A western digital external hard drive can be used on both windows and mac osx. Buy wd elements 1tb portable hard drive black external. Jan 08, 2020 dont fret you can change the formatting. How to reformat western digital element 1 tb solvedclosed.
Western digital my passport portable external hard drive. Wd elements vs my passport which is best for your mac. If you want to use your wd elements drive without any special software on your 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.
When i tried to drag and drop files onto it i got a message that said that the disk could not be modified. Locate the icon assigned to western digital my passport drive and rightclick the connected drive icon and click format in the popup menu. How to open an external drive thats not showing on mac. I selected mac os extended as the format, and clicked erase. Tips for formatting wd elements for mac wd elements is a very popular external hard disk that is used by a lot of people around the world. Out of the both its not mac compatible, but you can format it for use. Unboxing wd elements portable hard drive and reformatting. Protect your files with the free 30day trial of wd smartware pro and back up your files to your wd elements. Quick workarounds to formatting wd elements for mac. Apple may provide or recommend responses as a possible solution based on the information provided. These hard drives have similar performance rating considering the interface.
Want to reformat my wd passport so i can use it on a pc instead of apple only. Reformatting a mac external hd to windows microsoft. The small, lightweight drive features up to 5tb of storage with wd quality and reliability. Formatted ntfs for windows 8, windows 7, windows vista, windows xp requires reformatting for mac os x dimensions. Select the file system from the dropdown list, which is available in the format expansion and choose either exfat or fat32. Well, it was surprisingly even easier than i thought, as i plugged in the wd elements drive using the supplied usb cable into my mac and the icon showed up on the desktop, and a window automatically popped up and asked me if i wanted to reformat the drive to work with time machine, i clicked erase to do this, it took just a few minutes to re. Wd 4 tb elements portable external hard drive usb 3. Wd elements is preconfigured for usage on a windows pc. This is useful if a drive is being used under both operating system osto. Fix wd external hard drive not recognizedworking with light. How can you use your wd elements drive without reformatting.
The wd elements drive is a basic drive and has no inbuilt security software. How to partition and format a wd drive on windows 8, 7, vista, xp and mac osx. Jun 07, 2010 unboxing wd elements portable hard drive and reformatting for mac techbr0s. When you suffer from wd external drive format failed on mac, you must be wondering whether there are workarounds to formatting wd elements for mac. Then you can format it ntfs from there if you like. What is the difference between wd my passport, wd my. How to reformat western digital element 1 tb solved ccm. This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only.
In such a case, its necessary to reformat wd hard drive to make it compatible with mac operating system. The compact and lightweight enclosure features a 1. If you have valuable data saved on your wd drive, just download easeus hard drive recovery software to get all data back with a few simple clicks. Jul 24, 20 nearly all mac s sold after july 20, 2011 came with factory installs of os x 10. I know i am supposed to format it for mac via disk utility before i can use it, but this process also fails. Mac compatible reformatting required windows ready. If you post a screenshot of it it would be even more helpful. Compatibility may vary depending on users hardware configuration and operating system. Windows 8, windows 7, windows vista, or windows xp. Reformatting a mac external hd to windows microsoft community.
So i tried reformatting it with disk utility, erase. Download this wd portable hard drive reformatting software here. The wd passport ultra features password protection encr. Fix wd external hard drive not recognizedworking with. Tutorial on how to format a western digital elements harddrive for a mac. However, i recently bought a new one the exact same one just to have 2 backups just in case and my macbook doesnt recognize it. The drive was not recognized by my dell laptop running windows xp. Formatting wd elements for mac by quick workarounds. How to reformat western digital hard drive for mac duration. After some searching i found the latest disk utility from western digital, acronis true image wd edition. The wd dlg shows the total capacity of the drive, not the remaining free one so this doesnt mean the data is gone. This formatting is also known as mac os extended journaled file system. Inputoutput error when reformatting wd elements ext hard. Wd portable hard drive reformatting software for windows mac.
Mac cant read wd elements external drives for mac wd. But you can add encryption and a password for your wd elements drive using your mac s operating system. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing data. After making an unrecognized wd external hard drive detectable in your pc, the next step is to restore all saved data. Out of the both its not mac compatible, but you can format it for use with your mac in just a few minutes. Oct 11, 2018 want to reformat my wd passport so i can use it on a pc instead of apple only. 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 the wd portable hard drive. Could you please navigate to disk management and see how the drive is seen there. Feb 10, 2012 tutorial on how to format a western digital elements harddrive for a mac. Nov 19, 2017 hi everyone, i hope someone can help me with this. Wd 1tb elements portable external hard drive usb 3.
For the hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a pc and mac computer, it must be formatted to exfat or fat32 file format. How to solve my wd hard drive not recognized in windows 10. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. I had this model replace a wd book version of usb external hard drive that i purchased 2 days ago and was supposedly formatted specifically for mac os x 10. Western digital elements 1tb portable hard drive usb 3. In order to make sure that there are no issues happening with the hard disk while you format it, it is important to make sure that everything is being done properly. How to format wd elements for mac recoverit wondershare. Mar 01, 2016 the wd dlg shows the total capacity of the drive, not the remaining free one so this doesnt mean the data is gone. 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.
Western digital wdbpck0010bbk wd 1tb elements usb 3. Want to reformat my wd passport so i can use it on a pc. I followed these directions, and it was effortless. Unboxing wd elements portable hard drive and reformatting for mac. Wd portable hard drive reformatting software for windowsmac. In order to make sure that there are no issues happening with the hard disk while you format it, it is important to make sure that everything is. The small, lightweight drive features up to 4tb of storage with wd quality and reliability. If your product is not listed above, please visit the product page. Reformatting required for mac os compatibility wd support. But data loss can happen on any kind of device including wd elements portable hard drive of course. We would like to show you a description here but the site wont allow us. Unboxing wd elements portable hard drive and reformatting for mac techbr0s. And yes if you want to use your wd elements drive for a time machine backup. But you can add encryption and a password for your wd elements drive using your macs operating system.
Western digital wd elements portable hard drive is a very popular kind of portable hard drive. I have a 2tb external drive called wd my passport for mac its been over a year since i last used it on my imac. The small, lightweight design offers highcapacity storage, making wd elements the ideal companion for valueconscious consumers who want to take their important files with them. Steps on how to format the drive are provided on the following link. I have a wd elements 1tb which works perfectly when i use it with timemachine.
Now, i am trying to use it on my macbook pro, and it lights up, its also recognized by my mac, i can see it on disk utility, but i cant open it. From windows i ran into this once and use seatools for dos advanced tools to erase track 0 and then used acronis disk director to create a partition and format the. Create a name and choose mac os extended journaled assuming you have a current vision of osx. From the mac disk utility will let you format the drive fat32. If you own a wd elements drive in ntfs, it will be only readable. Recover lost files from wd elements portable hard drive. Hello, confused on whether buying the wd my passport, wd my passport ultra, and wd elements external hard drives. How to partition and format a wd drive on windows and macos. How to reformat western digital portable hard drive. Buy western digital elements 1tb portable hard drive usb 3. For years, millions of people worldwide have trusted their data to wd hard drives, and its first concern is to reliably store that data.