Mac not recognizing External Western Digital HD.

I have a Mac Book Pro(10.5.6) and am using a 1TB My Book External WD hard drive(USB). Yesterday I tried to transfer some files off of the External and my Mac locked up. I improperly ejected the External because I had to. Then the progress bars for the file transfer remained on my desktop. I had to do a hard reboot of my Mac. Now when I connect my External to my Mac, I get an error. "Unable to recognize as a readable drive", or something to that effect. Any ideas? I tried disk utility but I can't access any of the options. Disk utility sees the external but I can't First Aid, Restore or even erase the external without a communication error message.

1 Answer

Anonymous

Level 2:

An expert who has achieved level 2 by getting 100 points

MVP:

An expert that got 5 achievements.

Governor:

An expert whose answer got voted for 20 times.

Scholar:

An expert who has written 20 answers of more than 400 characters.
Expert
126 Answers

The problem is that your western digital operates using the NTFS (New Technology File System) which is the standard file system of Windows. Apple macs is not interopable with native NTFS therefore you need to install a read-write NTFS file-system driver on your mac.

an excellent free mac NTFS driver can be found here-
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/System-Utilities/NTFS-3G.shtml

download and install the software then restart your mac.

//javaftper

Posted on Jul 31, 2010

Add Your Answer

Upload

Upload an image from your computer

Uploading: 0%

my-video-file.mp4

Complete. Click "Add" to insert your video. Add

Loading...

Include an image. It's worth a thousand words.

prev next

Related Questions:

0helpful

1answer

Wd 500gb external drive - cannot recognize drive usb2 connection - drive flashing apparent code 6 flashes (bright) followed by 3 flashes (dim). Same result on multiple PC's.

WD has a internet-page where you can find more info about the "flashing".

Read full answer

Oct 16, 2013 • Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB...

0helpful

1answer

WD 1TB Essential Hard drive will not come online. Drive spins, I can hear the heads reading but is not recognized. Unfortunately, I upgraded the firmware when promted by WD Smartware application. The...

Hi,

Have you tried using a different USB cable?

Read full answer

Dec 19, 2010 • Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB...

0helpful

1answer

Well i bought my first hard drive(WD) yesterday 10-25-10 and when i plug it into my mac power book G4, its not recognized. I went to utilities to try to format it. I see the hitachi drive and the Macintosh...

if you are trying to install through usb then check if the usb you are using is working try to connect a flash drive on the same usb and try of use the other HD on that usb and see if it gets detected if no then uninstall the usb drivers from device manager and restart the system and it will work and it will get instaled automatically

Read full answer

Oct 26, 2010 • Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB...

0helpful

1answer

My WD external ard drive is not recognized by my computer

> try to reinstall the drivers for the usb

Read full answer

Jun 15, 2010 • Western Digital MY BOOK HOME 1TB EXT...

0helpful

1answer

Wd book essentiaql 1tb just blinks and is not recognized by computer

my hard drive it wont work when i open iit

Read full answer

Jun 12, 2010 • Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB...

0helpful

1answer

I have a WD 1tb My Book and it stopped being recognized

1. Go to Start>> Right click My Computer>> Manage>> Device Manager 2. Expand the USB Controller section 3. Right click and Uninstall all of the listed USB devices 4. Reboot the system

Read full answer

Feb 28, 2010 • Western Digital MY BOOK HOME 1TB EXT...

1helpful

1answer

How to play music straight from my Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB without having to load it on my computer first.

Set your itunes drive to the external WD drive, easy. Itunes -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Store Location -> Set to your external drive

Read full answer

Feb 15, 2010 • Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB...

0helpful

1answer

MY 1TB Western DIgital Ext Hard Drive is not recognized

Go to add new hardware wizard. This may not come with a disk if you do have a disk it will ask you to put disk in. If you do not find it there go to the HCL directory of the western digital website for installation directions.

Read full answer

Jun 04, 2009 • Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB...

0helpful

1answer

My I Mac doesn't recognize the WD 500GB external drive anymore

it must be initialised /mounted 1st for osx

Read full answer

Mar 08, 2009 • Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB...

0helpful

2answers

1TB Western Digital External keeping system from booting up

You need to go into the BIOS of your computer and change the boot order of your computer. Your computer must be set to boot from your main hard drive only.

Read full answer

Mar 05, 2009 • Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB...