The 4tb capacity offers plenty of room for storage, while the usbc and usba connectivity enable compatibility with all mac devices. Try wd advanced format utility alternative easeus external hard drive formatter to format disk while wd external drive format failed with wd quick formatter tool. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop. 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. Does wd elements work with mac by default, a wd elements hdd cannot work on mac computers as they are formatted in ntfs format. Instead, you can also click on the mount icon beside the drive to mount it immediately. How to format an external drive to work with mac from ntfs to mac os extended. Just activate password protection and set your own personalized password using wd discovery. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. Select the unmountable wd external hard drive and click erase on the top.
You can format the external hard drive or usb drive to make it compatible with both mac and windows machines. 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 extended. If your wd hard drive is formatted with ntfs, both of diskpart and aomei partition assistant standard can help you to reformat the wd hard drive for mac. Select a format from the format dropdown menu beneath the name text field, for example, mac os x extended journaled or msdos fat. How to partition and format a wd drive on windows and macos. How to format wd external drive for mac apple community. All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your mac. What you should know that formatting will erase all data on the drive. May 21, 2018 in this video tutorial, i show you how to easily format an external hard drive to work on both a mac and a pc.
Fix wd my passport for mac not showing upnot working on mac. Internal hdd and internal ssd drives do not ship preformatted and will need to be partitioned and formatted before being used. Easily format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac. Where, i am seeing instruction links, for mac operating system, for. Click show all devices in view option at the left corner of disk utility. The my passport for mac drives builtin 256bit aes hardware encryption with password protection helps keep your digital lifes contents secure. Do i use disc utilities fat32 or is there some other format. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. How to use photos for mac with an external hard drive imore. Nearest category i could find to my subject interest. If you run into the issue of not having enough space format it to be the ex fat as. Make sure your external hard drive is attached and mounted to.
Give the partition a name and select exfat for the format. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Your disk utility program lives within a folder called utilities. Click the go menu and navigate to your home folder. Name the wd external hard drive in the name text field that appears beneath the erase tab. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them. My passport for mac portable storage is ready right out of the box including all necessary. How to format an external hard drive for a mac youtube. Not sure what extended format is and if its suitable. To format western digital my passport for mac or windows, you can rely on inbuilt applications of your system to format your wd my passport in exfat or fat32 format.
Look for your wd my passport drive on your desktop. 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. It will list all the hard drives and devices on your mac computer. We would like to show you a description here but the site wont allow us. Dec, 2019 you can format the external hard drive or usb drive to make it compatible with both mac and windows machines. Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. You can then rightclick in the empty space and select new simple volume to create a partition and format it with the windows ntfs or fat32 file systems. If your product is not listed above, please visit the product page. Apr 16, 2020 to format western digital my passport for mac or windows, you can rely on inbuilt applications of your system to format your wd my passport in exfat or fat32 format. If western digital included any maccompatible utilities, do not use or install any. About your wd drive my passport for mac user manual 2. Where and with working to reformat my new hd, i have been directed to base support and then knowledge base answer id 3865. Yet when you connect a macformatted drive to windows, youll be informed that you need to format the disk in drive x.
How to partition and format a wd drive on windows and macos external hard drives and external solid state drives come preformatted and ready for use. Wd black 5tb p10 game drive portable external hard drive compatible with ps4 xbox one pc and mac wdba3a0050bbkwesn 4. A western digital external hard drive can be used on both windows and mac osx. It seems the system does not recognize the windows gdrive when dragging the files. If you want to use the drive with a windows computer, see reformatting the drive and troubleshooting. The quickest way to do this is a simple spotlight search. Disk utility is a mac application, you can run it on your mac. As formatting will going to erase everything on your drive and thats why avoid formatting. This format is not supported on mac devices and you will not be able to access the hard drive. How to reformat western digital portable hard drive. 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. I use time machine for backups with this drive and i have not explored the included software.
Pick your wd my passport in the external hard drive list. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing data. Apr 30, 2020 to format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. Before proceeding further, it is recommended to take a backup of your important files. How to format a hard drive to work on mac and pc youtube. Using this format lets you connect this wd drive to a windows or mac computer. Jun 18, 20 if western digital included any mac compatible utilities, do not use or install any. Download wd quick formatter to reformat wd external hard drive to ntfs, fat32, etc in windows 1087. How to erase a disk for mac use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device.
My passport for mac portable storage is ready right out. Luckily, you can easily format wd my passport for your mac. Your exfatformatted drive or partition can now be used for both windows and mac. Then, ill introduce you to workable and easy ways to format wd passport external hard drive, wd elements external hard drive and other external hard drives. Tutorial on how to format a western digital elements harddrive for a mac. Nov 04, 2019 two effective ways to format wd passport for windows. 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. You can find effective ways here to format wd my passport for mac and pc to fat32 or exfat file. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. This is useful if a drive is being used under both operating system osto move files between the two environments. To format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below.
How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. Wd my passport ultra 2tb setup and driver installation. Please keep in mind that reformatting will result in the loss of all the data on the hard drive so make sure you back up your data elsewhere before starting. 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. How to reformat passport external hard drive from read only to read and write for use with mac computersimportant. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. Format wd my passport for mac, 10 quick steps mactakeawaydata. When i try to copy the files from the mac to the windows drive, the computer does not allow as the files do not move. 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. Start the disk utility, located under applications utilities. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac.
Download wd quick formatter to format external drive in. If you want to use the wd passport for a time machine backup, format the disk as mac os extended journaled. Jun, 2018 i have an old g drive formatted with mac. How to format wd my passport for mac and pc easeus. When finished, you can mount your wd external hard drive on mac and use it again. In such a case, its necessary to reformat wd hard drive to make it compatible with mac operating system. Connect the external drive or the usb drive to the mac. For most reasons to erase, including when reformatting a disk or selling, giving away, or trading in your mac, you should erase your entire disk. Two effective ways to format wd passport for windows. 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. If not, click the finder icon on the dock, and the untitled drive will be displayed in the devices section. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods revealed. How to partition and format a wd drive on windows and.
I think it is necessary to reformat the wd portable hard drive and permanently erase my private data. Choose your wd elements external hard drive on your. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. You dont need them and there have been reports of problems associated with their use. Hi, i am going to sell a 2tb wd portable hard drive. For a hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a pc and mac. The my passport for mac drive s builtin 256bit aes hardware encryption with password protection helps keep your digital lifes contents secure. Norio hello, i connect my western digital portable hard drive with my computer.
Also is it ok to erase all the present files on the disc. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. Find low everyday prices and buy online for delivery or instore pickup. Mar 10, 2019 connect an external drive to your mac via usb, usbc, or thunderbolt. Dont close your previous window open to your external drive, as youll need it shortly. In this video tutorial, i show you how to easily format an external hard drive to work on both a mac and a pc. Formatting wd my passport will not only allow you to have full storage of your wd my passport, but will also remove virusinfected files.
Hope this tutorial can help to fix wd external hard drive not mountingshowing uprecognizeddetected on mac. Wd my passport for mac portable external hard drive. Now, i will show you the two methods to format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac. Is there any fast way to reformat the wd portable hard drive and erase all the data on the hard drive. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with. This blue wd my passport portable drive features password protection to. Also, if your current hard drive is more than 5 years old, it probably is nearing the end of its service life and needs to be replaced. This thing is still unknown for many users but doesnt worry its not complex. May 01, 2020 how to erase a disk for mac use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. Select your wd my passport for mac drive from the left sidebar and click the mount button on the top of disk utility window. Dont click the format disk button or windows will erase the contents of the driveclick cancel. Sep 01, 2011 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. How to format wd external drive for mac more less apple footer this site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only.
The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system. You can choose one of the tools to format hard drive to exfat as you like. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Get extra storage space for your files with this wd my passport portable drive for mac. Then your western digital external hard drive is ready to use on your mac and on your windows pc. Format wd elements for mac and pc have your drive for both. Before you get the answer, you must figure out what kind of file system can work well on both the macos and the windows system. Wd security and wd drive utilities software for mac warranty. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system imageseu.
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