Cannot obtain HD icon on my mac book pro

WD External Drives External Drives for Mac
1

Hi

brand new 1 tbt My Passport WD HD, and cannot mount it on the desktop

Anyone know why?

2

The drive might not be getting enough power or is just faulty. Try on a different port, check disk utility and see if is showing there, if it does try formating the drive. 

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3

Is the drive formatted for Mac? If it came formatted for Windows (NTFS) it will need to be reformatted for Mac. They make Passports for both Windows and Mac, most other liines are either for Windows or Mac.

Joe

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thanks to you and Joe for coming back to me. I tried a different port but no diffrerence, and Disk Utility doesn’t recognise the HD at all. The little white light is on the external HD which seems to indicate it must be drawing current form the mac (I have a mac book pro 2008 version so really should be able to run this unit), yet nothing . The funny thing is that I did manage to get an icon just once a few weeks back when I bought the unit, and copied some files over, that was about a month ago, then after that I have been unable to get the mbp to recognise anything has been plugged in.

Just one thing to clear up, am I right here - I do not think I am supposed to install anything, the mpb should see this unit as it sees other HD’s without need for any ‘drivers’ like one has to install for Windows on PC. The Smartsofttware that came with it seems to replicate what Apple can do anyway.

Grateful for any advice

thanks again guys

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chalky wrote:

 

 

Just one thing to clear up, am I right here - I do not think I am supposed to install anything, the mpb should see this unit as it sees other HD’s without need for any ‘drivers’ like one has to install for Windows on PC. The Smartsofttware that came with it seems to replicate what Apple can do anyway.

 

 

You’re right , you don’t need anything else for the drive to show on the desktop, even if the drive is not formatted it should show on the desktop when connected. Can you try a different computer ? If it works with a different computer WD can send you a power booster cable, if it does not work, then you’ll have to replace the drive.