Does your Mac not recognize a USB drive? Is the USB flash drive not showing up on Mac after inserting it in the USB port? Find solutions here. Download EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac when you want to recover data from a USB drive not recognized.

• Mount Usb Drive Vmware Virtual Machine
• Create Bootable Mac Usb Drive
• Virtual Usb Drive Mac To Pc

VirtualBox Mac USB devices can “pass through” a Mac operating system and- instead- function on the virtual machine running Windows OS. Follow the steps below to bypass Mac OS X and access a USB plugged into a USB port in your WINDOWS “Virtual Machine”. Open VirtualBox and ensure Windows VM isn’t running Click the “Settings” option. On Mac, go to Applications- Utilities- Disk Utility and click on the external drive. Click on the Erase tab. Choose MS DOS (FAT) for the Volume Format and click on the Erase button. Copy your music collection and VirtualDJ Local Database back to the reformatted external drive. Turn your iPhone or iPad into the wireless flash drive for your Mac. Have full access to your Mac files – use your iOS device to stream videos, view photos and documents, from anywhere within your home. Check if the system detects the USB drive. Click 'USB' on the left panel, and you can also check the USB flash drive information. Reset USB ports on Mac to detect a USB drive. Restart Mac computer, press the Command +Option+P+R keys until the Apple logo appears.

Mac Won't Recognize USB, What Should You Do?

Commonly, when you insert a USB drive in the USB port on a Mac computer, the drive will soon appear on the desktop or hide in the Finder, letting you access, view, and manage data on it. Did you come across the situation that no matter how many times you try to connect the USB drive with a Mac computer, the USB drive is not showing up anywhere? Why this time Mac won't recognize a connected USB you may wonder. Though not a usual thing, the issue of an external hard drive or flash drive not showing up on Mac happens sometimes. What should you do in this circumstance? What are the effective solutions to make your USB drive show up again?

This page basically covers all the possible fixes for USB not showing up on Mac, which also applies to the similar issues of other storage devices like an external hard drive not showing up on Mac, flash drive not showing up on Mac, SD card not showing up on Mac, etc. Take a quick glance at the main content and directly jump to the part you're most interested in.

10 Fixes for USB Not Showing Up on Mac

The reasons behind the problem of a USB device not showing up are various, including the USB port is not working, USB drive corruption, virus infection, macOS faulty, etc. So, to figure out the effective solutions for your own case, you need to take time to have some basic check, exclude the irrelevant issues, identify the potential risk, and finally solve it!

Fix 1. Change the USB-to-Mac connection way

Have you tried to restart your Mac once or twice? Before taking further measures, don't forget the most efficient way to tackle commonplace hardware glitches that arises from time to time. If this operating system restarting fails to solve the current problem, move on to check the physical connectivity issue step by step.

Step 1. Plug the USB drive out from the not working USB port and change to the other USB port. Try all the available USB ports on your Mac.

Step 2. Did you use a USB connection cable or a USB-C adapter? If yes, take the USB drive out, and directly plug it in the USB port.

Step 3. Is there the other Mac computer available to you? If yes, try to connect the USB drive to this computer. Is it showing up normally?

Step 4. For SD card owners, the common way to connect an SD card to a Mac needs a card reader. If changing the USB ports did not work, try to change a card reader for a new round of tests.

The four steps of troubleshooting a USB drive not showing up on Mac are very basic, however, quite helpful in most cases. Each step can help us exclude the issues of a bad/loose connection, a not working USB port, a lack of power, and other superficial phenomenons.

Fix 2. Change settings for Mac detecting an external hard disk on the desktop

Occasionally, your Mac has already recognized the USB flash drive but not shown it on the desktop. Thus, you should go to Finder > Preferences > General and make sure the 'External disks' option is ticked. Then you'll see the USB flash drive showing up on Mac desktop.

Fix 3. Change settings for Mac recognize an external hard disk in the Finder

Finder is the other access for us to check a connected external drive on Mac. If your flash drive or external hard drive is not showing up there, go to Finder > Preferences > Sidebar, and under Locations, you need to tick the option 'External disks'. By selecting this option, we can make sure that the connected external USB hard drive or flash drive will normally show up in the Finder.

Fix 4. Check the USB drive in System Information

When you cannot find the USB drive on the desktop or in the Finder, try to look for it in the System Information section, which is usually a hidden place for average Mac users.

Step 1. Go to Applications > Utilities > System Information.

Step 2. Check if the system detects the USB drive. Click 'USB' on the left panel, and you can also check the USB flash drive information.

Fix 5. Reset USB ports on Mac to detect a USB drive

Step 1. Restart Mac computer, press the Command +Option+P+R keys until the Apple logo appears.

Step 2. Press Command+Option+Esc keys to close all applications that are not responding.

Step 3. Plug the USB which is not showing up to your Mac computer. If it doesn't show up, click Apple icon and select 'Sleep'.

Step 4. Wake up the computer after a few seconds by pressing any key.

Step 5. Shut down the Mac, unplug the power cord, reattach it after 15 seconds.

If this doesn't work, we should suspect the corruption issue at this moment. Don't give up and try to do some repair by yourself.

Mount Usb Drive Vmware Virtual Machine

Fix 6. Repair USB flash drive with First Aid if it doesn't show up

Step 1. Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.

1. Step 2. Select USB flash drive on the left panel of Disk Utility, and click 'First Aid' at the top toolbar and click 'Run'. Disk Utility will repair any errors on the drive automatically.

Step 3. Select the USB drive and click 'Unmount' at the top toolbar, unplug the USB and plug it back in 10-15 seconds.

Fix 7. Check and fix errors in a not recognized USB with Terminal

Step 1. Open Terminal in Utilities, type:diskutil list and press Return.

Step 2. Find the disk number of your USB flash drive, type: diskutil info disk2 and press Return. (Replace 2 with the disk number of your USB flash drive.)

Create Bootable Mac Usb Drive

Step 3. Type: diskutil eject disk 2 and press Return.

Step 4. Type: diskutil list and press Return.When the USB disappear from the Terminal list, close the window.

Step 5. Close Terminal and open Console to inspect your drive errors.

Step 6. Click 'Errors and Faults' to check if there are any errors.

Step 7. Reconnect your USB flash drive back to Mac, if no error shows up, your USB flash drive is safe.

Fix 8. Save data and reformat the not showing USB drive

Disk reformatting basically solves many hard drive issues, including the not showing up USB, particularly the time when you are able to see the USB icon but files are not showing. USB drive showing empty makes no sense, so you have to reformat the disk and make it usable again.

Note that reformatting will erase data. As long as the data matters, you need to follow the standard procedure to ensure zero data loss. [1] Download EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac, the professional Mac data recovery software, to perform a full USB drive data recovery. [2] Reformat the USB drive in Disk Utility.

To format the USB drive in Disk Utility:

Step 1. Go to Utilities and open Disk Utility.

Step 2. Select the not showing up USB flash drive in the Disk Utility sidebar.

Step 3. Click Erase on the top.

Step 4. Finish the necessary information (name, format, and scheme) to format the USB flash drive.

Fix 9. Update your macOS and firmware

Did your Mac's OS keep updating all the time? Chances are that your Mac won't recognize a USB drive, especially after a macOS update. This time, take a close look at the settings whether your Mac is up-to-date. Equally, firmware updates address a variety of hardware issues and the functionality of the USB ports could well be one of them. So, keep your software and firmware up to date will likely make the USB drive show up as normal again.

Fix 10. Send the USB drive to a repair center

Nowadays even the branded USB flash drives are not expensive. If you've tried all the suggested troubleshooting methods, the USB drive is still not showing up on Mac, you have to accept the truth that it's severely damaged and beyond your ability to repair it.

Mac won't recognize a badly damaged flash drive or external hard drive since there is no way to show it up, even temporarily, which makes the data recovery difficult. The last chance for you to rescue data is to send the broken USB drive to a specialized data recovery service center nearby, and let the professionals try their best. You need to prepare for the manual data recovery cost, which is noticeably higher than the software data recovery. Hence, always try the cost-effective plan of using EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to scan the USB drive for the first attempt.

Step 1. Correctly connect your USB flash drive to your Mac. Launch EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac. Start selecting the flash drive and click 'Scan' to let the software search lost files on it.

Step 2. After a quick scan and deep scan, all files will be presented in the left panel in the scan results.

Step 3. Select files you want to recover and click the 'Recover Now' button. Don't save the recoverable files to the USB drive itself in case of data overwriting.

How to boot from a USB Flash Drive in VirtualBox. This process will allow you to run your Portable Linux from the USB Flash Drive or external hard drive while still running from a Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X Host. By default VirtualBox does not support USB Boot. However, this is easily attainable by mapping a virtual machine (.vmdk file) to the USB Drive.

VirtualBox Website: https://www.virtualbox.org

Updated: 11/14/2020 – Simplified steps, corrected paths, added sudo.

Boot a USB Flash Drive from VirtualBox (Windows Host)

1. Download and run VirtualBox (Installing to the default path).
2. You'll need to use the command line to perform steps 3-6,
   To open a command prompt;
   1.) From the Windows '⌕ Type here to search' box, type cmd.exe
   2.) Then click Run as administrator
   
3. At the command prompt, type diskmgmt.msc and press Enter to open the Windows Disk Management Tool.
   

   diskmgmt.msc

   Then, Identify your USB Disk #
   

4. Now, back at the command line, type
   

   cd %programfiles%oraclevirtualbox

5. Replacing # with your USB Disk number from step 3, type
   

   VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename '%USERPROFILE%'.VirtualBoxusb.vmdk -rawdisk .PhysicalDrive#


6. To start VirtualBox as Admin, type
   

   start virtualbox

7. Click New, and then proceed to Create a New Virtual Machine.
   
8. When prompted for a Virtual Hard Disk, tick use existing hard disk. Then, browse to your %USERPROFILE%.VirtualBox folder, and select the usb.vmdk file.
   
9. Once done creating your New Virtual Machine, click Start.
   

If all goes well, VirtualBox should now be emulating, booting, and running your USB device from within Windows.

Getting Persistence to work in VirtualBox (Windows)

At first the USB flash drive might not work exactly like it does when booted natively. Things like Ubuntu's casper persistent feature won't work. Some distributions might not even boot, or will boot with errors. This is because the volumes on the device are mounted by Windows, preventing VirtualBox from gaining full access. In order to fix these issues, you can use a tool called LockDismount. Then simply run the tool (using the following steps), prior to starting the Virtual Machine that is tied to your USB.

1. Download the LockDismount tool

2. Launch the tool right before starting your VirtualBox VM

3. Select your USB from the drop-list, then Press Lock it!

(optionally you can check Force Dismount)

Now your flash drive should be able to boot in VirtualBox exactly as it does when booted natively on a physical machine. 😉

Boot from a USB Flash Drive in VirtualBox (Linux Host)

The following was performed from a running Ubuntu Operating environment. The same should work for most Debian/Ubuntu Linux based environments.

1. Open a Terminal and type sudo apt install virtualbox
   

   sudo apt install virtualbox

2. Next, Type sudo fdisk -l
   

   sudo fdisk -l

   (note which device is your USB drive I.E. /dev/sdx)
   

3. Replacing x with your actual device letter found from step 2, type
   

   sudo vboxmanage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename ~/usb.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sdx

4. Type sudo virtualbox to start the program, and proceed create a New Virtual Machine.
   
5. When prompted for a Virtual Hard Disk, tick use existing hard disk, then browse to your Home directory and select usb.vmdk.
6. Once you've finished creating your New Virtual Machine, click Start.
   

If all went smoothly, you should now be running your USB flash drive from VirtualBox on the Linux Host.

Boot from a USB Flash Drive in VirtualBox (Mac OS X)

1. Download and install VirtualBox for OS X Hosts via the .dmg file.
2. Open a Terminal and type diskutil list
   

   diskutil list

   (make note of which disk is your USB drive I.E. /dev/disk#)

3. Replacing # with the disk number of your USB drive, type
   

   diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk#

4. Again, replacing # with your actual disk number, type
   

   vboxmanage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename ~/usb.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/disk#

5. Once more, replacing # with the disk number, type
   

   diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk#

6. Finally, to start the program with root access, type
   

   sudo virtualbox

7. Next, Proceed to create a New Virtual Machine.
   When prompted for a Virtual Hard Disk, tick use existing hard disk.
   Then, browse to your Home directory and select usb.vmdk.
   
8. Once finished creating your New Virtual Machine, click Start.
   

Virtual Usb Drive Mac To Pc

You should now be booting from your USB flash drive on the Mac OS X host using VirtualBox, while retaining the ability to boot from the drive natively as well.

How to Boot From a USB Flash Drive in VirtualBox published under USB Virtual Machine Emulation