Hi, when i first plugged in my new wd easystore 2 tb portable drive, i installed the necessary software off the drive. How to reformat wd my passport for mac mediakits report not. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab. External usb hard drives are lightweight, portable and inexpensive. Pick your wd my passport in the external hard drive list. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide.
Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. A western digital external hard drive can be used on both windows and mac osx. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. Easily format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac. Since i use a mac, i need to reformat the hard drive in order for it to be used. How to format an external hard drive for a mac youtube. How to format wd external drive for mac apple community. Mount wd my passport for mac in disk utility manually. How to reformat passport external hard drive from read only to read and write for use with mac computersimportant.
If youre a windows user, youll have to reformat it to ntfs or just buy the regular wd drive. 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. Windows cant normally read macformatted drives, and will offer to erase them instead. Be sure to doublecheck this you could accidentally wipe the wrong drive if you select the wrong disk here. They are great for backing up data, creating extra storage space on your computer and transferring large amounts of data between two or.
Please note that reformatting the drive will erase all the information on the drive. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. In this video, i show you how to reformat an external hard drive to be compatible for use with a mac, or for both a. How to formatreformat wd elements for mac depending on the system that you are using, there are 2 ways to format you hard disk into a mac supported format. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. This is useful if a drive is being used under both operating system osto. 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. Reformatting 3tb wd my book for mac to windows wd community. Wd 2tb black my passport for mac portable external hard. 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.
How to reformat my external hard drive for windows 10. Want to reformat my wd passport so i can use it on a pc. Super eraser will reformat the wd portable hard drive and permanently erase all data on the wd 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. 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.
This is useful if a drive is being used under both operating system osto move files between the two environments. For most reasons to erase, including when reformatting a. External hard drives are key in a content creatoryoutubers life. Formatting a hard drive is the best way to start from scratch on a geeky project. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. Once formatting is done, you can use the drive in macos or os x as a regular hard drive. How to reformat western digital portable hard drive.
Youll want to do it before you sell your machine, for sure, but its also one of the steps you take when you. 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. Step 5 thereafter, click on the erase button and let the system erase everything on the drive and reformat wd elements for mac by exfat or fat32 format. Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want.
Now, i will show you the two methods to format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac. 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 have a 3tb hard drive that i removed from a nas that is only showing as 800mb on my mac. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. How to properly formatreformat a hard drive for mac os. Here i recommend you to change the file system of the wd hard drive from ntfs to fat32 or exfat, thus the wd hard drive is able to be used. Plug the wd drive into the usb socket on your computer and use time machine for backups just by following the mac os prompts to make sure you select the correct drive for your time machine to. Mypassport for macs seem to always be out of stock, so i bought the 4tb. If youre a mac user, this drive comes formatted in hfs, so itll work for your right out of the box, no problems.
But unfortunately it bit the dust and i decided to get a pc. Moving files from macformatted external hard drive to pc. 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. Format wd my passport for mac, 10 quick steps mactakeawaydata. Want to reformat my wd passport so i can use it on a pc instead of apple only. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. After doing so, i was still unable to utilize the drive unable to create new folders, dragdrop. Should i just wait until i get the new laptop and attempt to reformat the drive on it.
To use your wd elements drive on your mac you need your. Sometimes, hard drives cannot be automatically mounted in disk utility, even though mac has detected the hard drive. How to reformat my hard drive using my macbook air quora. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Fix wd my passport for mac not showing upnot working on mac. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. Sometimes, there will be a need to learn how to reformat my. To format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. How to erase a disk for mac use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. When finished, you can mount your wd external hard drive on mac and. Wd 4tb my passport for mac portable external hard drive. How to reformat an external hard drive without losing your.
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