External storage devices like SD cards, external hard drives and USB sticks sometimes malfunction. This glitch in these devices might be because of different issues directly affecting these storage devices. Inserting your SD card into your Mac and discovering that your SD card is not showing up can spell doom especially when you have important data on it.
In situations like this, it could mean several things. On one part, it could mean your Mac not reading your SD card. It could also mean the SD card not showing up on Mac is due to a defect on the SD card. In extreme cases, you might have to perform Mac data recovery to save the data on your SD card.
To help to remedy these situations, this article contains some useful and quick solutions to the SD card situation you are facing.
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Table Of Contents
Check SD Card Connection
The very first action you need to take when you notice that your SD card is not showing up is to check the connection. You need to confirm that your SD card is detectable by your Mac. In all cases, the metal part of the SD card should face down and point towards your laptop. Rebooting your laptop after making sure your connection is correct also helps to restart your Mac setup process. This fixes major processing issues your laptop may be having.
If your SD card is still not showing up, you should consider testing it with other devices. This is to ascertain if the SD card is the faulty device or your Mac connection ports.
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Take Advantage of Finder Option
The simple issue might be because your laptop configuration does not include showing an external device connection. Changing the preference will easily solve this issue by using the Finder preference. From Finder, navigate to Preference. Select the external disk option just under the general tab. Do the same action under the sidebar tab.
These actions should prompt your Mac to recognize your SD card. After these actions, if your SD card is still not showing up, that might be a clear indication that your SD card is faulty.
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Restart Your Computer
Restarting your computer helps to restart all processes that might be malfunctioning on your Mac. In most cases, one of the processes that might be malfunctioning could be the recognition of your SD card. Restarting your Mac closes all running processes, clears the cache memory of the computer and restarts the process all over again.
The first thing to do is to unmount your SD card before starting the rebooting process. Next, click on the Apple icon on the top left sidebar and click on the Restart option. Once your Mac is through with the rebooting process, remount your SD card and wait for the prompt indicating that your SD card is available.
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Check Your SD Card Reader
Another important issue you should look out for is Mac not reading your SD card. The latest Apple technology models do not come with an SD card slot. To access your SD card data, you will need to get a third party SD card reader.
Due to this extension, you might have to check your SD card reader properly if your Mac does not recognize your SD card. Irrespective of the fact that you are accessing your SD card from an external device or an inbuilt port, you can check if the card reader is functioning or not.
From your menu bar, navigate to ‘About this Mac’. You should get the ‘System report’ from the ‘About this Mac’ Option. From the ‘Hardware list’, you should see your ‘card reader’ option. If the external SD card reader is working perfectly, you should see the vendor ID under this option. This is another way on how to find SD card on Mac. When you insert your SD card and the information about your SD card is not visible in this section, which is a clear indication that your SD card is broken.
5. Repair Your SD Card
If you are in a situation where you know that your SD card is corrupted, the next point of action is to repair your SD card. If you can access your SD card through the Disk Utility options, there is the hope of fixing your SD card and have it working on your Mac. Through the First Aid option in Disk Utility, you can perform a fix on your SD card.
Through the Application option, navigate to utilities. Here, click and open the Disk Utility. From the left side of your screen, select your SD card and click on the First Aid option from the top of the screen. The First Aid program will run a quick scan of your SD card and perform a possible fix.
In rare cases, this fix usually fails and Disk Utility informs you of this failure. As an option, Disk Utility offers you the choice of backing up your data in Volumes. As a last resort, you will have to reformat the SD card if you still want to use the SD card.
6. Format Your SD Card
Formatting your SD card returns it to its factory default settings with zero data on it. Before formatting your SD card, make sure you perform a data backup before proceeding with this process. From the Disk Utility menu, select your SD card and select Erase option on the top of your screen. Rename your SD card, choose a format and a scheme and click the Erase button.