If you want to use your wd elements drive without any special software on your mac. Okay, now lets start with the method to erase the western digital portable hard drive. The instructions below are for windows 10, but other versions of windows from windows 7 and up can also format an external drive as exfat for use with mac as. How to fix wd hard drive not recognized on mac without. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac.
Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. First to format your wd elements external drive to mac os extended journaled file system. Bonus tip data recovery from formatted hard drive on mac. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Western digital on the other hand has the mybook ultra, which has automatic cloud backup that doesnt work on a mac, and turbo drivers of which everybody who had installed them wasnt too fond of. However, you need to make doubly sure that you complete a quick format.
Step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system. There are specific thirdparty systems, like digital camcorders, and sony playstation 3, which need the drives to be formatted in either fat32 or exfat format to perform read from and. But unfortunately it bit the dust and i decided to get a pc. You can only read your elements external hard drive.
How to format a western digital external hard drive for a mac. This formatting is also known as mac os extended journaled file system. Connect it, power it up, go to disk utility in applicationsutilities, select the wd disk on the left, go to the erase tab, and choose mac os. I have a western digital hard drive that i was using on my mac. Then yes you need to put the wd elements drive in a format your mac can read and write to.
Reformatting 3tb wd my book for mac to windows wd community. Sometimes, there will be a need to learn how to reformat my passport for mac, so once youre acquainted with formatting, you should enlighten yourself on how to reformat wd my passport for mac. How to properly format reformat a hard drive for mac os. But keep in mind that you will be in need of software and proper knowledge of the process.
Today, we will introduce an easy, secure and efficient way to reformat wd portable hard drive. The software should run automatically once you finished the installation process. Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them. Wd portable hard drive reformatting software for windows mac. The only difference between the mac and pc versions is the initial formatting and preinstalled software suite which can be downloaded from western digital. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. A quick format only deletes the organizational structure of the files on the drive, without removing the actual files. Mount wd my passport for mac in disk utility manually. Reformatting a drive on windows is a pretty straightforward process. Because the file system on the wd passport for mac external hard drive is a mac os extended journaled file system. Apple may provide or recommend responses as a possible solution based on the information provided.
Included wd discovery software 2 makes it easy to back up your photos, videos, and documents to the easystore portable drive. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another. For a hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a pc and mac. Or you can choose wipe hard drive to completely delete the hard drive. The wd elements desktop hard drive and the wd my book desktop hard drive and plug and play for windows, so this means it is ready to use as soon as you take it out of the box. I can find it under device manager and disk management but thats it. A western digital wd external hard drive can be used with any computer once it has been formatted by the computers operating system. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the drives on your mac are listed on the lefthand sidebar. Back up all important information on the drive before beginning. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility. When finished, you can mount your wd external hard drive on mac and use it again. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. Reformatting the hard drive really seemed to speed things up and make it work just like the first day i.
Format wd elements for mac and pc have your drive for both. This is useful if a drive is being used under both operating system osto move files between the two environments. The price of hard drives has really come down since you got the one you have. How do i reformat my imac internal hard drive and restore from a time machine backup. Then, you follow these steps to erase western digital portable hard drive. The data recovery tool in question supports all western digital hard disk drives, such as my book pro, my book, wd elements, my book studio, etc. Wd discovery software can also be used to manage your drive settings like reformatting, led control and more. Vishal updated on april 21, 2020 mac hard drive recovery 19 comments 6 min read. Is there any fast way to reformat the wd portable hard drive and erase all the data on the hard drive. All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your mac.
Reformatting a western digital my passport hard drive to function well on windows and macintosh systems is neither timeconsuming nor technologically demanding. After doing so, i was still unable to utilize the drive unable to create new folders, dragdrop anything. Easily format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac. I think it is necessary to reformat the wd portable hard drive and permanently erase my private data. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Getting the mac version saves some time for the mac user. What is important is if you are using a pc you use a pc formatted drive, but if you are using a mac you should use a preformatted for mac drive, it will make your life easier. I have downloaded an ses driver and tried to reformat the drive on my mac as nfts and fat, but it does not seem to help. The version of the western digital external drive sold in a for mac guise does not work on windows.
Hope this tutorial can help to fix wd external hard drive not mountingshowing uprecognizeddetected on mac. If your product is not listed above, please visit the product page. Western digital provides data storage solutions, including systems, hdd, flash ssd, memory and personal data solutions to help customers capture and preserve their most valued data. Jul 19, 2014 how do i reformat my imac internal hard drive and restore from a time machine backup. Then your western digital external hard drive is ready to use on your mac and on your windows pc. In this situation, you can manually mount the hard drive. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. Hi, when i first plugged in my new wd easystore 2 tb portable drive, i installed the necessary software off the drive. Please see the link below for instructions on how to format the drive on a windows computer. When you are a mac user the chances of reformat get higher and when digital external hard drive it arises much more.
Jan 08, 2020 you can only read your elements external hard drive. I have a 3tb hard drive that i removed from a nas that is only showing as 800mb on my mac. How to format wd my passport for mac and pc easeus. I then tried reformatting it by erasing and setting the format from windows nt file system ntfs to mac os extended journaled for my macos sierra version 10. Before you can use it though, you need to properly format or reformat a hard drive so that it will become compatible or readable with the operating system that you are using. The system tells you what key to press during the restart, so pay attention to your screen and be quick at pressing the right key. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Now, i will show you the two methods to format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac. Now either because of time, corruption or because it may have been formatted for a mac when i plug it into my pc i cant access it.
How to format wd external drive for mac apple community. Yes, its recommended to format the drive on a windows computer. If you are running on mac, you will have to reformat the hard drives. In order to reformat wd portable hard drive and permanently erase the data on the wd portable hard drive, we strongly recommend you to use this tool super eraser to help you reformat. It will list all the hard drives and devices on your mac computer. Wait while first aid verifying and fixing possible errors of the wd hard drive. Select the wd portable hard drive you want to erase. A hard drive or hard disk can be used in any type of computer, whether for pc windows or for mac. How to reformat my external hard drive for windows 10.
Rightclick the hard drive and choose wipe hard drive. Pick your wd my passport in the external hard drive list. Fix wd my passport for mac not showing upnot working on mac. Formatting a wd external hard drive does not require any additional software. Easily use your wd my passport for mac and windows in 7 steps. How to erase my passport and reformat wd portable drives. Should i just wait until i get the new laptop and attempt to reformat the drive on it. If you have not yet embarked on this project, consider this. In such a case, its necessary to reformat wd hard drive to make it compatible with mac operating system. The first thing you must do is downloading the software aweeraser.
Format your western digital my passport external hard drive to fat32 or exfat format so to transfer the data between a mac and windows system conveniently. Dec 29, 2015 the instructions below are for windows 10, but other versions of windows from windows 7 and up can also format an external drive as exfat for use with mac as well. Sometimes, hard drives cannot be automatically mounted in disk utility, even though mac has detected the hard drive. Wd 2tb black my passport for mac portable external hard drive.
If first aid cant repair the wd hard drive, or disk utility doesnt recognize the volumes of the drive, probably, the. How to reformat an external hard drive without losing your. Not without some third party software or without reformatting. I have an imac 20 mid 2007 with a problematic hard drive. A western digital external hard drive can be used on both windows and mac osx. How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. Disk utility is a mac application, you can run it on your mac. And yes if you want to use your wd elements drive for a time machine backup. Prior to 2010 when i started buying mac, i used to reformat the hard drive on my windows computer once every year or two and do fresh installs of all the software i wanted on it. So its possible that youll see the wd my passport for mac drive not mounting in disk utility. Nov 02, 2016 the only difference between the mac and pc versions is the initial formatting and preinstalled software suite which can be downloaded from western digital.
How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. Select the unmountable wd external hard drive and click erase on the top. Have tried disk utility and terminal diskutil but the hard drive keeps showing at the wrong size. Tutorial on how to format a western digital elements harddrive for a mac. Out of the both its not mac compatible, but you can format it for use. To format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only.
Format wd my passport for mac, 10 quick steps mactakeawaydata. Format hard drive on windows 7 or earlier versions step 1 restart your computer and press f8 or del key to enter the bios settings. Select the unrecognized wd hard drive from the sidebar. Need to reformat wd hard drive for mac if you connect your wd hard drive without reformatting, youll be unable to copy files to the disk as mac read only supports ntfs file system. The reason is perhaps that seagate external hard drive has been well known for a long time as one of the most reliable drives for storing data. I now have a pc with windows 8 and it does not find the hard drive in explorer. Easy steps to erase western digital portable hard drive. How to properly formatreformat a hard drive for mac os. Wd 2tb black my passport for mac portable external hard. How to reformat western digital portable hard drive.
Wd 2tb my passport for mac portable external hard drive, usbcusba wdblpg0020bbkwese wd 2tb my passport portable external hard drive, black wdbyvg0020bbkwesn add to cart. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. How to format a western digital external hard drive for a. Please note that reformatting the drive will erase all the information on the drive.
You can get to know how to reformat wd hard drive for mac and pc from this post, if you need to use a western digital external hard drive, like. A lot of people including you, storing important data on seagate external hard drive instead of on your pcmac hard drive. Click on erase button to permanently erase all data on the western digital portable hard drive. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab.
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