The my passport line of drives from western digital has been very good to me and my clients on mac, pc and linux systems. 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. Download wd quick formatter to format external drive in. If you want to use the drive with a windows computer, see reformatting the drive and troubleshooting. Compatible with usbc and usba devices, my passport for mac comes equipped to connect with todays latest technology. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive. Connect the western digital my passport hard drive to the computer. Wd quick formatter tool allows you to reformat wd external hard drive to ntfs, fat32. External drive like wd elements, my book and my passport can be formatted to fat32 via this tool. Choose your wd elements external hard drive on your.
Whats more, you can share digital files between mac and windows system easily. Download wd fat32 formatter format western digital usb drives or wirefire hard disk drives to bring them to factory configurations as well as restore wd disk icon files. How to format a wd external hard drive in fat32 to use in windows or mac. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. If you own a wd elements drive in ntfs, it will be only readable. Wd quick formatter, also called wd advanced format utility is a tool that allows you to reformat wd external hard drive to ntfs, fat32, etc in windows 1087 or other windows versions. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac.
To put it simply, if you want to share external hard drive between mac and pc, you need to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. Formatting wd elements for mac by quick workarounds. Mypassport for macs seem to always be out of stock, so i bought the 4tb. Youll be using disk utility, in order to format wd my passport for your mac. It is usually used to repair corrupted hard disk when it is unrecognized or inaccessible, fix format issues when windows was unable to complete the format, change file system or optimize the performance of the drive. The wd quick formatter is the recommended way to format wd external drives that use advanced format drives afds.
How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. My passport for mac is trusted, portable storage that perfectly complements your onthego lifestyle. A western digital external hard drive can be used on both windows and mac osx. Wd my passport ultra 1tb setup and troubleshooting guide. A wd my passport formatted with mac file system will be a dud on the windows and viceversa. My passport for mac portable storage is ready right out. Format wd my passport for mac, 10 quick steps mactakeawaydata. With wd discovery software, you can also work across both mac. How to partition and format a wd drive on windows and macos. Fat32 has several limitations, including a 4 gb perfile limit. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. If your product is not listed above, please visit the product page. 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. Hi all, i recently transitioned my home laptop from a mac to a pc running windows 10.
These file systems can help you to make your wd my passport work with a windows pc and mac at the same time. Tutorial on how to format a western digital elements harddrive for a mac. Proceed with the following instructions to know how to format the wd my passport ultra 1tb setup drive on the mac computer. How to fix wd my passport for mac hard drive not mounting. Look for your wd my passport drive on your desktop. This is a file system limitation that affects both mac s and. Want to use one external drive for both your windows pc and your mac. Click the finder, open the applications folder, open the utilities folder and choose disk. Designed to fit in the palm of your hand, theres plenty of space to store a massive amount of photos, videos, music and documents. Now your external drive has been formatted to be fully compatible with apple macos, and you can edit, read, and write files to it as you want. Your my book for mac drive and the wd drive utilities and wd security software are compatible with the following operating systems. Pick your wd my passport in the external hard drive list.
Now follow this guide you can easily format your wd my passport portable hard. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. Wd discovery software can also be used to manage your drive settings such as reformatting, led control and more. Setup time machine and setup to work in windows pc and mac. Once the wd quick formatter is finished reformatting the drive, the drive will only have one partition.
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. Wdeasystore external hard drive set up guide for mac. Out of the both its not mac compatible, but you can format it for use with your mac in just a. It will automatically locate the connected drive, and you can load it. But, the good news is that msdos exfat and fat32 formats come quite in handy in such cases. About your wd drive my passport for mac user manual 2. Everything else free delivery possible on eligible purchases. To make your western digital hard drive work on both mac and windows computers, you need to format the drive with the fat32 file system. Download free wd quick formatter for macos mac informer.
To use hfsexplorer, connect your macformatted drive to your windows pc and launch hfsexplorer. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Free download western digital fat32 formatting tool for. Your disk utility program lives within a folder called utilities. If you are techy and use windows and mac computers frequently, then you might need to transfer data between mac and pc. How to format wd external drive for mac apple community. Establish a connection between the western digital my passport ultra 1tb and the mac computer. Passport ultra accessing mac formatted drive on a pc. The my passport for mac drive s builtin 256bit aes hardware encryption with password protection helps keep your digital lifes contents secure. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive.
Do i use disc utilities fat32 or is there some other format. A wd my passport formatted with the windows file system will be useless on the mac and viceversa. How to reformat wd my passport for mac mediakits report not. It is a perfect match for file managers in the system tools category. The app is developed by western digital corporation.
For a 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. Read on as we have thoroughly explained the secure method of formatting seagate drive using mac s disk utility. Why need to format external hard drive for mac and pc. Easily format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac. Wd drive utilities functions to diagnose the physical integrity of the hard drive, and as. Connect your western digital hard drive to your mac computer. How to format a wd my passport portable hard drive for mac.
After your mac computer detects the wd my passport ultra 1tb hard drive, mount it. Thankfully, msdos fat32 and exfat formats have survived to date, and these are the file system to make your wd my passport work with a mac and a windows pc simultaneously. You can choose one of the tools to format hard drive to exfat as you like. 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. This is necessary in order to optimize the performance of the drive. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Please keep in mind that reformatting will result in the loss of all the data on the hard. Wd quick formatter, also known as wd advanced format drivers afds, is an external hard drive format utility for windows and mac, developed by western digital technologies, inc. Buy wd 5tb my passport ultra for mac silver portable external hard drive, usbc wdbpmv0050bslwesn.
How to format an external hard drive with wd quick. This reliable and good to excellent performing line has a long positive history with me. Whether you need to know how to format wd my passport for your mac. Formatting wd my passport for your mac is very easy, and will only require a few moments of your time. How to recover data from western digital hard drives. This wd my passport mac model is an evolution over the 2015 my passport ultra. The most popular version among the application users is 1. Mac ready my passport ultra for mac is formatted for time machine and ready to deliver plugandplay storage out of the box.
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. Just activate password protection and set your own personalized password using wd discovery. Not sure what extended format is and if its suitable. This thing is still unknown for many users but doesnt worry its not complex. You can format the external hard drive or usb drive to make it compatible with both mac and windows machines. I only saved my data onto a wd passport drive, not realizing that it needs to be formatted differently for a mac vs. Out of the both its not mac compatible, but you can format it for use.
Our antivirus scan shows that this mac download is clean. Click the file menu and select load file system from device. Dont worry in 10 quick steps youll know how to format wd my passport for. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. How to format wd my passport for mac and pc easeus. Wd quick formatter is short for western digital quick formatter, a format tool developed by western digital technologies, inc. You can find effective ways here to format wd my passport for mac and pc to fat32 or exfat file. This is useful if a drive is being used under both operating system osto. 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. System tools downloads wd discovery by western digital technologies, inc. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. Disk utility in macos high sierra or later can erase most disks and volumes for mac using either the newer apfs apple file system format or the older mac os extended format, and it automatically chooses a compatible format for you.