Mac disk not “seen” by Windows (no drive letter)

STEP 1: General MacDrive checks

If you have just installed MacDrive for the first time, please make sure that you have restarted the computer. If you ignore the restart prompt after installing, Mac disks will not be available until the next reboot. This is because our drivers will need to load at the next time Windows boots.

Please make sure you are using the latest version of MacDrive before proceeding. In many cases, updating to the latest version will take care of the issue you are experiencing.

STEP 2: Check that your drive setup is supported

Encryption and Fusion: MacDrive also does not support encrypted disks (e.g. using FileVault), or Fusion drives. Both of these drive types require additional software to be used, and for that reason, require the Mac OS.

STEP 3: Check that Windows recognizes the device correctly

A common cause is failed connectivity on your Windows system.

Please confirm that the drive is visible in the Windows “Disk Management” console. To access the Windows Disk Management console, please do the following:

If your drive is present in “Disk Management” make note of the drive number and proceed to Step 4.

If the drive is not present, please contact the drive vendor for assistance getting your drive recognized as a hardware device on your computer. Mediafour Technical Support is not able to troubleshoot hardware, driver, or connectivity problems, but some issues can be resolved by choosing a different port on your computer, using a different cable, checking for loose connections, connecting directly rather than through an intermediate device (such as a USB hub), or, if your drive allows it, trying a different connection type.

STEP 4: Drive needs repair (HFS+ only)

Another possible cause is file system corruption. To repair such corruption on an HFS+ volume, please try the following solutions:

– If you have MacDrive, you can attempt to repair the drive by going to “C:\Program Files\OWC\MacDrive 11” and double-clicking on “MDDiskRepair.exe”. Then follow the on-screen instructions to check the disk.

Note: In versions older than MacDrive, it is not possible to check a Mac disk unless it is mounted (assigned a drive letter). MacDrive includes a new repair tool which will check for unmounted Mac disks.

If the affected Mac disk does not appear in the list of disks to check, or if you are using MacDrive 8 or prior, we recommend taking the disk to a Mac to check the disk for problems (e.g. Disk Utility included with the Mac OS).

– If the disk is damaged but the corruption is not repairable by the aforementioned utilities consider “Disk Warrior” or “TechTool Pro”. Both are quality, 3rd-party disk repair utilities that may be able to recover the damage file system and the data within.

STEP 5: Contact Support

Please create a technical support ticket with a detailed problem description and information on your computer’s configuration.