My external hard drive suddenly stopped showing up in Finder and Disk Utility on my Mac. It contains important files I need to recover, so I’m looking for safe troubleshooting or data recovery options that won’t erase the drive.
If the drive appears in System Information but not Finder, recovery software may help; if it is missing there too, suspect the cable, enclosure, power supply, or drive hardware. Try another cable, port, powered enclosure, and Mac, but do not initialize, erase, or repeatedly run First Aid. If macOS detects the physical disk, Disk Drill for Mac can scan it, with recovered files saved to a different drive. If it clicks, disconnects repeatedly, or remains completely undetected, stop powering it on and use a professional recovery lab.
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Plan on needing a second empty drive at least as large as the problem drive. If the original remains connected and macOS reports the correct capacity, the safer approach is to create a sector-by-sector image or clone first, then run recovery software against that copy. Scanning the original for hours can make a marginal drive worse.
Disk Drill for Mac or a similar tool may recover files from the image, but save everything to a separate disk, never back onto the source. For an encrypted APFS volume, you will still need the original password or recovery key.
If the drive reports 0 bytes, shows the wrong capacity, vanishes during reads, or makes unusual noises, skip the DIY imaging attempt. At that point the likely problem is below the file-system level, and repeated power cycles can reduce what a recovery lab can retrieve.
The hidden risk is that swapping cables and ports can trigger a “disk not readable” prompt, and clicking Initialize will make recovery harder. Cancel that prompt if it appears.
Since the drive is missing from Disk Utility, check whether macOS sees the hardware under System Information > USB or Thunderbolt. If it appears there, try a different cable, port, and powered enclosure or dock. A failed USB-to-SATA bridge is fairly common, and the drive itself may still be readable. Testing on another Mac can help separate a drive problem from a connection issue.
If it never appears in System Information, Disk Drill or any other recovery app will have nothing to scan. At that point, avoid repeated reconnects, especially if the drive clicks or spins up and stops. If it does reappear with the correct capacity, follow @cybereagle2881’s imaging advice before attempting file recovery.
Before you touch cables again, open Terminal and run diskutil list. The Disk Utility window sometimes hides a drive that the underlying system still sees, and the command line output is blunter about it. If you spot a disk with the right size but no mount point, that tells you the hardware is alive and the file system is the problem, which is a much better spot to be in.
@ghostcircuit_82 is right about that ‘disk not readable’ popup being the real trap. People panic and hit Initialize because it looks like the helpful button. It is not. Cancel it and walk away from the drive for a minute.
Where I’d push back a little is on the rush to imaging. Cloning first is solid advice for a drive that mounts and reads steadily, but if the enclosure is the dead part, imaging does nothing until you get past the bad USB-to-SATA bridge. Shucking the drive out of its case and connecting the bare disk with a cheap SATA dock is often the whole fix, and it costs almost nothing. Worth ruling that out before you assume the disk itself is failing.
Disk Drill’s free scan is a reasonable way to confirm files are still there once the disk actually shows up, since it lets you preview before you commit to buying anything. Just keep the recovery target on a separate drive like everyone above said, and stop immediately if you hear clicking. Noises mean it goes to a lab, not more software.