Can i reformat my wd passport external hd to work for a mac if it was used for a pc first. I can read files from it and i can transfer them to my desktop but that is it, i cannot put anything onto it from my mac. Wd my passport drive recovery from mac mac data recovery. Reformat wd my passport ultra for mac not apple community. Can i reformat my wd passport external hd to work for a mac.
In this tutorial, i will show you how to enable or disable write protection for a disk drive or set your volume read only. How to format wd external drive for mac apple community. My passport for mac official product overview youtube. Use a windows pc to format the wd my passport drive first to exfat then try again on the mac. Does western digital my passport for mac work on windows. This can prevent a hard drive from being formatted. I cant believe that wd makes it so difficult for users to hook up a. Ya, i ended up going with the wd my passport for mac, because the price on amazon was the same, and i like the silver look. Free delivery possible on eligible purchases lowest price guaranteed. 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. Wd my passport external is recognized on mac but becomes inaccessible. You may need to repair or reformatt the disk using disk utility. Use a mac with an older release of mac os to format the drive. Western digital my passport for mac 500gb macworld.
Wd 2tb black my passport for mac portable external hard drive usb 3. Rather than send it back, id like to format it for my macbook air. In this video i show how to format a 4tb hard drive to a fat32 format so you dont have to spilt partitions anymore too allow both wii and gamecube games to be stored on the same partition. Im extremely frustrated because this drive is in a read only mode, and i cant figure out how to change it. If you want to use the drive with a windows computer, see reformatting the drive and troubleshooting. Jul 28, 2009 i have a wd passport external hard drive that i use to back up my computer running windows xp. Set an optional password, that only you know, to activate 256bit. Otherwise, the only format that is common to both pcs and macs are disks formatted. About your wd drive my passport for mac user manual 2.
Wd my passport portable drives for mac photos cnet. Secure and reliable, my passport for mac safeguards your creative life. Also is it ok to erase all the present files on the disc. Mar 03, 2016 i mistakenly ordered the wd my passport ultra drive for windows instead of my passport for mac. Ok i reformatted again and made it exfat from the pc because that was the only option it gave me besides nfts or whatever the windows one is. By formatting the passport as an exfat or fat32 drive, you. Format your passport so the drive is compatible with the backup tools available in mac os x and so it can perform the common task of transferring files between the external hard drive and your mac s internal hard drive. Wd says it makes a perfect companion for the owners of the macbook air, which generally comes with limited internal storage space. Not sure what extended format is and if its suitable. Can i use my wd my passport ultra 2tb hard drive for both mac and pc. Jan 14, 2020 recover data from western digital my passport external hard drive on mac. Western digital my passport is a commonly used external hard drive for mac.
Mar 07, 2016 using the western digital wd my passport for mac. But if you are unable to fix it with the solutions suggested above, you can only send it to local disk. You just need to plug the external to a pc, and this data recovery software will deep scan the external even if it cannot work normally. You can also use these solutions to fix this problem. How to format wd my passport for mac and pc easeus. Format my passport for both mac and windows fasrbug. Passport ultra accessing mac formatted drive on a pc wd.
If you experience the same issue, your only recourse is to reformat it in one of two formats. Some seagate external drives, such as the freeagent go for mac and freeagent desk for mac, come formatted in macos extended format, which is supported by mac os 8. Didnt see that option at best buy when i got itit doesnt say for mac so im assuming its formatted for windows. This website gives a tutorial on how to format the drive to fat32 or exfat. I have no problem reading and writing to the drive using windows xp. Using a thirdparty disk utility that allows you to see macintosh formatted volumes is an alternative to using fat32 file system for the external hard drive.
You can reformat the drive with a file system that mac can read. For example, many people have reported that their wd my passport external hard drives are read only on mac. You can still open or copy files on the disk, but you cant save changes to files on the disk. So it wasnt till today that i reconnected it to my laptop and it doesnt show on my desktop. Wd my passport drive recovery from mac is quite essential as it may contain critical data that you do not want to lose. Hard drive is not showing up on my computer im using mac osx yosemite version 10. How to get external hard drive to work with mac os x guiding tech. My passport external hard drive microsoft community. Ive downloaded various wd drivers and software, but cant get windows 7 to recognized the usb drive. If you re only going to use the external hard drive with macs or you. I have been able to back up the mac on the hard drive in the past. You can use it to backup all your files on the mac.
Passport ultra accessing mac formatted drive on a pc. Can i use my wd my passport ultra 2tb hard drive for both mac. How to reformat passport external hard drive from read only to read and write for use with mac computersimportant. I have a wd my passport 320gb external hard drive that i am trying to hook up to my imac for the first time. Can i reformat my wd passport external hd to work for a. How to copy files from my mac hard drive to my wd passport.
But data from any external storage drive can get deleted or lost due to different reasons. Dec 03, 2007 can i reformat my wd passport external hd to work for a mac if it was used for a pc first. When you check its disk information, you will find you can only read this external hard drive. How to get external hard drive to work with mac os x. Fortunately, you can take some actions to repair these minor disk errors with disk utility on your mac. Formatting a wd my passport for a macbook air macrumors forums. Will i lose all my data by reformatting to mac in my. Format wd my passport for mac, 10 quick steps mactakeawaydata. I formatted a my passport ultra drive for the mac, in order to archive a large number of photos win32 format kept failing on the file copy.
Thank you for helping us maintain cnets great community. It doesnt register that the drive even exists, though the device connected noise sounds. My question is if i am able to set my hard drive to a format in which it can work on both windows and mac. I then found the instructions to format it to mac but now whenever i connect it to a pc, it wont work. Oct 11, 2016 with portable storage for all your photos, videos, music and documents, my passport for mac keeps up with your onthego lifestyle.
Easily format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac. Wd my passport vs for mac version macrumors forums. Mar 22, 2016 i formatted a my passport ultra drive for the mac, in order to archive a large number of photos win32 format kept failing on the file copy. Enable or disable hard disk write protection in windows 10. If you want to share digital files between mac and windows system easily. Overwriting metadata may also overwrite some content, so dont do it.
On the mac, go to the app store and downloadinstall onedrive for mac and transfer your files in that fashion. Wd understands the importance of your photos, music, videos and files so my passport ultra and my passport for mac comes equipped with some powerful technology to help keep your digital life secure. How to copy files from my mac hard drive to my wd passport external hard drive. I have a 1tb wd passport to transfer files from linux ubuntu to windows 7. The my passport for mac portable drive is trusted to store the massive amounts of photos, videos and music you love. It powers up normally and i see the light on the hd, it reads on other macbook pros and it even gets read by my lg smart tv. 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. Western digitals passport external drive for mac isnt eternally bound to macos.
Limitededition lipstick case, read my lipstick red lips design, exclusively online. Wd is a well known brand for its hard drive and my passport is a range of extern. You can format a drive as fat32, which would allow it to work on both windows and mac, but it wont do automatic backups, wont take files larger than 4gb and will have a high risk of data corruption. But there are chances that this external hard drive shows read only on mac. Wd my passport not recognized on mac not showing up detected. I am also trying to back up my mothers compter which is running mac os x v10. My passport for mac user manual unlocking the drive with the wd drive unlock utility whenever you connect your passwordprotected drive to a computer that does not have the wd security or wd drive utilities software installed, you can use the wd drive unlock utility to unlock the drive there. For some reason, the drive shows up in ubuntu and mac computers but doesnt show up in windows, the filesystem is ntfs yet ironically only works in unixbased oses and i cannot reformat it without losing data on the usb drive. External hard drives free delivery possible on eligible purchases. But any of them should work for both mac and windows if you format them correctly, assuming your machine has the necessary ports.
How to fix seagate external hard drive readonly on mac. Will i lose all my data by reformatting to mac in my external. 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. Wd passport external hard drive is read only on mac os x v10. With portable storage for all your photos, videos, music and documents, my passport for mac keeps up with your onthego lifestyle. Much like my wd my passport ultra, most external hard drives out there are customized to work with windows, not os x. Do i use disc utilities fat32 or is there some other format. You can use the following guide to fix read only external hard drive in disk utility without formatting. It is common to see people complaining wd my passport external hard drives suddenly became read only on mac. Either way, you can reformat it to whatever format you want. How to format a 4tb hard drive to a fat32 format wd hard. I cant believe that wd makes it so difficult for users to hook up a silly hard drive. For some reason, the drive shows up in ubuntu and mac computers but doesnt show up in windows, the filesystem is ntfs yet ironically only works in unixbased oses and i.
Recover data from western digital my passport external hard drive on mac. Western digital my passport user manual pdf download. I am looking for a solution to format the wd my passport portable hard drive on my macbook pro. The only difference between the two is the way it comes preformatted out of the box. Repair read only external hard drive with disk utility. My passport wd drive not showing on my macbook but shows on others. Set an optional password, that only you know, to activate 256bit hardware encryption and add an extra layer of security. Wd passport much like my wd my passport ultra, most. Hi, i recently bought a wd passport essential to back up my macbook. If you want a drive to backup your mac, you can get another wd hard disk and reformat it via the disk utility on the mac and it will be totally usable on the mac only.
Now, its easier than ever to back up your creative life and take it with you. Format my passport for both mac and windows wii points download. When i plugged in the wd passport, my mac asked if i want to use this storage device for my time machine. It has pretty much every bit of information i really hold dear, and on any mac computer i can find everything on it. Shop wd 2tb my passport for mac black with our price beat guarantee. Im thinking of getting a macbook pro and it would be great if i could use my existing external hard drive for both. 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. So i have a my passport drive that i had back before my mac computer killed itself. The western digital passport provides expanded storage space and backup features for windowsbased and macintosh computers. Files cant be copied onto the backup disk because it appears to be read only. Below are the usual instances where you may lose or delete files from wd my passport external drive on mac.
That is to say, only fat32 and exfat can work on both mac and pc. For no reason whatsoever my macbook pro wont show my wd external hd. Moving data between two systems using an external hard. How do i make my wd passport work on both windows and mac. Hard drive is not showing up on my computer ifixit. How easy is it to format for mac or should i just take it back. Should i use the wd passport as the time machine storage device or use the wd passport software to run backups. Protect your important files with apple time machine backups. Trying to use it on my girlfriends computer is a completely different matter. I now have a pc with windows 8 and it does not find the hard drive in explorer. Fat32 will let you directly plug the drive into both windows and mac. How do i get my device wd passport to show up in windows. Portable storage that complements your mac secure and reliable, my passport for mac safeguards your creative life.