External drives and USBs not appearing on iMac desktop until verified in Disk Utility

Greetings, my problem is that external drives and usbs do not appear on desktop when connected, they only appear after I open disk utility and click on Verify in First Aid. No problems after that, but I'm wondering what is causing this. I'm on a late 2013 iMac OSX Yosemite 10.10.5. Had no issues until a week ago.



[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: External drive issue

Earlier Mac models

Posted on Nov 5, 2025 6:12 PM

Reply
4 replies

Nov 6, 2025 3:23 PM in response to den.thed

Hi den.thed, the external drives are formatted for mac, and I occasionally also use them with a 2017 imac. usb sticks I use on both mac and pc. Have had no problems with either until now. I was warned against upgrading from Yosemite because of compatibility issues with the version of pro tools I use, so I'm wary of attempting that. I'm in the process of setting up a mac mini which will no doubt resolve these issues, just need to keep using the imac for the time being on a current music project.

External drives and USBs not appearing on iMac desktop until verified in Disk Utility

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