aid in the top menu bar, then click Run to check for and repair disk errors.
  3. Reformat the external hard drive
    If Disk Utility states that the First Aid process failed, the drive may have severe corruption. Back up your data if possible, and then reformat the hard drive.
    This troubleshooting guide should also help you: External Hard Drive Greyed Out in Disk Utility on Mac? Step-by-Step