Thats why it is recommended to create a backup of your drive before you reformat wd my passport for windows or mac. I wanted to load some movies onto the drive by the usb connection, unfortunately my synology does not recognize exfat drives which is the wds format. How to reinstall macos from macos recovery apple support. My question regards a new wd passport 2 tb drive i received as a christmas gift. How to reformat my external hard drive for windows 10.
Although mybook hard drives are capable of working with both macs. Hello, i just recently bought a wd passport wireless to take on holidays. Wd my passport vs for mac version macrumors forums. My passport wont format external drives for mac wd. I want to erase my older my passport and format it for quicken backup only. My passport for mac fits perfectly into the busy life of anyone with an onthego digital life. The my passport for mac portable drive is trusted to store the massive amounts of photos, videos and music you love. About your wd drive my passport for mac user manual 2. How to fix wd my passport for mac hard drive not mounting. However, all of the solutions can be divided into two types. Can you reformat it without losing all of your data.
My passport studio works with firewire 800 and usb 2. Password protection with hardware encryption the my passport for mac drives builtin 256bit aes hardware encryption with wd security software helps keep your content private and safe. Plugged it back into my mac, time machine doesnt recognize it, and the mac only shows the wd unlocker on the desktop instead of it being a separate hd or disc. Please see for additional information on this particular issue. Dec 16, 2012 theres an important difference between these wd drives apart from formatting and colour, which theluggage alluded to my passport for mac works with usb 2 and 3.
Cant get windows to view my 1tb my passport ext hd neowin. How to reformat passport external hard drive from read only to read and write for use with mac computersimportant. Two easy methods to format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac. To format or reformat an external hard drive on mac, youll need the builtin disk management tool called disk utility. It is possible to reformat the drive and keep your files by formatting your drive and then using a data recovery tool to restore your information. I would think that nothing is wrong physically because. How to reformat passport external hard drive from read only to. The my passport ultra has been formatted for the windows operating system to provide plugandplay storage.
You can set the name to whatever you like, but set the format to mac os extended journaled and set the scheme to guid partition map, then. If you want to use the drive with a windows computer, see reformatting the drive and troubleshooting. Physical description as shown in figure 2, the my passport ultra for mac drive has. If you want to use the drive with a mac computer, see reformatting the drive and troubleshooting. It maintains compatibility with pc operating systems which requires reformatting, and it is similar in functionality and performance to the seventh generation my.
Choose either apfs or mac os extended journaled to format as a mac volume. Jun 22, 2017 my wd my passport for mac has stopped showing in my disk utilities and in finder. However, if first aid is unable to fix wd my passport for mac hard drive not mounting error, the last solutions is to reformat the hard drive. My passport wont format external drives for mac wd community. Mac os extended journaled file system is how its referred to on your mac. After tearing my hair out all evening trying to reformat this stupid drive, it turns out wd has decided to include hidden partitions that make reformatting it almost impossible. If a wireless network is available, you can choose it from the wifi menu in the menu bar. Its sleek style is fun and fits comfortably in the palm of your hand, so you can easily take your treasured content everywhere you go. Rather than send it back, id like to format it for my macbook air. Whether you need to know how to format wd my passport for your mac. Fix wd my passport for mac not showing upnot working on mac. With wd discovery software, you can also work across both mac and pc. I tried to follow your way of reformatting as i am using it on mac. Since mac os x and windows use totally different file systems, the way.
My passport for mac not detectable on windows 7 with exfat. Ive tried using disk utility to erase the drive, partition it and even tried to redownload. Just activate password protection and set your own. Use unformat to recover data from how to format my wd my passport for mac on to windows 10 laptop after quick format,full format. With the help of the wd discovery software, download the ntfs driver for the mac operating system so that reformatting is not required. Its lights are flashing and i can hear a soft whirring noise. My passport for mac portable hard drive, with the wd security and wd drive.
So if you want to use usb 3 you need the silver mac version. Mar 03, 2016 i mistakenly ordered the wd my passport ultra drive for windows instead of my passport for mac. How to reformat a mybook external hard drive on mac osx. I have a western digital my passport hard drive in my usage for the last 3 years at my workplace.
How to erase my passport and reformat wd portable drives. You can format wd passport for windows with compatible file system to solve this. Oct 06, 2016 how to force a hard drive to unmount for formatting in mac os x disk utility. The my passport for mac drive includes usbc and usba cables, so you can save tomorrows content with the mac computers of both today and yesterday. How to reformat my passport ultra hard drive on mac 2017. Formatted for mac os x, reformatting required for windows wd 2tb black my passport for mac portable external hard drive usb 3. Jan 23, 2009 two stupid, im thinking follow up questions. How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc.
Once thats done, double leftclick on the mac hd, the internal mac hard drive visible on the topright corner of the desktop screen. Formatting a wd my passport for a macbook air macrumors forums. Reformatting a western digital my passport hard drive to function well on windows and macintosh systems is neither timeconsuming nor technologically demanding. How to force a hard drive to unmount for formatting in mac os. Disk utility on mac supports several file system formats. My wd my passport for mac has stopped showing in my disk. Then, you need to choose the best file system for your external hard drive and follow these steps. And thanks to my endless knack for figuring things out on my own, ive clogged up the majority of them with useless software, damaging commands, adware, duplicate files and just about anything else you can add to a hard drive to slow it to a crawl. Wd 2tb external hard drive setup and driver download. There are plenty of reasons for having ubuntu run on a mac, including the ability to broaden your technology chops, learn about a different os, and run one or more osspecific apps. Western digital 2tb external hard drive wifi the western digital 2tb external hard drive is designed with a massive capacity to connect 8 different devices and store the data at the same time. A mac hd version will cost more, because manufacturers know mac users are used to paying more for computer stuff seriously. How to format an external drive to work seamlessly. Youll find below the ten quick steps, using words and pictures.
In the main console, locate the partition on the wd passport external hard drive, right click it and choose format partition. Want to reformat my wd passport so i can use it on a pc. Windows computer, see reformatting the drive and troubleshooting. Jun 19, 20 cant get windows to view my 1tb my passport ext hd. I am at my wits end here, i have a wd my passport hard drive which is no longer allowing access to information stored in it. How to reformat an external hard drive without losing your. Format wd hdd with software, launch easeus partition master, rightclick the partition on your external.
The mac versions of my passport cost a little more than their windows equivalents. Reformat macbook pro to make brand new again josh benson. You can find effective ways here to format wd my passport for mac and pc to fat32 or exfat file system with the help of the professional format tool easeus partition master or other solutions. Wd 2tb black my passport for mac portable external hard drive usb 3. I forgot my password which is why i need to reformat it, but like i said, i got a mac so now i want it for this too. Find the best my passport external hard drives for mac based on what customers said. How to force a hard drive to unmount for formatting in mac.
According to the manual these are compatible with mac os x. File system formats available in disk utility on mac apple. Physical description as shown in figure 2, the my passport drive has. A new windows explorer window opens, on the left side. This software would allow your pc to see, read and write to the. How do you configure a wd my passport to work with mojave. File system formats available in disk utility on mac. The best thing you can do is to use professional data recovery software like iskysoft that can help you get back your important files from windows and mac. Thank you for helping us maintain cnets great community. Wd my book western digital, my passport wd, we my cloud,wd my passport ultra, how to format so its compatible with windows y mac osx.
Included wd discovery software connects to popular social media and cloud. There is a video after that you can watch as extra help. I know very little about reformatting possible nothing so i dont want to mess it. Jan 30, 2020 macos recovery makes it easy to reinstall the mac operating system, even if you need to erase your startup disk first. Requires reformatting for mac os x operating system. Can i format the hdd from my wd passport wireless without. Installation get online installation help for your wd product or software.
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. Its probably in ntfs format so you cant write to it from the mac. Of course, there are more than two methods that can help you format a wd my passport portable hard drive under mac os. Reformat apfs to mac os extended with disk utility. If thats true, i need to copy my previous back up onto my hd, reformat the passport, copy the old backup on to the passport and then do the back up. The most notable upgrades with this line are an increase in maximum capacity 3tb, customization options, improved backup capabilities, and a line of models designed specifically for use with mac os. Select your wd my passport on the sidebar, choose erase. My passport ultra for mac is formatted for time machine and ready to deliver plugandplay storage out of the box. You dont require any thirdparty software to format your wd my passport with fat or exfat.
Western digital produces a line of external hard drives called the mybook. But, what if you have already found yourself in the data loss situation. For mac computers, go to the apple menu and select software update. How to format a startup drive for a mac if you want to format a drive that will be used as your macs startup disk, the procedure is a little different from formatting it for use as a secondary. On this popup screen, choose ntfs, fat32 or exfat among listed file systems and click ok. I just want to reformat it and wd software would not allow me to.
Wd discovery software can also be used to manage your drive settings such as reformatting, led control and more. The my passport for mac drive works with apple time machine, and included wd security software helps protect your data. When i started the back up with super duper, it told me the passport wasnt formatted correctly and needed to be erased and reformatted see attachment. If you using windows 10 right click the windows logo start button bottom left. Macyourself blog archive how to format a drive for mac and pc. When your wd passport formatted with a file system not recognized by windows operating system like ext2, ex3 or ext4, you wont be able to access and open it. Just recently i updated my mac operating system to os x lion, not realizing that lion does not support quicken 2007. The my passport for mac is wds newest release, and was designed to specifically serve mac users with the same outofthebox functionality that the my passport ultra offers. Reformat my passport ultra mac or pc how to reformat my passport ultra for mac format hard drive for use on mac. How can i make my wd passport workable under windows computer. If first aid was unable to fix the errors in the wd my passport, which is quite common, the file system of this drive could be seriously corrupted and you have to fix the wd my passport for mac not showing up on mac problem by reformatting. You cant reformat them for use as just a normal drive with linux. Dec 03, 2007 can i reformat my wd passport external hd to work for a mac if it was used for a pc first. Jan 27, 2019 it appears the issue has since been fixed and disks formatted exfat on os x 10.
Here is a stepbystep guide on how to format wd passport. I show you how to format a western digital or any brandhard drive for use on any device be it a mac, pc, linux, ps3, xbox 360, etc. So, i followed the steps i went into disk utility, selected my passport, clicked erase, selected os x extended journaled as the format, and. Back up all important information on the drive before beginning. Jun 15, 2015 wd has released a seventh generation of their popular my passport line of external hard drives. My passport for mac portable storage works straight out of the box with mac devices which makes it easy to get going quickly drag and drop files to and from, or setup a backup routine with apples time machine software to help protect your photos, videos, music and documents. The other type of wd my passport hard drive comes in a for mac version. How to force a hard drive to unmount for formatting in mac os x disk utility. Hello all, today i bought the 4tb my passport from best buy. Should i reformat my passport to ntfs tech support guy. You may be a linux developer and realize that the mac is the best platform to use, or you may simply want to try out ubuntu. After successful formatting, you can directly save or move files to it like any other external hard drive.
Just to clarify, whats the model of your mac, and what operating system are you running. But reformatting will delete all data stored on the hard drive, and most of the time, many important files are stored on the wd my passport for mac hard drive. Easily use your wd my passport for mac and windows in 7 steps. Oct 15, 2015 hi guys, i hope someone here could help me with a problem that im facing i recently bought a passport for mac and it came formatted as mac os extended journal the hard drives behaviour is normal on my osx lion, however when i plugged the hard drive in when running windows 7 via boot camp, the os reported that the device hard drive failed to install, and when i checked what seem to cause. With wd discovery software, you can also work across both mac. Can i reformat my wd passport external hd to work for a mac.
I can find it under device manager and disk management but thats it. I have never experienced any problem with this har d drive. I now have a pc with windows 8 and it does not find the hard drive in explorer. My passport ultra 2tb hard drive is inaccessible and i am unable to reformat. I have updated this tutorial to include macos sierra which is a free download from apple for all mac users. More space for itunes and photos ssdbased mac computers are great, but sometimes you need more space for your evergrowing itunes and photos collections. The my passport for mac drives builtin 256bit aes hardware encryption with password protection helps keep your digital lifes contents secure.
Buy wd 2tb silver my passport for mac portable external hard drive usb 3. Whats more, you can share digital files between mac and windows system easily. Hi all, i have a 4tb wd my passport and have struggled to connect to it and retrieve files from it since upgrading to high sierra. Easily format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac. Mac ready my passport ultra for mac is formatted for time machine and ready to deliver plugandplay storage out of the box. List of all wd firmware and software available for download. Format wd my passport for mac and pc with ms dos fat 32 or exfat file system and share digital files between mac and windows system easily. Preparing your backup disk for a backup of os x carbon copy. Connect your western digital my passport hard drive to your windows pc through the usb cable.