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Summary
When your Seagate hard drive not working, it is usually about external hard disk not detected, not recognized, or not showing up. This article has the most comprehensive solutions to Seagate internal and external hard drive not working problems on both Windows and Mac. In the final part, you can learn how to recover data from a Seagate (external) hard drive which is not detecting by EaseUS hard drive recovery software.
PAGE CONTENT:
- Symptoms - Seagate External Hard Drive Not Working
- Reasons - Why Is Seagate Hard Drive Not Detected, Recognized or Showing Up
- 10 Solutions - How to Fix Seagate Hard Drive Not Working Problems on Windows & Mac
- Data Recovery - How to Recover Data from Seagate Drive When It Is Not Detecting
My 1TB Seagate external hard drive cannot be detected by my computer but the light is blinking, what can I do to fix this? I need to get my data back. I use it at as a backup so pretty much all of my personal and work files are stored in the drive. Please help me out.
There are a variety of reasons why an external hard drive can become undetectable. Luckily, this is a well-documented issue and there are a number of fixes to get your external hard drive working again. First, we'll discuss the symptoms and reasons why your Seagate external hard drive cannot be detected by a computer, then we'll provide you with the most effective solutions.
Symptoms - Seagate External Hard Drive Not Working
Under normal circumstances, the external hard drive should be detected by your operating system, without the need of drivers, software, or firmware updates. However, each drive has its own issues after long-term use or possibly improper use.
The 'not working' is a general term to express a hard disk or external one which starts malfunctioning. For example, it may not be accessible or detected after connecting it to your computer. Or, even you correctly connect it to a computer, it's not showing up in the drives list or Windows/macOS cannot recognize it.
Why Is Seagate Hard Drive Not Detected, Recognized or Showing Up?
Both software and hardware issues will cause a hard drive not working as usual. The commonly explored reasons related to the software include:
- Incompatible file system
- File system corruption
- Invalid file system, RAW
- The drive turns to unallocated
- Hard drive driver is corrupted or out of date
Other hardware issues are generally about:
- The hard drive has too many bad sectors
- The hard drive is broken, dead, not spinning up
For an efficient repair of Seagate hard drive becoming not detected by a computer, we usually recommend people try some basic hardware troubleshooting by themselves. This is an essential step that will greatly save time and improve the chance of successful hard drive repair in the shortest time.
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For advanced troubleshooting solutions, select your operating system:
10 Solutions - How to Fix Seagate Hard Drive Not Working on Windows & Mac
So, how do you fix these problems when your hard drive, such as Seagate external hard drive, becomes undetected or unrecognized? There can be a number of underlying causes, so these solutions try to cover every circumstance.
Windows Troubleshooting Part →
Fix 1. Try a different USB port
If the Seagate external hard drive is blinking but not detected on your PC, then you can try to unplug and plug it into a different USB port. Also, you can reboot your PC and try to connect your Seagate external hard drive to the computer again.
If this simple fix works, then your problem with the Seagate 'external hard drive not detected' error is solved. If not, move on to the other solutions offered here.
Fix 2. Format RAW Seagate Hard Drive
When a hard drive's file system turns to RAW, it won't show up in my computer. You need to format the RAW drive to a file system that Windows recognizes, such as NTFS, FAT32 or exFAT. Since formatting will completely erase data, if you need the data, consider data recovery before the formatting steps.
* EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is the capable Seagate hard drive recovery software that helps recover data from a RAW, not formatted or inaccessible Seagate HDD, external hard disk and USB flash drive, etc. Download and try to recover data from the RAW Seagate hard drive in advance.
Step 1: Go to the Windows Disk Management and confirm whether your Seagate drive shows up as RAW.
Step 2: Right-click on the drive and select Format.
Step 3: Enter a volume label, choose a file system among NTFS, FAT32, or exFAT and leave the allocation unit size default. Click OK.
Fix 3. Create a New Partition on Unallocated
In the same way, check your Seagate drive's status, does it show as unallocated like this? To make your unallocated Seagate drive show up and recognized again, try to create a new partition on the unallocated space.
Step 1: In Windows Disk Management, right-click on the unallocated partition and choose New Simple Volume...
Step 2: Follow the wizard to set partition size, drive letter and file system (NTFS), etc. Click Finish to complete the process.
Fix 4. Uninstall Hard Drive Driver
By carefully performing the four steps, you should be able to resolve the unrecognition problem of the Seagate external hard drive.
Step 1: Click on Start > Type: devmgmt.msc and hit Enter.
Step 2: Open Device manager > Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers > check whether any device shows up as unrecognized.
Step 3: If it displays as unrecognized, go to the Drivers tab and Choose Uninstall Driver. Then check whether the external hard drive shows up in My Computer/My PC or not.
Step 4: If it doesn't show up, reboot, or restart the PC. If it shows up but disappears later, repeat the above steps and go to Disk Management > Change drive letter of your external hard drive only > Select one new drive letter to replace the old one by clicking Change, and click OK to confirm.
Fix 5. Turn on USB Root Hub
USB external hard drive devices may stop functioning correctly when multiple devices connected to the same USB hub go into selective suspend. Enable the USB root hub lets the controllers recover the USB port from its unresponsive condition.
Step 1: Click Start > Type: devmgmt.msc and hit Enter.
Seagate External Hard Drive For Macbook Pro
Step 2: Open Device Manager > Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers.
Step 3: Right-click USB Root Hub > Click Properties > Power Management.
Step 4: Uncheck Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.
Fix 6. Show All Hidden Devices
Sometimes it's because the connected drive is hidden, not showing up in my computer. You need to unhide the device in the Windows Device Manager.
Step 1: Click on Start > Type: devmgmt.msc and hit Enter.
Step 2: Click View > Select Show hidden devices.
Step 3: Expand all notes by clicking on the + (plus) symbol.
Step 4: If there are any grayed-out entries, right-click them, and select Uninstall.
Step 5: Reboot and try again.
Fix 7. Make Changes in Registry
- Warning
- Please follow the below tips carefully while deleting Registry keys from your computer so as to make the Seagate external hard drive recognizable again. Any false operations such as deleting wrong keys in Registry may result in program failure, system crash, or even data loss error.
Step 1: Click on Start > Type: regedt32 and click OK.
Step 2: Back up your registry by going to File > export.
Step 3: On the left side, go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlClass{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlClass{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
Step 4: If you see any upperfilter or lowerfilters at the right side, delete them.
Step 5: Then try accessing your external hard drive again.
- Tip
- If you've exported the Registry as a backup by following the above steps, you can refer to the next steps for a guide to restore Registry manually.
How to Import/Restore Registry from A Manual Backup:
Step 1: Type: regedit.ext in Search and hit Enter.
Step 2: In the Registry Editor, click File > Import.
Step 3: In the Import Registry File dialog box, select the location where you saved the backup copy, select the backup file, and click Open.
Step 4: After this, restart your PC.
Fix 8. Run a Virus Cleaner Software
If it is a virus that caused your external hard drive to be undetectable or unrecognized, you can try a virus cleaner software to wipe out and remove any viruses from your PC and hard drive. Afterward, you can format the hard drive to make it readable again, but formatting will delete any software on the drive.
Mac Troubleshooting Part →
Before going further troubleshooting, have some basic check in Disk Utility or System Information/Profiler section. Here's what you can do:
- If the drive is not showing on your desktop or within Finder check Disk Utility: go and open Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility
- If the drive is not detected in Disk Utility then see the System Information/System Profiler section.
- If you are using macOS 10.13 or higher then click view in the upper left and select 'Show All Devices' which allows you to see both the disk as well as volumes.
If all the attempts failed to display the Seagate drive on your Mac, go on with the two solutions.
Fix 1. Repair Seagate External Hard Drive in First Aid
If the Seagate drive is unmountable or the Mount icon is greyed out, it could be some disk errors that prevent your Mac from recognizing/detecting the drive correctly. You can repair the problematic drive in the built-in First Aid utility.
Step 1: Click on the Launchpad on the Dock and find Other.
Step 2: Locate Disk Utility and open it.
Step 3: Select the unmountable Seagate external hard drive in the left sidebar and choose First Aid at the top.
Step 4: Click Run to repair this Seagate hard drive.
Fix 2. Reformatting Unmountable Seagate External Hard Drive
The other assumption that your Seagate hard disk not detected is because the file system has corrupted. In this case, reformatting a corrupted drive is the most instant way to revive it. Again, formatting a disk will erase data, so make sure that you've copied all important data to a safe place, or exported data from a not showing up drive with EaseUS data recovery software for Mac.
Step 1: Go to Applications > Utilities > Double click and open Disk Utility.
Step 2: Select your Seagate external hard drive on the sidebar, choose Erase.
Step 3: Rename the drive, choose the format as MS-DOS (FAT) for Format, Master Boot Record for Scheme. Then click Erase.
Data Recovery - How to Recover Data from Seagate Drive When It Is Not Detecting
After getting your hard drive to be recognized once more, you should check to see whether any files were lost. Files could have been lost due to the drive becoming unreadable, or from fixing this issue.
You can turn to these two methods for help:
- Method 1. If you do have backups on your Seagate external hard drive, you can directly restore those lost files from your backups.
- Method 2. If you have no backups, here the best hard drive recovery software will help you.
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard will assist you with restoring unlimited data from your Seagate external hard drive in three simple steps. Even if you don't notice any files missing, you can use this tool to scan your entire drive for any lost files that you may have missed. You can download this software and scan your drive completely for free.
If the amount of lost data is less than 2GB, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free Edition will help you restore it all for free. Alternatively, you can purchase the Pro version to recover an unlimited amount of data.
Save your recovered data to another location than the external storage device. It is recommended that you reformat or format this drive to make sure it's secure for storing new data again. To do this, first back up the data on the drive, format, then restore the data.
By going through three short stages, you can easily find lost data on a Seagate external hard drive.
Step 1. Under the 'External Devices', you should see the Seagate external hard drive showing up after it's correctly connected to your computer. Select the drive and click the Scan button.
Step 2. Soon, the software will find more and more data and display the data in the scan results.
Step 3. You can use the Filter feature to quickly locate some specific file types in the results. Select the target files and click the Recover button.
Summary: Two methods to change Seagate external hard drives from read-only back to read-write, so that you can edit, delete, and rename files on this Seagate external hard drive. Also, if a Seagate external hard drive is read-only or files are locked on Mac due to NTFS format, you can use iBoysoft NTFS for Mac to mount it in read-write mode on Mac.
When you plug a Seagate external hard drive into your Mac, one of the worst things would be that you find your Seagate hard drive is read-only. Your photos, videos, and other files you saved from a Windows PC could be locked. Or your Seagate external drive could be write-protected. Are you facing such disk problem right now? Well, you are not the only one.
'I'm having a problem using my Seagate external hard drive. I only have permission to read files on my external hard drive, but I am not allowed to write or edit files on the drive when using Mac OS. Why this happened and how to fix Seagate external hard drive read-only on Mac?'
You might have trouble backing up or adding files to Seagate external hard drives on Mac. But it's not necessarily because the disk is locked but some other reasons. For example, the Seagate external hard drive becomes read-only on Mac.
In this article, we introduced three possible reasons for disk being read-only on Mac, and you can find solutions to change the external drives from read-only accordingly.
- Table of contents
- Why a Seagate external hard drive is read-only on Mac?
- Case 1: The Seagate external hard drive is NTFS formatted
- Case 2: You don't have permissions to access the Seagate external hard drive
- Case 3: The Seagate external hard drive has some disk errors
Why is your Seagate external hard drive read only on Mac?
You may be wondering why my Seagate external hard drive is read-only. In fact, read-only Seagate external hard drive results from various reasons. It could be the NTFS format that makes this trouble since NTFS is not writable on Mac. Generally, there are three possible reasons:
- The Seagate external hard drive is NTFS formatted
- You don't have permissions to access the Seagate external hard drive
- The Seagate external hard drive has some disk errors
In the following part, we'll go into details about how to fix the Seagate external hard drive read-onli issue in different situations.
Case 1: The Seagate external hard drive is NTFS formatted
Most Seagate external drives are read-only on Mac because they are pre-fomatted with Windows NT file system (NTFS) by the manufacturer. So your Seagate HDD is read only on Mac, which affects Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch, Portable drive, and Slim.
However, macOS disabled the NTFS write support by default. If you connect an NTFS formatted external hard drive to your Mac, you will find that files on this disk will be locked or show as read-only. You can only read but can't add files to this Seagate external hard drive on Mac.
How to check if your Seagate hard drive is NTFS formatted on Mac?
- Open the Finder and click Go at the upper right of your desktop, then choose Utilities.
- Find Disk Utility and open it.
- Select your Seagate external hard drive in the left sidebar of Disk Utility.
- Then you can see Windows NT File System on the right.
- You can click the Info icon at the upper right to check if this disk is writable.
Solution: Use NTFS for Mac to write to Seagate external hard drives on Mac
In this situation, what you need is not to unlock the Seagate external hard drive but a NTFS for Mac driver. Many people would think about converting NTFS to APFS or formatting the Seagate drive for Mac to make it compatible with macOS. However, the truth is that you can fix the Seagate external hard drive read-only issue without formatting, i.e. you don't have to lose your files on this drive.
Alternatively, you can download NTFS for Mac software to enable NTFS drive write support on Mac with no fuss. There are a great number of NTFS for Mac in the market, and iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is used here as an example.
iBoysoft NTFS for Mac: NTFS for Mac driver and more
iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is a handy disk management tool, which can help you mount NTFS formatted external hard drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, etc. on Mac with write support. This NTFS drive mounter is also compatible with macOS 10.15 (Catalina), macOS 10.14 (Mojave), macOS 10.13 (High Sierra), macOS 10.12 (Sierra) and Mac OS X 10.11 (El Capitan), 10.10 (Yosemite), 10.9 (Mavericks), 10.8 (Mountain Lion).
How to use iBoysoft NTFS for Mac to write to NTFS Seagate external hard drive on Mac?
Step 1: Download and install iBoysoft NTFS for Mac on your computer.
Step 2: Launch this NTFS driver for Mac and connect the read-only Seagate external hard drive to Mac.
Step 3: Then, you can fully write and copy data to the Seagate external hard drive on Mac after the drive is mounted successfully.
Aside from being an NTFS for Mac driver, iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is also a wonderful tool to manage files on NTFS external drives. It lets users open, monut, repair, and erase NTFS drives on Mac natively and seamlessly.
Case 2: You don't have permissions to access the Seagate external hard drive
If your Seagate hard drive denies your access or restricts you to read-only activities, there is likely an permission issue. Being a multiuser operating system, macOS sets up access permissions for all files and folders on the system, including external drives.
Solution: Change permissions on Seagate external hard drive
To fix the read-only Seagate external hard drive issue, you need to regain full access. You can ignore the ownership or change the sharing and permissions of this disk in the Finder by following the below steps.
Step 1: Select Seagate external hard drive on your desktop or in the Finder sidebar, and then press Command + I to get information of the drive.
Step 2: Scroll to the bottom of this list and click on the triangle that is at the left side of the Sharing & Permissions tab.
Step 3: Click on the lock icon at the right bottom and type in the password to unlock this tab.
Step 4: Check the box to Ignore ownership on this volume, or you can toggle it off and then on if it's already enabled.
Step 5: Click on the gear button and choose Apply to enclosed items… to save your changes.
Then you can go to check if your Seagate external hard drive is read-only still. If not, you will be able to write to this disk.
But if you can't access the Seagate external hard drive as it's locked still. Well, the disk may be really locked by certain programs, especially for Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch. Then you need to unlock the password protection or hardware encryption with Seagate Secure software.
Case 3: The Seagate external hard drive has some disk errors
If your Seagate external hard drive becomes read-only not for the reasons above, you may need to have a check if there is any inner disk error. Some formatting errors will make an external hard drive read-only on Mac. If this is the cause, usually you will see a warning in Disk Utility that states it is only being mounted in read-only mode.
Solution 1: Fix read-only Seagate external hard drive in Disk Utility
Fortunately, there is a built-in tool called First Aid that can check and repair some minor disk errors. When your Seagate external hard drive becomes read-only due to logical disk problems, you can use First Aid to repair it then.
Here is the guidance to fix read-only Seagate external hard drive with Disk Utility:
- Open Disk Utility.
- Select the read-only Seagate external hard drive on the left window.
- Click First Aid in the top center and choose Run to repair this disk.
Solution 2: Reformat Seagate external hard drive
Seagate Backup Plus For Mac
However, if Disk Utility fails to fix read-only Seagate external hard drive, the last thing you can try to remove write protection from Seagate external hard drives would be reformatting. Reformatting will assign a new file system to this disk, consequently, the Seagate external hard drive issue could be fixed.
But before you go ahead to erase this disk, you should know that reformatting will wipe the files on this hard drive. Thus, you are advised to check if you have a copy of data back in the first place , or you can recover lost data from this external hard drive with iBoysoft Mac data recovery to avoid data loss.
If you're sure that you have data backup in hand, you can proceed to reformat this read-only external hard drive with the following tutorial.
- Open Disk Utility as you did before.
- Select the read-only Seagate external hard drive in the left sidebar.
- Click the Erase button in the top center of Disk Utility.
- Fill in name, format, and scheme when the pop-up asks.
- Click Erase to confirm this operation.
A final note
Besides Seagate external hard drives, Toshiba, WD, Samsung, or other brands' external hard drives will come across the read-only problem. It is common to see people complaining WD My Passport external hard drives suddenly became read-only on Mac. You can also use these solutions to fix this problem. What's more, an NTFS formatted WD external hard drive won't work on your PS4 console for gaming as well. But if you are unable to fix it with the solutions suggested above, you can only send it to local disk repair store for help, but that will cost a lot usually.