System Disk Utility 2.6.2 for Mac OS X Server 1.2 is a Mac OS program that allows you to select which hard disk your computer will start up from. Click on Disk Utility and select Quit Disk Utility. Select Install OS X from the options. Select your drives as the destination and install Installing a SATA Drive as a Storage Unit - 10.11 Physically install the drive into the Mac. Turn the Mac on. Select Applications. Select Utilities. Select Disk Utility. Select the Erase tab. In the Disk Utility app on your Mac, choose View Show All Devices. In the sidebar, select the volume you want to restore, then click the Restore button. This is the volume that is erased and becomes the exact copy. Click the Restore pop-up menu, then choose the volume you want to. Step 1: Recover lost data with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac. Download, install and launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on your Mac. Select the external hard drive that is greyed out in Disk Utility and click Next to scan for data stored on this drive.; 3. List of all WD firmware and software available for download.
Summary: If your external drive is greyed out in Mac's Disk Utility, you will find the best solution to fix this problem in this post. If necessary, you can also download iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac to recover lost data from your greyed-out external hard drive.
You plug an external hard drive into your Mac as normal, but the external hard drive is not showing up in Mac Finder nor on the desktop this time. So, you launch Disk Utility to check this drive, only to find that the external hard drive is greyed out in Disk Utility. You can calm down first because if you see the external hard drive in Disk Utility with some disk information, your external hard drive at least has no hardware errors. That's to say, you have a great chance to repair it without data loss.
Now, look through the table below and find the best solution to fix this greyed out external hard drive issue on your Mac.
- Table of contents
- 1. Why external hard drives greyed out in Disk Utility?
- 2. How to fix when external hard drives greyed out in Disk Utility?
- 3. How to fix when external drives won't mount on Mac?
- 4. How to fix when Partition external hard drive greyed out in Disk Utility?
- 5. How to fix when Erase hard drive greyed out in Disk Utility?
The symptoms of hard drive dimmed out in Disk Utility are different from case to case. Therefore, let's first take a closer look at the reasons for this issue before you set about repairing your external hard drive that is faded in Disk Utility.
Why external hard drives greyed out in Disk Utility?
Many users are confronted with this annoying issue and are looking for a feasible solution. However, they have no idea exactly why their external hard drives are greyed out in Disk Utility, just like the user from the forum of MacRumors:
'I've been Googling for solutions for the past seven hours. The thing is, I was about to back up and of course, My External Hard Drive in Disk Utility Is Grayed Out!!! My life lives on this disk. https://high-powerlinux551.weebly.com/proform-cardio-trainer-820-user-manual.html. I want to also mention that the computer reads the disk. I know this because it appears in Disk Utility, but it's grayed out. Someone helps me.'
Then what could be the cause of this problem?
Some common reasons, including sudden power failure, unsafe ejection, virus attacks could make the disk unrecognizable. What's worse, they may damage the file system or partition table of this drive, resulting in disk corruption. If the file system is corrupted too seriously to be read by the operating system, your external hard drive, for example, WD My Passport will be greyed out in Disk Utility.
After knowing what may make your disk greyed out in Disk Utility, now you can suit the remedy to the case by finding the corresponding solutions in the following part.
How to fix when external hard drives greyed out in Disk Utility?
One of the most common appearances you might see is that the external hard drive shows up in Disk Utility but is greyed out in the left sidebar. What you can do in this situation?
Solution 1:Try to mount the external hard drive manually
Sometimes, your external hard drive is greyed out in Disk Utility just because it was not mounted. Thus, you try to mount this external hard drive in Disk Utility manually. To do this, you can select your external drive and click on the 'Mount' button at the upper menu bar. If theexternal hard drive is not mounting in Mac Disk Utility still, reboot your Mac and try again.
Solution 2:Update the disk driver and extension
Another practical solution to this issue is to update the necessary drivers and extensions. To update an outdated disk driver, you can simply open your App Store and choose the available one to update. Or if you receive some errors like 'System Extension Blocked', it means a disk driver on your Mac is not working due to the lack of an extension, and you can easily enable this extension to be loaded in 'Security and Privacy'. After updating the disk driver or extension, you can reboot your Mac, reconnect the external drive to your Mac, and then remount this drive.
How to fix when external drives won't mount on Mac?
The external hard drive shows up in gray but won't mount in Disk Utility, even you have tried to manually mount it? Don't worry, you can check the following solutions and see if they can solve your problem.
Solution 1:Repair this external hard drive with First Aid
In some cases, a disk is unmountable and greyed out in Disk Utility because some minor disk errors are stopping your Mac reading this drive. Fortunately, there is a built-in utility on your Mac called First Aid is able to check and repair such minor file system errors.
Step 1: Go to Utilities, find Disk Utility and run this program.
Step 2: Click Show All Devices in View option and select this external hard drive in the left sidebar.
Step 3: Click First Aid in the top menu of Disk Utility.
Step 4: Click Run to check and repair errors in this drive.
Solution 2:Reformat this external hard drive
SupposeFirst Aid failed on the external hard drive and you still can't open it, your drive is greyed out in Disk Utility because the file system of the drive could be seriously corrupted. Reformatting can fix the file system corruption, but it also will erase all data on it. Therefore, if you didn't back up data before or this external hard drive is used as a Time Machine backup drive, the safe choice is to recover lost data firstly with reliable data recovery software, likeiBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac. If data loss is not a hassle for you, you can just skip to reformatting.
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is professional and free Mac data recovery software, which can recover lost data from unmountable/formatted/inaccessible external hard drives. It can recover lost data from APFS, HFS+, HFS, FAT32 and exFAT formatted external hard drives, USB drives, flash drives, SD cards, CF cards, memory cards, etc. This software also can undelete documents, pictures, emails, music, etc. from Trash. https://everhour831.weebly.com/how-to-download-files-via-ssh-mac.html.
It supports 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), 10.7 (Lion).
Step 1: Recover lost data with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac
- 1. Download, install and launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on your Mac.
- 2. Select the external hard drive that is greyed out in Disk Utility and click Next to scan for data stored on this drive.
- 3. You will see the scanning results in the left sidebar with three categories: files path, type and time. Please double click these files to preview them to make sure your files are not corrupted.
- 4. Select the files you want to get back and click Recover to recover them from this external hard drive. Remember to save these files to another healthy drive for your sake.
Step 2: Reformat this external hard drive with Disk Utility
• How to format external hard drives on Mac?
How to fix when Partition external drive greyed out in Disk Utility?
Solution 1:Check if the external hard drive is NTFS formatted
As you probably know, most external drives would be formatted with Windows NTFS file system by the manufacturer, while NTFS file system is read-only on Mac computers. That's to say, you can't perform any input operation to this disk, including re-partition. So have a check if this external disk is Windows NTFS file system by viewing the disk information directly. If so, you may need an NTFS driver for Mac so that you can rearrange the space of this disk by partitioning it in Disk Utility.
Solution 2:Enable Show All Devices in Disk Utility
What if your external disk is not formatted with NTFS but some other file systems like Mac OS Extend and FAT, how to fix this issue then? Well, it's likely that the Partition option is greyed out in Disk Utility because you select the wrong item. You can't partition a volume (Even though the Partition option is highlighted for APFS volumes). Instead, you should select the disk drive when you want to partition a disk, and the following steps would be helpful.
- 1. Open Disk Utility like you usually do.
- 2. Click the View icon at the upper left, and then choose Show All Devices in the context menu.
- 3. In the left sidebar, you should select the name of the external drive instead of the single volume.
- 4. Then the Partition feature will not be greyed out and you can click it to partition your disk now.
How to fix when Erase hard drive greyed out in Disk Utility?
Another problem you might meet in Disk Utility is that you can erase a disk because the Erase option is greyed out. Usually, it happens when you try to erase an internal drive, which is reasonable because you can't erase the startup disk that you are currently running. Then if you want to install a new OS, or if you need to erase personal data before you donate your Mac, how can you erase a system volume?
Solution:Erase the disk in macOS Recovery mode
- 1. Reboot your Mac and immediately press and hold Command + R to boot your Mac in macOS Recovery mode.
- 2. Then choose Disk Utility in macOS Utilities.
- 3. Select the volume you want to erase and click on Erase as usual.
Note: Be sure you have an up-to-date backup of your important files and data. But if you lost some important data in this process, you can try iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac to recover your data.
Conclusion
However, if your external hard drive is greyed out in Disk Utility, and the disk information and the storage capacity is not even showing up correctly, the disk may die from physical damage. If this is the case, you can try your luck by sending it to a disk repair service.
It will be great if this article has helped you repair the external hard drive that is greyed out in Disk Utility.
Summary: This post will show you solutions to fix the Mac not recognizing internal hard drive issue. Also, you can learn how to recover lost data from unrecognizable Mac internal hard drive with data recovery software for Mac - iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
Usually, the internal hard drive is the startup/boot drive for a Mac. It not only loads the operating system but also is responsible for storing data. Therefore, it is frustrating if your Mac doesn't recognize the internal hard drive and you can't access the data on this drive. What's worse, when Mac can't find the internal hard drive, your Mac is unable to turn on.
Luckily, according to your situation, this article will provide 4 feasible solutions for you to fix Mac not recognizing the internal hard drive. Ashampoo free download for mac. How to download to kindle from mac.
Scenario 1: The internal hard drive can be recognized by Disk Utility
If your Mac doesn't recognize the internal hard drive, you can check if you can find the hard drive or not in Disk Utility under Recovery Mode. This really matters because if you can see the drive but the internal hard drive is not mounted in Disk Utility, your internal hard drive has no hardware problem and you can try the following solutions to fix your issue.
Solution 1: Repair the hard drive with First Aid
macOS Recovery is part of the built-in recovery system of your Mac, from which you can get to macOS Utilities to repair certain logical errors of the internal hard drive. The issue that Mac doesn't recognize the internal hard drive could be fixed with First Aid under Recovery Mode.
Step 1: Restart your Mac and immediately press and hold Command + R keys to get into macOS Recovery mode, then release the keys when you see the Apple logo.
Step 2: Get to macOS/Mac OS X Utilities, select Disk Utility, and then click 'Continue'.
Step 3: Select the internal hard drive that Mac doesn't recognize, and run First Aid to check and repair errors in this drive.
Solution 2: Try to boot in Safe Mode
If the internal hard disk drive is not found by Mac, booting Mac to Safe Mode can check the errors in the directory of your internal hard drive. To boot in Safe Mode, you need to restart the Mac and hold 'Shift' immediately, and release it until you see the login window. When you see a 'Safe Boot' message on the startup window, you can restart the Mac.
Solution 3: Recover lost data and erase the unrecognizable internal hard drive
If the internal hard drive is not recognized by your Mac still, then the file system of this internal hard drive could have corrupted. Is there any other way that you can access the data on this unrecognizable internal hard disk?
Of course. You can recover lost data from this unrecognizable internal hard disk with Mac data recovery software like iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac. Then, you can reformat this internal hard drive so that you can use this drive again.
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is professional Mac data recovery software. It can recover lost data from Mac that is unbootable, including documents, photos, emails, music, etc. This software supports macOS Catalina/Mojave/High Sierra/Sierra and OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.
Method 1: If you have only one Mac computer
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If you have only one Mac computer, please directly run iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac in macOS Recovery mode and recover lost data from the unbootable Mac computer. This method is greatly recommended because it is easier and more effective.
Method 2: If you have two Mac computers
Step 1: Download iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on another Mac, install and launch it.
Step 2: Click iBoysoft Data Recovery at the upper left corner of Mac menu bar and select 'Create Boot Drive'.
Step 3: Insert a USB drive into the healthy Mac computer.
Step 4: Follow the wizard to create a bootable recovery USB drive.
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Step 5: After you have completed creating boot drive, insert this bootable USB drive into the failed Mac and press the Power button and Option key (⌥) to start the MacBook up.
Step 6: Select iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac from the boot options.
Note: If you're running macOS Mojave or earlier, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac will launch immediately when your Mac boots up. But, if your Mac is running macOS Catalina, you need two additional steps to launch this program.
Step 7: Wait for your Mac to boot up, open 'Terminal' application from 'Utilities' drop-down menu. https://indexclever.weebly.com/p90x-download-free-full-version-for-pc.html.
Step 8: Run the following command:
Step 9:Follow the wizard to recover lost data from the internal hard drive.
Step 10: Restart the Mac, press and hold Command + R keys immediately to get into macOS Recovery mode.
Step 11: Select Disk Utility in the Utilities and click 'Continue'.
Step 12: Select the internal hard drive and click 'Erase' to reformat this drive.
Step 13: Return to macOS/Mac OS X Utilities in macOS Recovery mode and select 'Reinstall macOS'.
After reinstalling the operating system, this internal hard drive could be showing up again.
Scenario 2: The internal hard drive cannot be recognized by Disk Utility
However, if your Mac can't recognize the internal hard drive, or Mac is not detecting it at all, this internal hard drive might have some hardware problems. You can either send it to a local repair store, which could be costly, or say goodbye to this drive and buy a new one.