Wonderloading166

Summary: When plugging your Seagate Backup Plus into a Mac computer, you may find the drive stops working and is not mounting in Disk Utility. Have you been troubled by the issue? This post will give you 7 workable solutions to fix Seagate Backup Plus drive not mounting/working issue on Mac.

Shop for seagate external hard drive for mac at Best Buy. Find low everyday prices and buy online for delivery or in-store pick-up. The setting “Turn off hard disk after” should be set to “Never” while running any SeaTools for Windows test. 3.) Select the Drives to Test. Seagate, Samsung, LaCie, and Maxtor drive models are all supported drives. Please safely remove all other hard drives except the drive.

Seagate Backup Plus external hard drive is often used for Time Machine backup. But many users reported that they were unable to mount Seagate Backup Plus drive on Mac computers. And some say theirSeagate Backup Plus couldn't work on Mac after plugged in. Here is a real example:

'I really need your help. My Seagate Backup plus just stopped getting detected (led not working anymore) with my MacBook Pro 2016 model (with USB Type C to USB 3 connector) suddenly. It was working fine 1 month before. I tried this backup disk with a Windows computer and the LED light is working in that case but I am not able to get it to work with my MacBook Pro anymore. Any idea guys?'

In fact, this issue is very common, especially for those who frequently share the same drive between different computers. This page will help when Seagate Backup Plus drive doesn't work on Mac.

7 solutions to fix Seagate Backup Plus not mounting, not working on Mac

For some reason, Seagate external hard drives could not be recognized by Mac. If you can't mount the Seagate Backup Plus drive in Disk Utility, the hard drive won't work on Mac. And you can't access the data stored on it. So it's very urgent to fix the problem to make it work again.

Here are solutions to the Seagate Backup Plus not working or mounting issue.

1. Have some basic checks

Sometimes, the Seagate Backup Plus drive won't mount on Mac is due to the bad USB port or cable. Thus, once the Seagate Backup Plus drive stops working, you can first do some routine checks as below.

• Step 1. Check if the cable of the Seagate Backup Plus drive is connected properly to your Mac
  If the drive isn't properly plugged in, it will fail to mount as it received not enough or even no power.
• Step 2. Make sure the USB cable is not at fault
  Try using a different USB cable to see if that fixes the problem.
• Step 3. Check if the USB port is damaged
  Plug the Seagate Backup Plus into another USB port if you have another one. Otherwise, insert another external storage device in this USB port.
• Step 4. Check whether the Seagate Backup Plus external hard drive is powered properly
  In general, the current of USB port 2.3 and 3.0 are enough for the most external portable hard drives. But sometimes this amount of current may be insufficient while the drive is spinning up.
• In this situation, you can try to connect the Seagate Backup Plus with a USB Y cable if you have one. And for Seagate Backup Plus Hub and Expansion Desktop, a power adaptor is required for power supply.
• Step 5. Access the drive on other Macs
  Connect the Seagate Backup Plus drive to another Mac computer to see whether it works on that one or not. If the drive works on another Mac computer, there is something wrong with your Mac computer rather than the drive. What you should do is to ask for help from Apple support.
• Step 6. Check if the format of Seagate hard drive is supported by macOS
  For example, a Windows BitLocker encrypted drive will not be working on Mac originally. Your Mac computer is not able to mount it. To fix the problem, you can plug the Seagate Backup Plus into a PC and then access the drive on Windows.

2. Check whether the Seagate Backup Plus is showing up in Disk Utility

To troubleshoot this problem, you first need to know if this Seagate hard drive is detected by your Mac. Open the Utilities folder in your Applications folder. Launch Disk Utility and check the left pane then. If you can't see the external hard drive in macOS, the drive probably has been physically damaged. In that case, you should send the drive to the local repair shop. Otherwise, you can move to the next solution.

3. Check if the Seagate Backup Plus drive is mounted in Disk Utility

If the Seagate Backup Plus is mounted in Disk Utility, you should blame the wrong computer settings or outdated computer. Fortunately, it's easy to fix these issues. Just try solution 4 and solution 5. If the external hard drive is greyed out in Disk Utility, it's not mounted. You can try right-clicking the Seagate Backup Plus and choose the 'Mount' button. If that doesn't work, the drive has some file system problems. Please follow the solution 6 to repair the problem.

4. Show the Seagate Backup Plus on the desktop

If the Seagate external hard drive is mounted in Disk Utility, but it still doesn't show up on Mac. First of all, you should make sure the settings in Finder display drive icons on the desktop.

Step 1: Go to Finder > Preferences > General tab.

Step 2: Select 'External disks' under 'Show these items on the desktop' and then the connected external hard drive will appear on the desktop.

5. Repair Seagate Backup Plus drive via First Aid

Seagate Backup Plus not mounting issue on Mac can be caused by file system problems. Disk Utility's First Aid is a built-in tool on Mac to deal with errors related to disks, such as file system corruption. So you can try to fix the unmountable/corrupted Seagate Backup Plus external hard drive in Disk Utility by following the steps below.

Step 1: Go to Utilities Disk Utility.

Step 2: Click 'View' in the top menu bar (Or click 'View' on the top window). Then select 'Show All Devices'.

Step 3: Select the Seagate Backup Plus external hard drive from the left sidebar.

Step 4: Click 'First Aid' on the top of the Disk Utility window.

Step 5: Click 'Run' to perform hard disk diagnostics and fix the not mounting/not working Seagate Backup Plus.

6. Update the software on Mac

Software updates keep your computer and programs secure, deal with quite a few bugs, and provide new features. Out-of-date software can cause a variety of issues. It's possible that the operating system will become sluggish and the connected device may not function properly. Fortunately, you can easily update the software on Mac.

Case 1. Update the software on macOS Mojave or Catalina. If you upgrade to macOS Mojave or macOS Catalina, you should choose 'System Preferences' from the Apple menu, then click 'Software Update' to check for updates. If any updates are available, click 'Update Now' to install them.

Case 2. Update the software on earlier macOS versions. Just launch the Mac App Store, click the 'Update' tab on the top and then choose the 'Update All'.

7. Fix the not mounting or working Seagate Backup Plus drive by reformatting

If First Aid failed on the external hard drive, it might have some serious errors that are beyond its reparation capability. In that case, you need to recover lost data from the Seagate Backup Plus external hard drive as soon as possible.

Step 1. Recover lost data from the unmountable/corrupted Seagate Back Plus

iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is free external hard drive data recovery software. It can easily recover files when the hard drive is not working or mounting on Mac. Also, it canrecover deleted photos and lost data from formatted drives, unreadable drives, corrupted drives, and recover deleted/lost partitions, etc. It's compatible withmacOS 10.15/10.14/10.13/10.12/10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.

1. 1. Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on Mac.
2. 2. Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
3. 3. Select the Seagate Backup Plus and click the 'Scan' button to scan for all lost data.
4. 4. Preview the searching results, choose files you want to get back, and click the 'Recover' button.

Here is a short video tutorial which shows you how to recover lost data from unmountable/corrupted external hard drives:

Step 2: Reformat the Seagate Backup Plus to make it work

External Hard Drive Seagate For Mac Hard Drive

After recovering data from the unmounted Seagate Backup Plus, you can now go to Disk Utility and reformat it without worrying about data loss.

• Steps to reformat Seagate Backup Plus external hard drive

If unfortunately, you can't reformat the Seagate Backup Plus drive, it must have physical issues. In this case, you have to look for help from a local data recovery company.

Bonus Part: Introduction to different Seagate Backup Plus drives

You probably use a Seagate desktop drive like Backup Plus Hub and Expansion. Or you could use a Backup Plus Portable drive like Ultra Touch and Slim. No matter which Seagate Backup Plus drive you choose, it could not work on the Mac for some reason.

Therefore, it's important to know the differences between those Seagate Backup Plus drives. This helps you to use the Seagate Backup Plus drive more correctly and efficiently, and then avoid hard disk corruption.

1. 1. Seagate Backup Plus Hub: This Seagate Backup Plus Desktop drive has large capacities with cross-platform compatibility, which means you don't have to format the drive for both Mac and Windows again. It's an all-in-one data hub and recharging station for tablet, smartphone and camera.
2. 2. Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch: Backup Plus Ultra Touch portable hard drives feature password protection and hardware encryption, USB-C compatibility, and file sync. You can't open the Seagate Backup Plus drive on Mac until it's unlocked. Moreover, an NTFS for Mac software is needed to use Backup Plus Ultra Touch on Mac, as it's preformatted with NTFS.
3. 3. Seagate Backup Plus Slim: Seagate Backup Plus is small enough for a loaded laptop bag. It's an ideal external hard drive with easy portability and enough storage space. But avoid dropping your Seagate Backup Plus drive during transportation, in case it's damaged and not working.
4. 4. SeagateBackup Plus Portable: Backup Plus portable drives offer easy-to-use software tools like Seagate Dashboard, so that you can schedule automatic backup and mirror folders easily.

Conclusion

Install Seagate External Hard Drive

No matter what caused Seagate Backup Plus not mounting, working, or readable issue on Mac, such as logical problems and physical damages, the most important thing is to back up important data or recover lost data with free Mac data recovery software. iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is a powerful and reliable data recovery tool on macOS which supports various external drives, including external hard drives, SD cards, USB flash drives, etc.

If you have any suggestions to solve this issue or experience any questions when using iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac, please feel free to let us know.

Seagate External Hard Drive For Mac Review

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.

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?

1. Open the Finder and click Go at the upper right of your desktop, then choose Utilities.
2. Find Disk Utility and open it.
3. Select your Seagate external hard drive in the left sidebar of Disk Utility.
4. Then you can see Windows NT File System on the right.
5. 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.

Seagate External Hard Drive For Mac Software

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. Click to see more errors of the Seagate external hard drive not showing up on Windows.

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:

1. Open Disk Utility.
2. Select the read-only Seagate external hard drive on the left window.
3. Click First Aid in the top center and choose Run to repair this disk.

Solution 2: Reformat Seagate external hard drive

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.

External Hard Drive Seagate For Mac Seagate

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.

1. Open Disk Utility as you did before.
2. Select the read-only Seagate external hard drive in the left sidebar.
3. Click the Erase button in the top center of Disk Utility.
4. Fill in name, format, and scheme when the pop-up asks.
5. 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.