To format an external hard drive on your Mac (paraphrased from here): Connect the drive to your Mac; Open Applications Utilities Disk Utility; On the left hand side of Disk Utility you'll see a list of drives. Find your external drive and select it. Select the Erase tab and choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for the format and give it a. The best ways to format an external drive for Windows and Mac Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with Windows and Mac. And, no: the answer isn't always FAT32.
- How To Format Seagate Drive For Mac
- How To Reformat Seagate Slim
- Format Seagate Drive For Mac And Pc
- Format Seagate Backup Drive For Mac
- How To Format Seagate 2tb
by Jenefey AaronUpdated on 2020-09-29 / Update for Mac OS
Or, your Seagate hard drive is faulty. Part 2: Quick Fix The Issue of Seagate Hard Drive Not Showing up Mac 1. Check If Connected Properly. First things first, check if the Seagate external hard drive that is not showing up Mac is properly plugged in to the USB port. It is one of the most notable reasons when Mac fails to mount the drive. Newer Seagate and LaCie branded external drives come preformatted with the exFAT file system, which allows it to be used on both Mac and Windows without reformatting the drive. Some older drives are formatted specifically for PCs, some specifically for Macs, and some of them have special utilities allowing them to work between both without having to reformat the drive. Apple computers are able to read any harddrive which has a ExFAT type format scheme. If you wish higher security, then use your Apple operating system an initialize the drive by formatting it with the HFS+ scheme.
So you plugged in your Seagate hard drive into your Mac and it ain't showing up, right? Well, perhaps, the files and folders or the disk itself is unapproachable and therefore, your Mac was unable to detect the Seagate external hard drive. Consequently, the Seagate external hard drive not showing up on Mac Sierra! But worry no more, we've got your back! We are going to uncover some proven ways to fix Seagate hard drive not showing up Mac. Stay glued!
Part 1: Why Seagate External Hard Drive Not Showing up Mac?
Usually, when an external hard drive is plugged into Mac via a USB port, it gets mounted over the desktop. You can even find it under the Devices column on the left in the Finder. Just in case, your Seagate hard drive not showing up on Mac, there can be a number of reasons behind it. Here are they.
- 1. Chances are that your hard drive may have been corrupted.
- 2. Perhaps, it may not have been formatted properly.
- 3. Maybe, the drive got broken internally due to physical damage.
- 4. Or, your Seagate hard drive is faulty.
Part 2: Quick Fix The Issue of Seagate Hard Drive Not Showing up Mac
1. Check If Connected Properly
First things first, check if the Seagate external hard drive that is not showing up Mac is properly plugged in to the USB port. It is one of the most notable reasons when Mac fails to mount the drive. If you are using an older Mac ensure that the drive is receiving enough power supply. Older Macs need a special USB power cable, which splits up into two USB connectors and both of which has to be plugged into the Mac.
2. Troubleshoot the Seagate Hard Drive
If the above mentioned solution brought you no good, then you need to troubleshoot the Seagate Hard Drive. Try reconnecting the hard drive into a different USB port and check if it shows up or not. If not, you should then plug it in a different Mac or Windows PC to check if it is the hard drive itself that is faulty.
3. Restart your Mac
Performing a restart has known to be an ideal solution to resolve various software glitches in the first place. If your Seagate external hard drive not showing up Mac Sierra, try restarting it with the help of the steps mentioned right below.
Hit on the 'Apple' icon available on the top left corner of your Mac screen and then opt for the 'Restart' option from the appearing drop down menu.
4. Fix The Seagate Hard Drive with Disk Utility
If the above methods were not able to produce good results for you, the next method to fix Seagate external hard drive not showing up Mac is via Disk Utility. Here's what you need to do.
Step 1: Launch the 'Spotlight search' by hitting the 'cmd + spacebar' key over your keyboard and punch in 'Disk Utility'. Hit the 'Return' key afterwards to launch the program.
Step 2: On the left panel of the Disk Utility, you'll be able to locate your Seagate hard drive. If your drive is there and not mounted, it should appear as greyed out. Select the drive and then opt for 'Mount' option. Once mounted, the drive will now turn to normal.
Step 3: If Seagate external hard drive not showing up on Mac yet, try running the First Aid and Erase options to fix or format the drive respectively.
Part 3: The Ultimate Way to Recover Files from Formatted Seagate External Hard Drive
Since, the Seagate hard drive has now been formatted and is now accessible on your Mac, the data stored over it have been wiped off completely. Now, if you wish to recover the data contained within the formatted Seagate external hard drive. We have brought you the ultimate way to serve the purpose. Tenorshare 4DDiG for Mac Data Recovery is your life saver when it comes to recovering data from various data loss scenarios. No matter if the data was stored over your Mac or over the external storage drive, Tenorshare 4DDiG for Mac Dasta Recovery can retrieve the lost data without any hassle.
Step 1: Install and launch the Tenorshare 4DDiG for Mac Data Recovery over your Mac and then opt for the desired location from where the data has been lost. Then hit the 'Scan' button to initiate scanning of lost data.
Note: If you're recovering data over the macOS High Sierra system or higher, you need to grant access to Mac files by disabling SIP first.
Step 2: Soon after the scan completes, you will be allowed to preview the data detected for recovery. You can selectively check the categories or the individual files as well that you wish to recover. Once done, hit the 'Recover' button. Lastly, set the destination location and you're done.
2. Troubleshoot the Seagate Hard Drive
If the above mentioned solution brought you no good, then you need to troubleshoot the Seagate Hard Drive. Try reconnecting the hard drive into a different USB port and check if it shows up or not. If not, you should then plug it in a different Mac or Windows PC to check if it is the hard drive itself that is faulty.
3. Restart your Mac
Performing a restart has known to be an ideal solution to resolve various software glitches in the first place. If your Seagate external hard drive not showing up Mac Sierra, try restarting it with the help of the steps mentioned right below.
Hit on the 'Apple' icon available on the top left corner of your Mac screen and then opt for the 'Restart' option from the appearing drop down menu.
4. Fix The Seagate Hard Drive with Disk Utility
If the above methods were not able to produce good results for you, the next method to fix Seagate external hard drive not showing up Mac is via Disk Utility. Here's what you need to do.
Step 1: Launch the 'Spotlight search' by hitting the 'cmd + spacebar' key over your keyboard and punch in 'Disk Utility'. Hit the 'Return' key afterwards to launch the program.
Step 2: On the left panel of the Disk Utility, you'll be able to locate your Seagate hard drive. If your drive is there and not mounted, it should appear as greyed out. Select the drive and then opt for 'Mount' option. Once mounted, the drive will now turn to normal.
Step 3: If Seagate external hard drive not showing up on Mac yet, try running the First Aid and Erase options to fix or format the drive respectively.
Part 3: The Ultimate Way to Recover Files from Formatted Seagate External Hard Drive
Since, the Seagate hard drive has now been formatted and is now accessible on your Mac, the data stored over it have been wiped off completely. Now, if you wish to recover the data contained within the formatted Seagate external hard drive. We have brought you the ultimate way to serve the purpose. Tenorshare 4DDiG for Mac Data Recovery is your life saver when it comes to recovering data from various data loss scenarios. No matter if the data was stored over your Mac or over the external storage drive, Tenorshare 4DDiG for Mac Dasta Recovery can retrieve the lost data without any hassle.
Step 1: Install and launch the Tenorshare 4DDiG for Mac Data Recovery over your Mac and then opt for the desired location from where the data has been lost. Then hit the 'Scan' button to initiate scanning of lost data.
Note: If you're recovering data over the macOS High Sierra system or higher, you need to grant access to Mac files by disabling SIP first.
Step 2: Soon after the scan completes, you will be allowed to preview the data detected for recovery. You can selectively check the categories or the individual files as well that you wish to recover. Once done, hit the 'Recover' button. Lastly, set the destination location and you're done.
Conclusion
Well, that was all about how to fix Seagate external hard drive not showing up on Mac Sierra. We are now positive that you've successfully got your issue resolved. And just in case, you need format your hard drive for some reason, you can always look up to the mighty tool Tenorshare 4DDiG for Mac Data Recovery to retrieve the lost data back.
Apr 15,2020 • Filed to: Hard Drive Recovery • Proven solutions
'How to format Seagate drive for Mac? I am a new user on macOS and want to wipe my external hard disk change its file system! What is the convenient way to perform such an action?'
Mac and Windows computers have their unique interface, which attracts users with different tastes. But a problem arises when you have a portable Seagate hard drive and would like to use it with both Mac and Windows computers. It is a known fact that macOS only reads HFS+ file system devices and does not support a disk with NTFS format. So to use the optical device on both computers, its file system should be changed to a much more compatible one such as exFAT or FAT32. The good thing is that you can quickly learn how to format a Seagate drive for Mac after reading our researched guide.
Part 1: Backup Your Seagate Drive First
If you are thinking of formatting Seagate external hard drive for the sole purpose of sharing data between different platforms, then it is wise to create a back up of those files before formatting the disk and erasing the content for good.
Fortunately, macOS offers you to create a back up of any internal or external data through its built-in tool for back up called Time Machine. It picks and saves all the data used on your Mac, starting from all the content in internal storage and even the removable hard disks. Moreover, it makes it easy for you to recover every deleted file, email, or media. Here are the steps to create a back up of your Seagate hard drive's data with Mac's Time Machine before you reformat Seagate drive.
- First, connect the Seagate external hard drive with your Mac.
- Go to system preferences and click on Time Machine.
- Turn the switch of the utility from 'Off' to 'On.'
- Click on Select Disk and choose your Seagate external drive from the list.
- Time Machine will offer you the chance to encrypt your back up data with a password; before that, it will also ask you to select any disk as your back up location.
- You have created a back up of your valuable digital content.
Other than going the Time Machine route, you can simply copy all of the contents of the Seagate drive to another portable storage device or your Mac computer.
Part 2: Format Seagate Drive for Mac using Disk Utility:
Formatting an external drive comes in handy when a virus infects your disk, your Mac is unable to read the drive, or when it is shutting down consistently. You can get rid of all the malware and bad sectors by just formatting the device with Mac's Disk Utility. Here are the instructions that you can use, not only to format Seagate drive but on Mac's built-in hard disk as well.
- Click on Finder and then select Applications.
- Under Utilities, you'll find Disk Utility. Select the icon and open it.
- Select your Seagate external drive from the list on the left.
- Click on Erase, and you will see a new pop-up window.
- Rename the drive and change the format of the disk to exFAT.
- Change the scheme of the device to the GUID Partition Map.
- Click on Erase. Disk utility will start to format Seagate drive for Mac.
- Once the format is complete, click on Done.
How To Format Seagate Drive For Mac
Part 3: Recover Seagate Drive Data If You Accidently Formatted It?
How To Reformat Seagate Slim
According to Murphy's law, 'Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.' Committing mistakes is within human nature; that is how they evolve from it.
Format Seagate Drive For Mac And Pc
If you have accidentally formatted your Seagate hard drive and erased all the content in it, then you shouldn't worry as there is a viable solution to such an issue. The Recoverit (IS) Program for Mac can recover every formatted file from your Seagate hard disk on Mac in no time. After performing the recovery through the application, you'd be surprised at the ease at which it retrieved all those items. Here are some of the noteworthy attributes of the iSkysoft recovery program for Mac.
Recoverit (IS) for Mac
A Life Saver to Solve Your Data Loss Problems!
- The application is available on every version of macOS X.
- It provides coverage to all the external storage drives(Seagate external disk) and media devices (camera, mp3 player).
- The program supports more than 1000 file formats of different media files.
- You can save the recovered content anywhere you want.
- It recovers data from a drive's lost partition and other inaccessible places.
- You can efficiently perform the recovery action in just three steps.
Format Seagate Backup Drive For Mac
Here's how you can learn to recover Seagate external hard disk's formatted files on Mac.
How To Format Seagate 2tb
Step 1 Select the Location of your Seagate DriveAs the heading suggests, you are required to select the hard drive from the interface under the External Devices Section. Click on start and wait for the scan to finish.
Step 2 Wait for the Program to Scan the Hard DiskJust wait for a few minutes as the Recoverit (IS) application will scan your Seagate drive and recover all of the formatted files. You can also limit the scan to specific file types and paths. Once the scan is done, the program will give you a list of files placed under different categories.
Step 3 Save your DataAfter carefully reviewing the data that iSkysoft has retrieved, you can hit the Recover button and select the new location for the recovered item. You should note that if you're unable to preview the files, then you can follow the app's inbuilt tips to fix the issue.
Conclusion:
Formatting data on Mac is a lot easier than doing it on Windows. Now you understand the working of Mac's Disk Utility and the concept of creating back up of data with the help of Time Machine. While it is necessary to double-check your action and intention before wiping the data off a hard drive, you can conveniently recover all those files back with the help of Recoverit (IS) Program for Mac. It will retrieve every file back until you overwrite the empty storage space with new content. If anyone in your family is having trouble with formatting a drive on Mac, then feel at ease to share this guide with them.