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.
Mac OS 10.11+ Launch Disk Utility by opening Finder and navigating to Applications Utilities Disk Utility. If you are unable to boot into the users account then you can run Disk Utility from either the recovery partition or from the netboot environment. Click on the 'First Aid' button while selecting the hard drive on the left panel. To browse the Disk Utility User Guide, click Table of Contents at the top of the page. If a disk in a disk set on Mac fails or is missing. Keyboard shortcuts. Click “Restore,” and Disk Utility will start the copying process. This can take fairly long, depending on the speed of your external drive and its connection to your Mac, so it’s best to have a fast hard drive with Thunderbolt, USB-C, or USB 3.0 connections. And that’s it! Nov 06, 2019 Mac HD Mac HD - Data. Then I reinstalled my apps and ended up with three volumes (included space used for comparison) Mac HD uses 10.56GB Mac HD - Data uses 515.08GB Mac HD - Data uses 774 KB. I went ahead and removed the third (774KB) volume in Disk Utility.
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. 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.
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?
Matrix 3d jewelry design software version 6.3 free download. 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. Think or swim for mac.
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.
You can’t reformat a drive in macOS Disk Utility when the Erase button is grayed out. This might happen for a variety of reasons, all of which keep you from erasing or reformatting the drives connected to your Mac.
If your MacBook’s Disk Utility won’t let you erase drives, follow the steps below to fix it.
Contents
- 2 What if the Erase Button in Disk Utility is grayed Out?
- 3 Learn how to reinstall macOS after erasing your Drive
Related:
How to erase or reformat a Drive using Disk Utility
Mac First Aid
Let’s start with a brief explanation of the correct way to reformat or erase drives using your Mac. Feel free to skip this section if you already know how to do it.
You may want to erase your drive as a quick way to create space for new files. Or you might need to reformat it so it works with different operating systems, like Windows, Linux, or even iPadOS.
When you reformat a drive, it also erases all the data on it. So make sure to back up any important files before erasing or reformatting your drives.
When you’re ready, here’s how to erase or reformat drives:
- Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder in your Applications.
- In the sidebar, select the drive you want to erase or reformat.
- Click the Erase button at the top of the window.
- Choose a new name and format for your drive, then click Erase.
- Wait for Disk Utility to erase or reformat your drive, then click Done.
What if the Erase Button in Disk Utility is grayed Out?
You’re probably reading this article because the Erase button was grayed out when you tried to erase or reformat a drive using Disk Utility. Use the steps below to fix it and let us know in the comments which one worked for you.
Disk Utility For Mac 10.10.5
Step 1. Show All Devices and Erase the Parent Drive
By default, Disk Utility only shows the Volumes on your connected drives, rather than the drives themselves. A Volume is the partition or section of a drive you store data in.
Open Disk Utility and select View > Show All Devices from the menu bar. You should see the device names for each of your drives appear in the sidebar.
Select the parent folder for the drive you want to reformat or erase, then click the Erase button again. Take note that when you erase a device, it erases all the Volumes contained within it as well. Original gameboy flash cart.
Step 2. Run First Aid to Repair Your Drive Before Erasing It
Disk Utility has a First Aid feature that fixes all kinds of issues related to your drives: slow performance, corrupt files, or unexpected behavior. When you run First Aid, it scans the entire disk for errors and lets you know if there are any it can’t repair.
Open Disk Utility and select the drive you want to erase from the sidebar. At the top of the window, click the First Aid button, then agree to Run First Aid.
The length of time First Aid takes to run depends on the size of your drive, how much data is on it, and how many errors need fixing.
Combine this step with the previous one to run First Aid on the parent device for your drive, as well as the individual Volumes.
Step 3. Boot Into Recovery Mode to Erase Your Startup Disk
If you’re trying to reformat or erase the startup disk on your Mac, you need to boot into Recovery Mode first. The startup disk is the main hard drive on your computer: the one that stores macOS and all your data. It’s not usually possible to erase the startup disk because your Mac is using it to run macOS.
Recovery Mode is a special partition on your Mac you can use to restore from a backup, reinstall macOS, get online support, or erase your startup disk.
You should back up your Mac before trying to erase or reformat it.
When you’re ready to boot into Recovery Mode, restart your Mac and hold Cmd + R while it boots up. Keep holding both keys until you see an Apple logo or hear a startup sound.
You should see a macOS Utilities window appear. Select Disk Utility from this window and try erasing or reformatting your drive again.
Learn how to reinstall macOS after erasing your Drive
After erasing or reformatting the startup disk—if that was your goal—you need to reinstall macOS before you can use your Mac again. This is because the original macOS installation was on the startup disk you just erased.
Boot into Recovery Mode once more to reinstall macOS or follow our guide to factory reset any Mac. When you reinstall macOS, your Mac behaves as though it’s a brand new machine, with no data on it waiting for you to set it up.
Dan is a freelance writer based in South West England.
He spent two years supervising repairs as a Genius Admin for Apple Retail and uses that knowledge to keep our troubleshooting guides up to date.
Long before that, Dan turned to Apple products from a musical background. Having owned iPods for years, he bought a MacBook to learn sound recording and production. It was using those skills that he gained a first-class Bachelor of Science in Sound Technology.