Summary: Don't know how to fix when USB flash drive is not mounting on Mac? Try these 4 solutions in this page and use iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac to recover lost data necessarily.
- How To Format Usb On Mac
- How To Format A Flash Drive For Mac Sierra Vista
- How To Format A Flash Drive For Mac Sierra Download
- Table of contents
- 1. Why the USB flash drive is not mounting on Mac?
- 2. How to fix/repair “USB flash drive not mounting” issue on Mac?
- 3. How to recover lost data from unmounted/unrecognizable USB flash drives?
When I plugged in my USB flash drive on macOS High Sierra, I can't see it in Finder or on the Desktop. So, I went to Disk Utility, it was there. But the USB flash drive was grayed out in Disk Utility and I could not mount it. How can I fix/repair USB flash drive not mounting issue on Mac?
It is user-friendly that Mac will automatically mount the inserted USB flash drives. However, if the USB flash drive is not mounted on Mac, you will lose access to the USB flash drive as well as to the data stored on it. But don't worry, this page talks about the reasons for this issue, and how to fix 'USB flash drive not mounting on Mac' without data loss even if external hard drive is not showing up on Mac.
Why the USB flash drive is not mounting on Mac?
Launch AweCleaner for Mac Click Disk Manager Select the hard drive and click on 'Format' button. The data formatted by AweCleaner can be recovered by data recovery software. If you want to permanently erase data on the hard drive, you can try the solution 3. Jul 02, 2020 How to erase your disk. Start up from macOS Recovery. Then select Disk Utility from the Utilities window and click Continue. If you're not erasing the disk your Mac. Choose View Show All Devices from the menu bar in Disk Utility. The sidebar now shows your disks (devices) and any containers.
Format an External Disk or a Flash Drive for Mac using Disk Utility in OS X Mavericks and below versions. Connect the External disk drive or Flash Drive and open Disk Utility.app from /Applications/Utilities/ folder. Select the External drive or Flash Drive on the left that shows the capacity. Jan 15, 2019 To format a USB drive in FAT32 or exFAT: 1. Plug the USB drive into your Mac. Go to ApplicationsUtilities and launch Disk Utility. Click on the USB drive in the sidebar in Disk Utility. Click Erase in the Disk Utility toolbar. Type in a name for the formatted disk. Click on the Format menu and choose either MS-DOS (FAT32) or ExFAT.
What makes USB flash drive unmounted on Mac can be various, in that this external drive is connected to the Mac computer through USB cable, USB port. The possible reasons for this issue include:
- Faulty connections like broken cable and wobbly USB port
- File system errors, volume header corruptions, etc. in the USB flash drive
- Disk Utility failure, log file corruption, OS malfunction on this Mac
- Physical damage and other factors
How to fix/repair USB flash drive not mounting issue on Mac?
No matter what results in unmountable USB flash drive, it's urgent to fix/repair USB flash drive not mounting issue on Mac. Here are 4 solutions to this unmounted USB flash drive issue according to different causes, you can check them one by one.
Solution 1: Check the USB flash drive in System Information
If you plug this USB flash drive into your Mac computer but get no sign that this drive is mounting on Mac, you can check System Information to see if this USB flash drive is showing up.
- Step 1: Go to Utilities and choose System Information.
- Step 2: Double-click on its icon to open it and choose USB in the left sidebar.
- Step 3: Check if your USB flash drive is detected by the system in the right box.
If your USB flash drive is not showing up in the right box, you can try to re-plug it, or change another USB port and cable to connect it.
Solution 2: Check the Finder Preferences
Sometimes, you just can't find the USB flash drive in Finder and on the desktop, but actually, it is mounted on your Mac and just not showing up. Check the Finder Preferences and see if it will appear.
- Step 1: Click Finder and choose Preferences in the top menu bar.
- Step 2: Check External Disks in General tab so that the USB flash drive can be shown on the desktop.
- Step 3: Go to Sidebar and check External disks so that they can be located in Finder.
![How To Format A Flash Drive For Mac Sierra How To Format A Flash Drive For Mac Sierra](/uploads/1/2/6/6/126627898/149224099.png)
Solution 3: Check and repair this USB flash drive with Disk Utility
If you still can't access your USB flash drive thereafter, you can go to Disk Utility which is a built-in utility to fix disk problems. If it is greyed out in Disk Utility, you can manually mount this USB flash drive.
- Step 1: Go > Utilities > Disk Utility.
- Step 2: Click on View option and choose 'Show all devices'.
- Step 3: Click on the name of your USB flash drive.
- Step 4: Select Mount in the upper menu bar.
If the Mount button is greyed out and you can't mount this USB flash drive manually, then there could be some disk errors. Fortunately, you can use First Aid in Disk Utility to repair this unmountable USB flash drive.
- Step 1: Launch Disk Utility.
- Step 2: Choose the grayed-out USB flash drive.
- Step 3: Select First Aid in the top center and click Run.
Solution 4: Fix the unmountable USB flash drive by reformatting
Is my mac too old for high sierra. However, if Disk Utility fails to repair this external drive because of serious file system corruption, you can only fix this by reformatting. The thing you need to keep in mind is that reformatting will erase all files on this USB flash drive, which means, you need to make sure an existing file backup. Or you can recover lost data from the unmountable USB flash drive before you fix the USB flash drive not mounting issue on Mac by reformatting.
How to recover lost data from unmounted/unrecognizable USB flash drives?
Can't open the unmountable USB flash drive but don't want to lose data? You can still get your files back with USB flash drive data recovery software before you reformat this drive.
As one of the most professional USB data recovery software, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is highly recommended. It can recover lost data from unmountable, unreadable, and corrupted USB flash drive, recover deleted/lost files from emptied Mac trash. Moreover, this software performs well in recovering data from hard drives, external hard drives, flash drives, USB sticks, SD cards, and other storage devices. Data recovery is allowed on macOS 10.14/10.13/10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.
Step 1: Recover lost data from unmountable USB flash drive with Mac data recovery software
- Step 1: Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on your Mac.
- Step 2: Connect your USB flash drive to the Mac and launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
- Step 3: Select the unmountable USB flash drive and click 'Next' button to scan all lost files.
- Step 4: Preview the scanning results by double-clicking, choose files that you want to recover, and click 'Recover' button to get lost data back.
Note: In case you lose the recovered files again in the next reformatting step, you'd better save these files to another reliable drive.
Step 2: Reformatting this USB flash drive without data loss
After recovering data from this unmountable USB flash drive, you can reformat this USB flash drive without worrying about losing anything important. Malwarebytes for mac 10.9.5.
- Step 1: Go > Utilities > Disk Utility.
- Step 2: Click the icon of unmountable USB flash drive on the left part of the window.
- Step 3: Click the Erase button on the top of the Disk Utility window.
- Step 4: Complete the related information(name, format, scheme), then click Erase button.
When the process finished successfully, your USB flash drive will be mountable on the Mac computer again. But the case is, no matter how powerful USB flash drive data recovery software is, the best way to recover files from external drives is to recover them from backups. So, remember to duplicate your files this time.
You may also want to know:
HSD not mounting or seen in Disk Utility? Tutorial to fix SD card not mounting on Mac and recover lost data from unmountable SD card on macOS.
APFS is a new file system developed for Mac OS High Sierra and later. It is designed with a primary focus on encryption and also to provide better performance. It is made compatible across all devices for Mac OS, iOS, watch OS and TV OS.
Since APFS is developed for High Sierra and later, there are some drawbacks of using this file system with Sierra. Some of the drawbacks are discussed below.
- Cannot be used with Time Machine
![How How](/uploads/1/2/6/6/126627898/877764917.jpg)
APFS file system cannot be used with Time Machine backup drives. The drives are required to be in the HFS+ format to be able to support time machine backups.
- Limited access from Sierra systems
If you are using an unencrypted APFS storage device such as external hard drive or USB flash, you may be able to mount and access the drive from Sierra systems. However, if you are using an encrypted APFS, it may be difficult to mount and access files on it.
- Cannot be used on start-up volumes
This version of APFS cannot be used with start-up volumes. It can be used only with external hard drives, USB flash etc.
- Case sensitive
This is a case-sensitive version of APFS. It means the words ‘WORK’ and ‘work’ are treated as different files. This may be confusing and difficult to use.
Now that we have understood the uses and disadvantages of APFS, let us learn how to format a drive with APFS file system in Sierra.
Steps to format a drive with APFS in Sierra
Viber for os x yosemite. You can format an external hard drive, USB flash drive or a secondary hard drive using APFS on Sierra. To do this, you will need to use the ‘Terminal’ and follow the steps below.
How To Format Usb On Mac
- To open the ‘Terminal’, go to ‘Finder’ and select ‘Applications’
- In ‘Applications’, select ‘Terminal’ to open the Terminal window
- Type ‘diskutil list’
This command lists all the drives associated with your Mac. Have a look at the size of the drives to help you identify the drive you wish to format
- Type ‘diskutil apfs createContainer /dev/disk#’
This command will create a new APFS container. Replace ‘disk#’ with the correct identifier for your drive. Selecting a wrong drive may format that drive and cause unintentional data loss.
- Type ‘diskutil apfs addVolume disk# APFS <APFSname>’
In this command, replace ‘disk#’ with the correct disk identifier noted in step 1 and replace ‘APFSname’ by a new name for the drive
After following these steps, your drive will be formatted using ‘APFS’ file system. It will be mounted as any other drive in ‘Finder’.
Can you convert APFS back to another file system?
How To Format A Flash Drive For Mac Sierra Vista
However, if you don’t want to use the APFS system, you can always change it back to ‘HFS+’ or any other file system of your choice using ‘Disk Utility’. Just right click on the drive in ‘Disk Utility’ and select ‘Erase’. Then follow the steps in the wizard and choose any required ‘file system’ to format the drive.
How To Format A Flash Drive For Mac Sierra Download
If you find that you have lost data after formatting and no backup is available, Remo Recover is a great choice to restore data from external hard drives. The software can not only be used with formatted drives, but also from corrupt or damaged drives. In addition to this, you can also use the tool to recover files from a crashed Mac.