Summary: Seagate external hard drive not recognized/showing up on Mac? Have no data backup? Feel very upset when finding you can't see any file on the external hard drive? Now download free external hard drive data recovery software for Mac - iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac to recover lost data from unrecognized Seagate external hard drive.
Plug a Seagate external hard drive into your Mac but the drive is not recognized by Mac?
Don't worry, you are not the only one who uses famous hard drive brand like Seagate, WD, Toshiba, Samsung, etc. but encounters this problem.
Here is an example from Apple Communities.
'I have a MacBook Pro with macOS El Capitan. My WD hard drives are recognized, but my new Seagate 1T drive is invisible. The light on the drive works, which tells me that it is drawing power from the computer. But the computer does not recognize the drive. Anyone knows how to fix Seagate external hard drive not recognized, showing up, or detected on Mac or at least recover files from the drive?'
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Actually, it is a dime a dozen that external hard drive is not recognized or detected by Mac computers. Some users even say that they can see the Seagate external hard drives' light blinking but the computer just won't give any response. When an external hard drive is not working, not recognized, not detected, or not showing up on your Mac, you will feel very terrible because you can't access files nor the drive at all. Fortunately, in this article, you can find out how to fix the unrecognized Seagate external hard drive and how to recover lost data from unrecognizable hard drives easily.
- . Maxtor OneTouch 3 FW 800/FW 400/USB 2.0. Maxtor OneTouch 3 FW 400/USB 2.0. Maxtor OneTouch 3 USB 2.0. Maxtor OneTouch 3 Mini Edition. Maxtor Basics Personal Storage 3200. Maxtor Shared Storage 2 1 TB. Maxtor Shared Storage 2 320/500GB. Maxtor Fusion Personal Web Server. Maxtor Basics ATA/100 Hard Drive kit.
- May 25, 2020 Maxtor had acquired hard drive manufacturer MiniScribe in 1990 and Quantum’s hard drive division in 2000. Maxtor put its emphasis on the external hard drive market at its last few years. The Maxtor OneTouch II was marketed as convenient storage for the home user.
- Table of contents
- 1. Why does Seagate external hard drive not recognized/showing up on Mac?
- 2. Baisc check - Check if Seagate external hard drive is showing up in Disk Utility/Finder?
Part I: Why does Seagate external hard drive not recognized/showing up on Mac?
Seagate external hard drives are often used as backup media to store important files, or to transfer data among computers. However, they are prone to be damaged or corrupted as well. And it's quite common for a Seagate external hard drive to become unrecognized by your Mac all of a sudden and leave you all at sea.
You may be wondering 'Why my external hard drive is not recognized/showing up on Mac?' Well, the reasons behind this problem could be varied and there are some common ones.
- Bad USB port
- macOS update issue
- System failure
- File system corruption
- Motherboard issue
- Virus infection
- External drive damage or corruption, etc.
Baisc check - Check if Seagate external hard drive is showing up in Disk Utility/Finder?
To fix the unrecognized Seagate external hard drive on Mac, the very first thing is to check whether it's the USB port's issue. Plug in the drive to another USB port or a different computer, and check if the drive is recognized, detected or shows up on Mac. If yes, congratulations. Both the external hard drive and the data on it are secure. But to access files on this drive, you need to move forward to do some basic checks and try out the solutions according to your situations.
Important thing: Check if the Seagate external hard drive is showing up in Disk Utility/Finder?
Usually, if your external hard drive is recognized/showing up by your Mac, you will see this drive on the desktop and Finder. But for many Mac users, when they can't find their disk drives in Finder or on the desktop, they would say the drive is not recognized by the computer. But actually, most of the time, even if a Seagate external hard drive doesn't show up in Finder, it still can be found in Disk Utility. So please check whether the drive is showing up in Disk Utility/Finder.
There are three possible outcoms. Just check them one by one and go head to fix this issue.
Scenario 1: Seagate external hard drive isn't showing up in Finder/on the desktop
When a hard drive is plugged into a Mac, the first impression for most users is that the icon of this drive will show up on the desktop and in Finder. But why your Seagate external hard drive is not showing up in Finder or on the desktop? Indeed, it is because you haven't set up your Mac to do so.
1. Show Seagate external hard drive in Finder
Step 1: Go to Finder > Preferences > Sidebar tab.
Step 2: Select 'External disks' under 'Locations', and then your Seagate external hard drive will show up in Finder.
2. Show Seagate external hard drive on the desktop
Step 1: Go to Finder > Preferences > General tab.
Step 2: Tick 'External disks' to show the Seagate external hard drive on the desktop.
Scenario 2: Seagate external hard drive is recognized but not mounted in Disk Utility
If the Seagate external hard drive shows up in Disk Utility but is just not mounted, it at least means the drive is recognized by your Mac. Mounting a hard disk makes it accessible by the computer, enabling the operating system to read and write to files on the disk. Most of the time, the operating system will automatically mount your disk when you connect your USB drive to this Mac, but you if you find the Seagate external hard drive unmounted in Disk Utility, you have two solutions.
Solution 1: Manually mount the Seagate external hard drive
You can simply right-click this external hard drive in Disk Utility, and choose Mount or click the Mount button on the top of the window. You will be able to access your files if it can be mounted successfully.
Solution 2: Repair the Seagate external hard drive with First Aid
However, if the Seagate drive is unmountable or the Mount icon is greyed out, it could be some disk errors that prevent your Mac to recognize/detect the drive correctly. Fortunately, there is a native disk repair tool called Disk Utility on your Mac and you can repair this external hard drive with the following steps.
- Click on the Launchpad on the Dock and find Other.
- Locate Disk Utility and open it.
- Select the unmountable external hard drive in the left sidebar and choose First Aid at the top.
- Click Run to repair this Seagate hard drive.
Solution 3: Fix the unmountable Seagate external hard drive by reformatting.
If First Aid failed to repair this drive, the file system or the partition table of this external hard disk could be corrupted. In this case, reformatting is a feasible method to fix the corrupted file system or partition table. However, it will also erase all data stored on it. So, to avoid unnecessary data loss, you should firstly make sure you have a copy of data backup or recover files from this drive with reliable data recovery software.
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is useful data recovery software, which can recover lost data from unrecognized Seagate Backup Plus drives and unreadable Seagate external hard drives. Moreover, this program supports file recovery from hard drives of Seagate, WD, Toshiba, Samsnug, etc. Generally, it can recover lost data from formatted, unmountable, inaccessible, unreadable or corrupted hard drives. This powerful data recovery software can also recover lost data from Macintosh HD drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, memory cards, etc. on Mac.
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac now is fully compatible with macOS 10.15 (Catalina), 10.14 (Mojave), macOS 10.13 (High Sierra), macOS 10.12 (Sierra) and Mac OS X 10.11 (El Capitan), 10.10 (Yosemite), 10.9 (Mavericks), 10.8 (Mountain Lion), 10.7 (Lion). And the macOS 10.15 (Catalina) is approaching.
Step 1: Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
Step 2: Select the Seagate external hard drive and click 'Next' button to scan for all the lost data.
Step 3: Double-click to preview your images, videos, word files, etc. in the searching results.
Step 4: Choose files you need and click 'Recover' to get them back and save the recovered files to another usable disk drive.
After recovering target files from this Seagate external hard drive, you can now reformat the drive in Disk Utility without worrying about data loss.
Step 5: Click Go in the upper left of your desktop, choose Utilities in the context list.
Step 6: Open Disk Utility and select the Seagate external hard drive from the sidebar
Step 7: Click Erase on the top of Disk Utility window.
Step 8: Complete the required information for erasure, including Name, Format, and Scheme.
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Step 9: Then click Erase to go and wait until the erasure process ends and click Done.
Scenario 3: Seagate external hard drive is not detected in Disk Utility
However, if the Seagate external hard drive is not even showing up on Mac or not detected in Disk Utility, it is possible that the drive has some hardware problems like bad sectors.
Usually, the symptoms would be:
- The external hard drive makes clicking/beeping noise.
- Files get missing/disappeared/invisible/inaccessible.
- Documents or Folders become empty.
- Disk information like storage capability or files system is not showing normally in Disk Utility.
- Some other abnormal symptoms.
Confronted with such kind of hard drive failure, you'd better seek help from a local disk recovery and repair service for good.
Conclusion:
Sometimes, the Seagate external hard drive not recognized/showing up on Mac problem is just that Seagate external hard drive not showing up in Finder, not showing up on Mac desktop, or not mounted in Disk Utility, which can be easily solved. However, your any attempts to fix the unrecognized Seagate external hard drive may write new data to the drive and overwrite the original one. Thus, if you're facing such kind of problems, you should firstly recover lost data from the Seagate external hard drive with a professional data recovery software like iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac before you set about fixing this problem.
Diagnostics
SEATOOLS for Windows is a comprehensive, easy-to-use diagnostic tool set that helps you quickly determine the condition of the disk drive in your external hard drive, desktop or notebook computer. It includes several tests that will examine the physical media on your Seagate or Maxtor disc drive and any other non-Seagate disc drive.
SeaTools for Windows tests USB, 1394, ATA (PATA/IDE), SATA and SCSI drives. It installs onto your system. SeaTools for Windows is completely data safe.
SeaTools for DOS is also available for SATA and PATA drives. Because the software boots to its own operating system, you can test your drive regardless of the OS installed on it. You can even test a new or completely blank drive.
Download SeaTools diagnostic software now at http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools.
Drive Cloning and Data Migration
DiscWizard is your choice if you are upgrading and want to migrate your operating system and data from the old drive to the new drive. DiscWizard automatically partitions and formats the new hard drive and adjusts the size of the partition for the new capacity.
Download DiscWizard drive cloning software now at http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/discwizard
Firmware
Seagate products are run by firmware. Having the latest firmware can improve performance and or reliability of your product. Seagate recommends applying new firmware to enhance the performance and or reliability of your drive.
Check for new firmware now at Document ID: 207931.
Drivers
Drivers are files normally provided by software and hardware vendors. Hard drives are connected to hard drive controllers which are devices usually located on a Motherboard</font>
The motherboard is the backbone of the inside of your computer. All components connect to the mother board (CPU, RAM, Hard disk drives, CD-ROM drives, Video card..). The motherboard provided the interconnections for all of these components and manages their resources.', OFFSETY, -50, FONTCOLOR, '#C1C1C1', WIDTH, 225, BORDERWIDTH, 0, JUMPVERT, true, SHADOW, false, FADEIN, 100, FADEOUT, 100, STICKY, 1, DURATION, -300, CLOSEBTN, false, CLICKCLOSE, true, BGCOLOR, '#232323')' onmouseout='UnTip()'>motherboard, but which can also take the form of an add-in controller card. Controller drivers are normally provided by the operating system (ie, Windows or MacOS) or from the motherboard or add-in card manufacturer. Most of the time, you will want to contact the manufacturer of your motherboard for more information regarding drivers.
Maxtor Hard Drive Software Mac Torrent
The hard drive is usually supported by drivers that are built into the operating system.
Be advised, drivers are not the same thing as Firmware</font>
Firmware is a term sometimes used to denote the fixed, usually rather small, programs that internally control various electronic devices. ', OFFSETY, -50, FONTCOLOR, '#C1C1C1', WIDTH, 225, BORDERWIDTH, 0, JUMPVERT, true, SHADOW, false, FADEIN, 100, FADEOUT, 100, STICKY, 1, DURATION, -300, CLOSEBTN, false, CLICKCLOSE, true, BGCOLOR, '#232323')' onmouseout='UnTip()'>firmware. If you are checking for a firmware update on your SATA drive, see Document ID: 207931.
Seagate and Maxtor-brand External Hard Drives</font>
External drives contain a standard computer hard drive in an enclosure that makes it possible to connect it to in of your computers external data ports (USB, FireWire or eSATA). This makes it easy to add a drive for backup or data storage to any computer with a compatible external data port.', OFFSETY, -50, FONTCOLOR, '#C1C1C1', WIDTH, 225, BORDERWIDTH, 0, JUMPVERT, true, SHADOW, false, FADEIN, 100, FADEOUT, 100, STICKY, 1, DURATION, -300, CLOSEBTN, false, CLICKCLOSE, true, BGCOLOR, '#232323')' onmouseout='UnTip()'>external hard drives do not require additional drivers to function in Windows Vista</font>
Microsoft Vista is the successor to Windows XP operating system. ', OFFSETY, -50, FONTCOLOR, '#C1C1C1', WIDTH, 225, BORDERWIDTH, 0, JUMPVERT, true, SHADOW, false, FADEIN, 100, FADEOUT, 100, STICKY, 1, DURATION, -300, CLOSEBTN, false, CLICKCLOSE, true, BGCOLOR, '#232323')' onmouseout='UnTip()'>Windows Vista, Windows XP</font>
Microsoft Windows XP is the successor to Windows 2000. ', OFFSETY, -50, FONTCOLOR, '#C1C1C1', WIDTH, 225, BORDERWIDTH, 0, JUMPVERT, true, SHADOW, false, FADEIN, 100, FADEOUT, 100, STICKY, 1, DURATION, -300, CLOSEBTN, false, CLICKCLOSE, true, BGCOLOR, '#232323')' onmouseout='UnTip()'>Windows XP, Windows 2000</font>
Microsoft Windows 2000 is the successor to Windows Me.', OFFSETY, -50, FONTCOLOR, '#C1C1C1', WIDTH, 225, BORDERWIDTH, 0, JUMPVERT, true, SHADOW, false, FADEIN, 100, FADEOUT, 100, STICKY, 1, DURATION, -300, CLOSEBTN, false, CLICKCLOSE, true, BGCOLOR, '#232323')' onmouseout='UnTip()'>Windows 2000, or Mac OS X</font>
Mac OS X is the operating system that is produced by and comes standard on Apple computers.', OFFSETY, -50, FONTCOLOR, '#C1C1C1', WIDTH, 225, BORDERWIDTH, 0, JUMPVERT, true, SHADOW, false, FADEIN, 100, FADEOUT, 100, STICKY, 1, DURATION, -300, CLOSEBTN, false, CLICKCLOSE, true, BGCOLOR, '#232323')' onmouseout='UnTip()'>Mac OS X. These external drives are supported by the standard device drivers that are already included in these operating systems out of the box. Installing Serial ATA drives requires the installation of drivers from the Serial ATA motherboard. See Document ID: 188411 for more information on this subject.
Note: If Windows Vista is prompting for a driver for an external drive, please see Document ID: 201235.
However, we understand you may be troubleshooting or experiencing an error condition that may suggest that you need to obtain a driver from our web site.
Here are some common reasons you may be looking for a driver or a download to use your drive. These links will direct you to documentation that will aid in the resolution of the actual issue.
- My drive is Locked</font>
The Maxtor OneTouch line of drives have a Drive Lock feature that will lock the drive with an ATA Password. The Maxtor Manager or One Touch Manager software must be installed on any computer that the drive is connected to when this feature is enabled in order for the computer to be able to unlock the drive and the drive to be useable.', OFFSETY, -50, FONTCOLOR, '#C1C1C1', WIDTH, 225, BORDERWIDTH, 0, JUMPVERT, true, SHADOW, false, FADEIN, 100, FADEOUT, 100, STICKY, 1, DURATION, -300, CLOSEBTN, false, CLICKCLOSE, true, BGCOLOR, '#232323')' onmouseout='UnTip()'>locked.
- Maxtor BlackArmor - Understanding Maxtor Manager Security Settings
- How to Unlock a Maxtor OneTouch 4 Drive
- How to Unlock a Maxtor OneTouch III Drive
- How to Unlock a Maxtor OneTouch II Drive
For more information on how to solve problems related to undetected drives, please check the following useful articles:
- How to install a Serial ATA drive in Windows Vista
Bundled Software
Numerous Seagate/Maxtor hard drives (mostly external models, such as FreeAgent GoFlex, FreeAgent, OneTouch and Maxtor Basics) do have available bundled software downloads. This article will summarize and link to them. For any Seagate/Maxtor ATA/IDE</font>
ATA/IDE/PATA (Parallel ATA) is an interface standard for the connection of storage devices such as hard disks, solid-state drives, and CD-ROM drives in computers. This connection type is superseded by SATA (Serial ATA).', OFFSETY, -50, FONTCOLOR, '#C1C1C1', WIDTH, 225, BORDERWIDTH, 0, JUMPVERT, true, SHADOW, false, FADEIN, 100, FADEOUT, 100, STICKY, 1, DURATION, -300, CLOSEBTN, false, CLICKCLOSE, true, BGCOLOR, '#232323')' onmouseout='UnTip()'>ATA/IDE, Serial ATA (SATA), or SCSI</font>
SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. There are mainly variations of this connection type.', OFFSETY, -50, FONTCOLOR, '#C1C1C1', WIDTH, 225, BORDERWIDTH, 0, JUMPVERT, true, SHADOW, false, FADEIN, 100, FADEOUT, 100, STICKY, 1, DURATION, -300, CLOSEBTN, false, CLICKCLOSE, true, BGCOLOR, '#232323')' onmouseout='UnTip()'>SCSI drives no driver is needed.
Drive name | Software available for download? | |
No additional driver required from Seagate. (Why?) | GoFlex Installation Software for the GoFlex drive in case the software has been deleted from the drive. | |
| For Memeo or Ceedo bundled software, please contact Seagate Support. See also: Seagate FreeAgent Drives - Bundled Software for Windows and Macintosh Computers for FreeAgent software reference. | |
No additional driver required. Backup</font> | ||
No additional driver required from Seagate. (Why?) |
| |
Seagate Expansion Family | No additional driver required from Seagate. (Why?) | No software is bundled with this drive. See: How to use an external drive without any special software. |
|
Drive type | Software available for download? | |
| None, the software is delivered on the drive itself. | |
No additional driver required from Seagate if no password has been used to lock the drive. (Why?) |
| |
If a password is used on the drive, the software must be loaded to unlock the drive. | ||
| ||
For BounceBack Express, please contact Seagate Support. | ||
No software available or needed | ||
For BounceBack Express, please contact Seagate Support. | ||
For BounceBack Express, please contact Seagate Support. | ||
No additional driver required from Seagate. (Why not?) | No software available nor required. |
Please see My USB device is detected with a ! or ? in Device Manager for more information on when Windows reports a problem with drivers in the Device Manager or when it seems to require a driver refresh.
Drive image | Drive name | Additional driver download required from Seagate? | Software available for download? |
No additional driver required from Seagate |
Why doesn't Seagate provide a driver for my hard drive?
Seagate manufactures its hard drives to work with the drivers that are already present in Windows (and MacOS, where supported). No additional driver support is required except for Windows 98SE with Legacy Drives</font>
A legacy drive is a drive that is no longer in production or no longer in line with the latest operating systems or computer hardware because of this legacy product could be difficult to integrate with the latest hardware or software of today.', OFFSETY, -50, FONTCOLOR, '#C1C1C1', WIDTH, 225, BORDERWIDTH, 0, JUMPVERT, true, SHADOW, false, FADEIN, 100, FADEOUT, 100, STICKY, 1, DURATION, -300, CLOSEBTN, false, CLICKCLOSE, true, BGCOLOR, '#232323')' onmouseout='UnTip()'>some legacy drives.
More information on troubleshooting driver error messages for external products:
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Please click here if you wish to participate in this survey.