WD My Passport 4TB Not Mounting on Mac – Disk Utility Shows Corruption

If your WD My Passport 4TB external drive fails to mount on your Mac and Disk Utility returns a corruption error during First Aid, it’s likely the drive’s file system is damaged. This can happen due to improper ejection, power loss, physical shock, or failing drive sectors. While the drive hardware may still be functional, the corrupted volume may prevent macOS from recognizing or mounting it properly.

Here’s what you can do—step-by-step.

1. Confirm the Drive Is Detected

Before diving into fixes, ensure your Mac sees the hardware:

Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility

Click View > Show All Devices

Look for your WD My Passport under the list on the left

If it appears with a volume name grayed out, that means macOS sees the drive but cannot mount it. If it doesn’t appear at all, the issue could be physical or with the USB interface (try different cables or ports).

2. Try Mounting the Drive Manually

Sometimes the automatic mount fails, but manual mounting works:

Select the volume (grayed out)

Click Mount in the toolbar

If this fails, and you get a corruption message, the file system is likely damaged.

3. Run First Aid Again (With Caution)

If you haven't already:

Select the parent drive (not just the volume)

Click First Aid

Wait for it to complete

If it reports errors like “The volume could not be repaired” or “File system check exit code is 8,” the file system (likely HFS+ or APFS) is too corrupted for Disk Utility to fix.

4. Use Terminal for Deeper Inspection

Open Terminal (Applications > Utilities) and run:

diskutil list

This shows all connected drives. Find your WD My Passport (likely /dev/disk2, but check size/label to confirm).

Now run:

Replace with your correct disk ID. fsck is a more advanced disk repair tool than Disk Utility, though still limited.

5. Try Third-Party Disk Repair Tools

If fsck and Disk Utility fail, try specialized tools like:

Stellar Volume Repair

Drive Genius

TechTool Pro

These can sometimes rebuild or repair corrupted volumes that macOS can’t handle natively.

6. Recover Data Before Formatting

If the data is important and repairs have failed:

Use data recovery software like:

Disk Drill

PhotoRec/TestDisk

Stellar Data Recovery

These tools scan the raw drive sectors and can extract data even from unmounted partitions

Important: Do not reformat before attempting recovery, as that can reduce the chances of data recovery success.

7. Last Resort: Reformat the Drive

If data recovery is not needed or has already been completed:

Go to Disk Utility

Select the drive (not volume)

Click Erase

Choose format: APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

Confirm and reinitialize the drive

This will wipe all data and create a new file system that macOS can mount.

Conclusion

If your WD My Passport 4TB drive is failing to mount and Disk Utility reports corruption, it's likely the file system is damaged but the drive may still be functional. Use Terminal and recovery software for deeper troubleshooting or recovery before erasing. Always eject external drives properly to prevent future corruption.