Fix Lacie External Hard Drive Won't Show up on Mac

Whenever a user connects an external hard drive with Mac’s USB port and it usually appears on the desktop asap. Sometimes Lacie external hard drives don’t show up on Mac and it irritates a user. But if you are facing such a problem, it’s easy to fix Lacie external hard not showing up on Mac.

Part 1. How to Fix LaCie External Hard Drive Won’t Show up on Mac

Let’s have a look at some of the fixes that really can help you to fix your Lacie external hard drive not showing up on Mac. Let’s follow the fixes given below:

Fix 1. Is Finder Preferences Configured to Show Hard Drive on Desktop?

You can check out if the preferences are configuring to show a hard drive on desktop or not by following the steps given below:

Fix 2. Do the USB slot and USB Cable Work?

This can happen if a user quickly removes or inserts a USB device and in result USB port can stop working. In such a situation, the USB port won’t work anymore neither it will recognize any device plugged into the USB port. So, if your LaCie external hard drive isn’t showing up on the Mac USB port can be the real issue. Follow the steps given below to check your USB slot:

Plug any USB device into the USB port and see if it works. If it’s not working, then take another device to ensure that the device is fine but the problem is with a USB port. Even if the second device isn’t working then the problem is with the USB port.

Fix 3. Is Lacie External Hard Drive Mounted on Mac?

You can easily check if the LaCie external hard drive is mounted or not using Apple’s Disk Utility.

This will your external hard drive visible on the Desktop in the external drives option in the Finder menu.

Fix 4. Is the Lacie File System Compatible with MacOS?

exFAT is the format of the Lacie file system and it’s compatible with both Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS. Besides exFAT Lacie also supports Mac OS Extended (HFS+) file system and its native hard drive file system for macOS. FAT32 is also supported by macOS but it’s deprecated as it’s not suitable for large storage drives and it’s slow as well.

If the Lacie hard drive file system isn't compatible with your system, you can format to fix the external hard drive not showing up easily by following the steps given below:

Fix 5: Using First Aid to Troubleshoot the Lacie External Hard Drive

macOS has its own tools for testing hard drives and this tool is known as First Aid. It’s recommended to back up your data before scanning it through First Aid. Because if there’s a bad sector on the hard drive and while testing Frist Aid will repair this bad sector. Once it’s repaired and you won’t be able to access it.

Follow the steps given below in-order to use Disk Utility First Aid to troubleshoot the problem on Lacie external hard drive. When you encounter Mac files show as zero bytes, you can still try this method to fix it.

Fix 6. Reset NVRAM

NVRAM stands for nonvolatile random-access memory and it’s the tiniest amount of memory that a Mac uses to store specific settings and later it can access it quickly. There’s another thing that’s known as PRAM and it stands for Parameter RAM. But the process of performing reset using both NVRAM and PRAM is the same.

There are many settings that are stored in NVRAM such as display resolution, time-zone, startup disk choices, recent kernel panic information, etc. The settings maybe different depending on the devices that you are using with your Mac.

You can easily fix issues if they have anything to do with the settings that are stored in NVRAM and you can fix them by resetting the NVRAM. Suppose, If the resolution of your screen is causing issues while starting or you are facing any issues in startup functions then you can get help by performing a reset of your NVRAM. This might solve your problem within minutes. Let’s see how the NVRAM reset is performed.

You have to shut down your Mac. Later turn it on and quickly keep holding these four keys such as:

• Option
• Command
• P
• R

You have to hold them for almost 20 seconds and you can release them after 20 seconds. Your Mac will be restarted in this time. Here are the options that you can choose according to the Mac computer that you are using if you have:

• Mac computer that plays a startup sound and you can release the keys after the startup sound you hear.
• Mac Computer that has the Apple T2 security chip, you have to release the holding keys after the Apple logo just appears on the screen and disappears for the second time.

After your Mac is restarted, you can set your settings that were disturbed during the NVRAM reset and you can adjust all of those volume, display, etc. according to your requirements.

Part 2. Tips for Lacie External Hard Drive

Here, I am going to give you some tips that can help you in the future with Kacie external hard drives if you ever face any problem. Let’s have a look and get more info about Lacie external hard drive.

Q: Lacie External Hard Drive Won’t Mount on Mac

In order to mount Lacie external hard drive on Mac, you should try some tricks if they help to mount it or not.

Perform a Super Slow Jam

It’s weird but it helps sometimes to mount the external hard drive on your Mac. Some users have reported that while performing a fast jam wasn’t helping them to mount their Lacie external hard drive but it was working fine when they weren’t performing it fast rather in a proper and slow motion.

Try another USB cable or Re-plug External Hard Drive to another Port

Sometimes there’s some error or fault in the USB cable that the user attaches with the Mac for connecting the Hard Drive with Mac. You should try another USB cable, maybe this can help to solve your problem. There can be an issue with the port and one should always verify the Lacie external hard drive on all the ports to make is sure that there’s nothing wrong with the USB ports and the problem is with the hard drive.

See Finder Preferences

If your external hard drive isn’t appearing on the desktop you can check it in Finder Preferences.

Open Finder and select Preferences or you can press the Command +, and here you can check all the external disks. If your drive isn’t appearing here, you can troubleshoot it by following the solutions given below:

Solution 1: Repairing Unmountable External Hard Drive with First Aid

Solution 2: Format the Lacie External Unmounted Hard Drive

After applying the first solution, if you are still not able to mount the external hard drive. There could be serious errors or data corruption problems on your external drive and you should reformat your drive in order to mount it on Mac.

Q: Lacie External Hard Drive Read Only on Mac

If you are facing read-only and can’t write anything on the external hard drive, then you should reformat your Lacie external hard drive and this can help your MacOS to perform both read and write operations on your external hard drive. You can follow one of the methods in the above section, where you can easily learn how to format a Lacie external hard drive.

Ignoring Permissions

Here, we will ignore all the permission and it will help your Lacie external hard drive perform both write and read operations.

Q: Pictures/data lost from Lacie external hard drive, how to retrieve?

In this case, your best and fastest solution is using iBeesoft Data Recovery for Mac. By installing the software on Mac and connect your Lacie external hard drive at the same time, you can use the data recovery software for failed hard disk to scan the hard drive, preview and recover lost or deleted files from the device.