Reformat wd hard drive for mac

With my previous laptops pcs, ive always stored my data on an external hard drive. It will not shorten the service life of the wd portable hard drive even the wd portable hard drive is erased 35 times by this software. Use the wizard to create a partition with the ntfs or fat32 file system. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods revealed. External usb hard drives are lightweight, portable and inexpensive. After disk utility loads select the drive outdented entry with 1tb wd passport. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. To format the drive to work with both platforms you will need use a windows computer to format the disk as exfat. Step 2 on the left side of the utilities screen, find the name of the external hard drive you want to format and select it.

You have to set it up correctly before getting starting. Connect your western digital my passport drive to mac computer, and let the os detect and mount the drive for use. Mar 23, 2020 how to format reformat 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. 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 or partition an external hard drive for mac. 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.

In the drop down panel set the partition scheme to guid. Step 1 connect the external hard drive you want to format to your mac, then start the disk utility app that you can find under applications utilities. If you know youre going to use a drive on both mac and windows, you. Your wd hard drive is not recognized, so its not showing up in disk utility at all. By default, the 4tb hard drive uses the ntfs format for windows pcs, but theres a help file included on the drive that provides information for mac users so that you can reformat the drive and. If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions.

Yes, its recommended to format the drive on a windows computer. How to reformat wd my passport for mac mediakits report not. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. How to reformat my external hard drive for windows 10. Apr 16, 2020 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. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing. Choose your wd elements external hard drive on your. Oct 15, 2015 you would have to copy the data on your hard drive to your mac, then reformat it with the disk utility application.

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. A western digital wd external hard drive can be used with any computer once it has been formatted by the computers operating system. How to reformat my hard drive using my macbook air quora. Connect the external drive or the usb drive to the mac. Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them.

The drive will now be formatted for use by windows systems. For a hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a pc and mac. You would have to copy the data on your hard drive to your mac, then reformat it with the disk utility application. Then your western digital external hard drive is ready to use on your mac and on your windows pc. Mar 12, 2018 want to format a hard drive for mac and pc compatibility. Click on the erase tab, choose your external hard drive and select mac os extended journaled and then click erase then simply. Open disk utility by clicking finder applications utilities and finally click disk utility.

Have tried disk utility and terminal diskutil but the hard drive keeps showing at the wrong size. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. Please note that reformatting the drive will erase all the information on the drive. It will automatically locate the connected drive, and you can load it.

Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility. Well show you everything you need to know about the. Please see the link below for instructions on how to format the drive on a windows computer. 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. Oct 11, 2018 want to reformat my wd passport so i can use it on a pc instead of apple only.

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. 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. Mar 31, 2020 if you buy a new external hard drive, you may notice that working between mac and pc is an often difficult but it doesnt need to be. Mypassport for macs seem to always be out of stock, so i bought the 4tb. Click the current volume scheme drop down menu and. Read about it and found that id have to reformat it in mac os extended journaled. Apr 30, 2020 to format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the drives on your mac are listed on the lefthand sidebar.

If you buy a new external hard drive, you may notice that working between mac and pc is an often difficult but it doesnt need to be. 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. To format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. 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. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Be sure to doublecheck this you could accidentally wipe the wrong drive if you select the wrong disk here. Click the file menu and select load file system from device. Step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system.

Out of the both its not mac compatible, but you can format it for use. Windows cant normally read macformatted drives, and will offer to erase them instead. Mar 15, 2018 to use hfsexplorer, connect your macformatted drive to your windows pc and launch hfsexplorer. 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. This command erases the entire selected disk, including all its files and partitions whether. Can i use a wd elements external hard drive on my mac. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. So its possible that youll see the wd my passport for mac drive not mounting in disk utility.

How to format an external hard drive for a mac youtube. In this situation, you can manually mount the hard drive. How to properly formatreformat a hard drive for mac os. Easily format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac. Step 6 once formatting completes, you can then use your drive in mac as a usual hard drive. But unfortunately it bit the dust and i decided to get a pc. How to reformat western digital portable hard drive. There will be no space wasted by protected mac partitions. It will list all the hard drives and devices on your mac computer. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another. Disk utility is a mac application, you can run it on your mac. When the finder window opens, on the menu bar, select go and then utilities.

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. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Vishal updated on april 21, 2020 mac hard drive recovery 19 comments 6 min read. The western digital drive i bought is windows ntfs formatted and not mac friendly so. If your product is not listed above, please visit the product page. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. Now, a new hard drive icon will appear on the desktop. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdos is the. How to erase a disk for mac use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. Click on the erase tab in the disk utility toolbar. 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. Want to reformat my wd passport so i can use it on a pc. For example, here wed type select disk 2 finally, type clean and press enter.

Dec, 2019 you can format the external hard drive or usb drive to make it compatible with both mac and windows machines. External hard drives are key in a content creatoryoutubers life. On this popup screen, choose ntfs, fat32 or exfat among listed file systems and click ok. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it.

Macbook external hard drive not recognized how to reformat western digital hard drive for mac. Tutorial on how to format a western digital elements harddrive for a mac. Formatting a hard drive is the best way to start from scratch on a geeky project. Click on the erase tab, choose your external hard drive and select mac os extended journaled and then click erase then simply drag and drop your data onto your newly formatted disk. When finished, you can mount your wd external hard drive on mac and use it again. Now, i will show you the two methods to format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac. 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. They are great for backing up data, creating extra storage space on your computer and transferring large amounts of data between two or more computers.

How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. It appears the issue has since been fixed and disks. Before you can use it though, you need to properly format or reformat a hard drive so that it will become compatible or readable with the operating system that you are using. Reformatting 3tb wd my book for mac to windows wd community. This also allows you to restore time machine backups on windows. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab.

How to reformat passport external hard drive from read only to read and write for use with mac computersimportant. How to properly format reformat a hard drive for mac os. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. Moving files from macformatted external hard drive to pc. 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. 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. A western digital external hard drive can be used on both windows and mac osx. Want to format a hard drive for mac and pc compatibility. At the time of the original posting in 2011, there were some problems getting a mac formatted exfat drive working with windows, it had trouble recognizing those drives. Super eraser will reformat the wd portable hard drive and permanently erase all data on the wd portable hard drive. Sometimes, there will be a need to learn how to reformat my passport for mac, so once youre acquainted with formatting, you should enlighten yourself on how to reformat wd my passport for mac. Should i just wait until i get the new laptop and attempt to reformat the drive on it. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your mac. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive.

I can find it under device manager and disk management but thats it. In the main console, locate the partition on the wd passport external hard drive, right click it and choose format partition. Want to reformat my wd passport so i can use it on a pc instead of apple only. 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. This thing is still unknown for many users but doesnt worry its not complex. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. One is by using the indigenous file format option in the windows os powered computers and other is through the similar tools found in the mac os. Fix wd my passport for mac not showing upnot working on mac.

Choose the hard drive that you want to format or reformat. First to format your wd elements external drive to mac os extended journaled file system. How to reformat to mac without losing files external. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. Formatting a wd external hard drive does not require any additional software. Sometimes, hard drives cannot be automatically mounted in disk utility, even though mac has detected the hard drive. How to format wd external drive for mac apple community. This is useful if a drive is being used under both operating system osto move files between the two environments. Now, i have a new macbook pro and all my data is still on that external hd. Your disk utility program lives within a folder called utilities. Bonus tip data recovery from formatted hard drive on mac.

Format wd elements for mac and pc have your drive for both. Youll want to do it before you sell your machine, for sure, but its also one of the steps you take when you. Now either because of time, corruption or because it may have been formatted for a mac when i plug it into my pc i cant access it. A hard drive or hard disk can be used in any type of computer, whether for pc windows or for mac.