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And if your existing storage isnt sufficient, weve rounded up thebest external hard driveshere.

Although it appears simple, rebooting devices often fixes lots of technical issues.

External hard drive

Update or reinstall drivers

Outdated or corrupt drivers can prevent your external hard drive from being recognized.

Note that formatting a drive will erase all content on it:

4.

Use Windows CheckDisk

The Windows CheckDisk utility helps to troubleshoot issues related to disks.

WD My Passport with laptop

Check that your external hard drive is connected securely to your Mac:

2.

Remember that formatting the drive will erase its content:

4.

A screenshot of the Device Manager tool on Windows, with red arrows pointing at Disk drives and Update driver.

A screenshot of the Disk Management tool on Windows, with red arrows pointing at a hard drive and at Format.

A screenshot of the Command Prompt tool on Windows with a red arrow pointing at chkdsk /f E:.

A screenshot of the Disk Management tool on Windows, with a red arrow pointing at a gray box beside the hard drive.

A screenshot of the Disk Management tool on Windows, with red arrows pointing at a hard drive and at Change Drive Letter and Paths.

LaCie Rugged USB-C External Hard Drive

A screenshot of the System Settings on Mac, with red arrows pointing at General and at Software Update.

A screenshot of the Disk Utility tool on Mac, with red arrows pointing at an external hard drive, at Erase, and at the Format dropdown.

A screenshot of the Disk Utility tool on Mac, with red arrows pointing at an external hard drive and at First Aid.