Summary: SD card not showing up on Mac indicates you can't see the SD card on desktop, in Finder, or Disk Utility. This post will tell you how to fix SD card not showing up on Mac.

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It's a common problem that SD card not showing up when connected to Mac. Then, where you can find the SD card on Mac? By checking the following lists, you'll know how to find and open an SD card in these cases:

• 1. SD card not showing up on Mac desktop.
• 2. SD card not showing up in Mac Finder
• 3. SD card showing up in Disk Utility but not mounting
• 4. SD card not showing up in Mac Disk Utility
• 5. Files on SD card not showing up on Mac

SD card not showing up on Mac desktop, how to fix?

By default, the detected external disks will be mounted on the desktop of Mac. This setting works for SD cards, memory cards, external hard drives, USB flash drives and much more. However, sometimes such settings may have been changed by accident. As a result, the external drive won't show up on Mac as you expected.

Here is how to change the settings showing SD cards, so that you can find and open the SD card on Mac desktop.

• 1. To show the SD card on Mac's desktop, open Finder.
• 2. Click on the Finder at the top menu of your Mac and choose Preferences….
• 3. Click on the General tab.
• 4. Check the External disks option.

Then, you'll be able to see the SD card on the Mac desktop.

SD card not showing up in Mac Finder, how to fix?

All attached and detected internal disks and external disks can be accessed in the sidebar of Finder. If your SD card is not showing up in the Finder, you can also check if the Finder Preferences have been set up properly.

• 1. Open Finder.
• 2. Click on the Finder at the upper left of your Mac and choose Preferences….
• 3. Click on the Sidebar tab.
• 4. Check External disks option under Locations so that you can locate SD card on Mac's Finder.
• 5. Launch the Finder and check if you can find the SD card showing up in the Finder sidebar.

If the SD card is still not showing up, the storage devices might be hidden by accident. Here is how to unhide the SD card.

• 1. After you properly connected the SD card to your Mac, wait a second so that Mac can recognize the SD card.
• 2. Then open the Finder by clicking the smile face on your desktop.
• 3. Find Locations in the left sidebar. If no storage device is listed here, the SD card is hidden in the Finder.
• 4. Simply point your mouse at the Locations, and then click Show. Then your SD card will show up and the option will become Hide.

Then the SD card will appear in the Finder. But if you still cannot see it on the desktop and in the Finder, where else to find the SD card on Mac? You can check if the SD card is showing up in Disk Utility.

SD card showing up in Disk Utility but not mounting, how to fix?

One case is that the SD card is showing up in Disk Utility, but it's grayed out. The SD card is not mounting. That's probably the reason why you can't view SD card on your Mac.

Though the unmounted SD card might suffer from SD card corruption, luckily, the SD card is recognized by Mac Disk Utility. So, you can try thoese solutions to fix the corrupted SD card, which helps mount SD card on Mac.

Solution 1: Mount the SD card manually

You can right-click on the SD card and choose the Mount icon beside it, or click on the Mount button on the top of Disk Utility window. Either way, you can mount the card and access pictures, videos or other files stored on it.

Solution 2: Repair the SD card with First Aid

If the SD card is showing up but you can't mount the SD card manually, then the SD card is corrupted for some reason. An effective strategy is to repair it with First Aid in Disk Utility. First Aid can repair disk-related issues on Macs, which include SD cards failing to show up on your Mac.

To use First Aid:

Step 1: Launch Disk Utility by going to Launchpad and then Others.

Step 2: Select the SD card that happens to be unmountable and click First Aid at the toolbar.

Now, sit back and wait for the repair process to finish. Hopefully, it works its magic.

Solution 3: Format your SD card

If you still have not any luck in getting your Mac to mount the SD card successfully, it's time to reformat it. Reformatting gives the corrupted SD card a chance to rebuild the disk structures. It is a very sound strategy to solve most of SD card problems like SD card not showing up on Mac properly.

• How to format an SD card on Mac?

But before you go any further, you need to pause to think about the data stored on your SD card. Reformatting will erase all of the data stored on the SD card and leave you a blank SD card. So, do you have any data on the SD card that you are desperate to keep? If you have, you should rescue files off the SD card first.

If you have performed a regular Time Machine backup of your SD card files beforehand, you should be able to recover lost data from Time Machine.

If not, you should utilize a reliable and trusted piece of SD card data recovery software to recover lost data first. iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac, for example, is highly recommended here. Keep reading to see what it can do for you.

• How to recover data from SD card on Mac?

SD card not showing up in Disk Utility, how to fix?

By default, you will see all disks and volumes at the left sidebar in Disk Utility window. But if the settings are changed somehow, you can't see the SD card in Disk Utility. Then you might think your SD card is not showing up here.

Try these steps to make the SD card visible in Disk Utility.

1. Launch Disk Utility.

2. Click View at the top menu bar.

3. Choose Show All Devices.

4. Check if your SD card shows up in Disk Utility.

If you still see the SD card not showing up in Disk Utility, another option is to restart your Mac. A simple restart often can fix this problem.

However, if both solutions fail to show up your SD card in the Disk Utility, you can try to connect it to a Windows PC. Then you can check if Windows disk management can recognize it. If unfortunately, the SD card is not showing up on Windows PC either, likely, your SD card or card reader is physically damaged.

If SD card reader not working

You can try another card reader to access the SD card. If it's recognized and working, then it's the old card reader that stops your SD card from showing up. Using other media devices like a camera and accessing the SD card via USB port would be a solution.

If SD card is physically failed

If you have important files stored in this SD card, please send it to a local data recovery specialist for help. If not, buy a new one and replace it.

Files on SD card not showing up on Mac, what to do?

Another trouble you might find that your SD card is detected by your Mac but your pictures or videos files don't show up. It is common when you connect an SD card from a digital camera or a mobile phone. We also have included three quick solutions here to help you out.

1. Try a different card reader, a different USB port, even a different Mac computer or operating system and see if the pictures or videos on the SD card will show up. If yes, you're suggested copying the pictures, videos and other files off the SD card.

2. Check if you have set up your Mac to hide files. You can follow the detailed steps to recover and show hidden files on Mac.

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3. Recover data from SD card with a data recovery software, such as iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.

• How to recover data from SD card on Mac?

Understanding why SD card not showing up on Mac

Some users connect SD cards directly to the SD slot (if any) on their MacBook Air or MacBook Pro. And some access it through an external SD card reader. But either way, the SD card should be detected by the computer and then appear in Finder, on desktop, and in Disk Utility. However, sometimes, it seems that Mac doesn't see the SD card because you can't find it anywhere.

Why isn't the SD card showing up on Mac then? Well, many factors are possible. And some might leave your Mac not recognizing the SD card.

You use the SD card in the wrong way. When you insert the card into a card slot, make sure that the metal contacts face down and point toward the card reader. If you plug it in the wrong direction, the SD card won't show up and the card slot will be damaged. So, it's important to learn how to use SD cards on Mac in the right way.

Your card reader is out of date. Many SD card manufacturers like Lexar and Sandisk produce new types of memory cards with new features all the time. But your old card reader may not read new designed SD cards. You can't open the SD card on Mac computer until you replace it with a new SD card adapter.

The SD card format is not compatible with your card reader. Many users need an extra adapter to access their memory cards like Standard SD, SDHC, SDXC, MMC, and Micro SD cards. But different card readers have different tech specifications. So, make sure that the card reader conforms to the SD card's transfer rate, read-write speed, dimension, type, storage capacity, etc.

Other reasons. SD card not showing up on Mac could be caused by virus infection, macOS system error, or even an SD card corruption.

What's more, you should also examine the SD card carefully to see if it is overly dusty or greasy. If so, you can give it a quick wipe down with a clean, dry cloth and try again. Alternatively, you can try another SD card reader/slot to decide which one is to be blamed for the issue.

Conclusion:

Hopefully the 'SD card not showing up on Mac' issue has now been solved after you have followed our instructions. If you say 'SD card not showing up on Mac' but actually you mean the SD card can't be mounted, simply recover data from the SD card with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac and then reformat it.

Many a time you want to create a bootable device for your new notebook, Netbook, or laptop. Nowadays, most of the electronic devices come with compactness. This gives rise to a number of notebooks that are manufactured without a CD/DVD drive. In such devices, you have to make use of either a flash drive or a memory card with high storage capacity.

Further here, you can learn to make bootable SD/SDHC card or USB drive for your Windows or Mac computer. Some of the SD cards or SDHC cards come with high storage sizes and are compatible with almost all the relevant devices. But many devices are only compatible with the SD card for booting.

Find out the safest way to create a bootable SD card for Mac and Windows. And also learn how to recover data lost while booting.

How to make Bootable SD/SDHC for Mac?

There are a number of simple steps to be followed to create bootable SDHC cards for your Mac OS but it requires an external application. You can also create a bootable SD card on Mac with the help of the terminal. The terminal method doesn’t need any external sources. It just requires an SD card to boot your Mac.

1. Connect the SD/SDHC memory card to the computer.
2. Go to Utility – you can call utility with the help of the finder option of the Launchpad on your computer.
3. Select on the SD card and click Erase.
4. In Format, select MSDOS FAT from the dropdown. Enter a name in the ‘Name’ field. This is optional for the user.
5. Click Erase.
6. Open the Terminal and go to the location of your system image – enter the appropriate location in command.
7. In order to find all the disk drives in the Mac, type – SUDO DISKUTIL LIST – this will display all the connected disks with the Mac system.
8. Make sure about the partitions and the identifiers like disk2, disk3, etc. Try to keep the number of partitions to be just one.
9. To unmount the drive type; SUDO UMOUNT DISK2
10. To unmount the subpartitions type; SUDO DISKUTIL UMOUNT DISK2p1.
11. To make the SD card bootable type in; SUDO DD Bs=4m if= image_name.xyz of dev/disk2

Once you perform the above steps, the command starts executing and then, makes the SD card bootable for Mac operating system.

If you have lost your important data while making the SDHC card bootable. Do not overwrite any information and try to regain all your data from the SD card. Data restoration from SDHC or USB drive is easy with the help of Remo Recover tool.

Utilize Remo Recover software (Windows/ Mac) to easily recover data lost or deleted while booting from SD card or USB drive effortlessly. This tool works with a user-friendly interface and can safely restore more than 300 file formats like photos, videos, raw-images, documents, audio files, Office files, and etc. not only from formatted or corrupted internal hard drive but also from various external devices like USB, external hard drive, SD card, SDHC card and many more. Remo Recover is compatible with all the latest versions of Windows (Windows 10) and Mac (macOS Catalina) operating system.

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How to make SD/ SDHC card or USB drive Bootable for Windows?

The steps to make a bootable SD/SDHC card on Windows 10 or its previous versions comprise of some similar steps. This involves the complete formatting of the SD card and then uploading the OS files to make bootable SD card or SDHC card. Follow the below steps to make a bootable SD card or flash drive for windows;

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1. Connect the SD card or USB drive to your computer – make sure the SD card is empty and you do not have any valuable data on it.
2. Go to Command prompt – In order to do that, go to Start menu and type cmd and hit Enter.
3. Go to diskpart – To do that, go to start menu and type diskpart and press Enter.
4. In the new window, type; list disk – the window should be system32/diskpart.
5. From the list of the disks that your computer has, look for your SD/SDHC card. You can refer to the memory space of the disks to identify your SD card.
   
   • Type; select diskX – the name of the disk you want to use i.e. the SD card.
   • Type; Clean
   • Type; Create Partition Primary
   • Type; Active
   • Type; Format Fs= NTFS Quick
   • Type; Assign
   • Type; Exit
6. Now, mount your ISO file of Windows – Right-click on the image and select mount.
7. Run the following commands:
   
   • G: CD BOOT – G is the iso file drive letter.
   • BOOTSECT.EXE/NT 60 F – F is the SD card or the drive letter for SD/SDHC card.
8. Copy all the files from the ISO image to the memory card.
9. Your SD/SDHC card is now in bootable mode, you can restart your computer and test the bootable SDHC card.

NOTE: While performing any of these steps double-check what you are selecting and what command you are executing. This is because any small mistake can corrupt your SD / SDHC card file system. Sometimes, you can fix your corrupt SD card in easy ways, but not always. There are chances that your card would become useless permanently. Hence, handle your card carefully.

Conclusion

Hope this information on how to boot SD card or USB drive on Windows and Mac operating system is going to help you make bootable SD card. In case of any data loss, you can use the Remo Recover tool to restore data from internal or external devices with ease.