How to Connect External Hard Drive to Mac?

How to Connect External Hard Drive to Macbook Pro

Plug the hard drive into the Mac using the cable that came with it. Most hard drives connect via USB, so youll just need to plug the USB cable into an open port on your Mac. Youll typically find at least one USB port along each side of the Mac.

How do I Get my External Hard Drive to Work on my Mac?

Go to Applications → Utilities → Disk Utility . You should be able to see the external hard drive under the External heading in the sidebar on the left. Click on it to open the drives information. In the menu bar at the top of the window, click on Erase and choose the format compatible with your Mac device.

Why Can't I Use my External Hard Drive on my Mac?

Sometimes when you connect an external hard drive to your Mac, youll find that its set to read only. This happens because the drive is formatted with Microsofts NTFS filesystem, which macOS doesnt support by default. Fortunately, its easy to fix so that your external hard drive is no longer read only.

Mac Or MacBook Doesn't Recognize External Drives

Go to Finder > Preferences. Now verify that External Disks and Hard Drives have a checkmark in the box. If not, click it to enable your external drive icons to show on your desktop.

How do I Get my External DVD Drive to Work on my Mac?

Use an External Optical Drive
Once youve attached your external drive to your Mac, you can use it in exactly the same way as a builtin optical drive: simply insert the DVD or CD into the SuperDrive, and the relevant mediaplaying app should launch automatically.

What do I do when my External Hard Drive is not Detected?

Make Sure It's Plugged In and Powered On. Western Digital My Book.
Try Another USB Port (or Another PC) ...
Update Your Drivers.
Enable and Format the Drive in Disk Management.
Clean the Disk and Start From Scratch.
Remove and Test the Bare Drive.

Why Can't I See my USB Drive on my Mac?

If your flash drive or external hard drive is not showing up there, go to Finder > Preferences > Sidebar, and under Locations, you need to tick the option "External disks". By selecting this option, we can make sure that the connected external USB hard drive or flash drive will normally show up in the Finder.

How do I Get my Mac to Recognize a USB Device?

Open System Information and disconnect the USB device from your computer. Wait a few minutes, and click File > Refresh Information.
Connect the USB device to another USB port.
Connect the USB device to another computer.
Update the USB device drivers.