We would like to show you a description here but the site wont allow us. Why need to format external hard drive for mac and pc. You can find effective ways here to format wd my passport for mac and pc to fat32 or exfat file. Details say unmounting disk, couldnt unmount disk, operation failed. Whether you are trying to backup mac to an external hard drive, wipe out any personal information and sell the computer, or even use a new operating system, you need to format the hard drive on your mac or pc. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. Mac cant read wd elements external drives for mac wd. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. The drive does not appear on the desktop or the finder. To format a western digital my passport external hard drive in exfat or fat32 format, you can bank on builtin applications of mac. In order to get started and use disk utility to format wd my passport on your mac, follow the simple instructions below. This is a file system limitation that affects both mac s and.
Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. Both fat32 and exfat can be used on windows pc and mac. Download the wd discovery software for mac from the western digital site. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Format wd elements for the mac os you have whether you have mac os sierra, high sierra or mojave the way you format your wd elements drive for mac is the same. In such a case, its necessary to reformat wd hard drive to make it compatible with mac operating system. From all above, you can have a general idea of fat32 and exfat file system. It is a mac cleaning tool that could clean files on mac for digital devices. The western digital drive i bought is windows ntfs formatted and not mac friendly so the first thing i did was try to simply format it. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive. Download wd quick formatter to reformat wd external hard drive to ntfs, fat32, etc in windows 1087. How to format wd my passport for mac and pc easeus. It will list all the hard drives and devices on your mac computer. First to format your wd elements external drive to mac os extended journaled file system.
This software allows you to check the disk health and you can format to hfs using that software. Hi, when i first plugged in my new wd easystore 2 tb portable drive, i installed the necessary software off the drive. As the default file system in windows, it can only read by mac os, writing to it is not available. 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. Luckily, there are thirdparty tools to help you do so. My passport wont format external drives for mac wd. Fat32 has several limitations, including a 4 gb perfile limit. Mac disk utility and wd disk utility is highly recommended for no matter formatting a. Out of the both its not mac compatible, but you can format it for use. Find efficient methods of wd external drive format for mac here. Alternatively, you can search in spotlight for disk utility and click on it. There are other options which are more complex if the above has not worked for you. How to format a hard drive to work on mac and pc youtube.
Formatting wd my passport backup external drives for. How to make external hard drive work with mac and pc youtube. Find quick workarounds to formatting wd elements for mac from this page. Actually, most external hard disks could be compatible with mac and pc as long as you format them correctly. Am following welcome to wd support website directions and get to step 4, erasing files, but it is not clear whether one or all files are to be erased, and when attempt to erase the first mac os extended journaled just keep getting response erase process has failed. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac.
Formatting wd elements for mac by quick workarounds. Disk utility is a mac application, you can run it on your mac. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. 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.
How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. Disk utility on mac supports several file system formats. I need to reformated my wd 1tb external hard drive and was wondering what is the best file format to use ms dos fat32, mac os extended journalled etc all i store on it are all my videos, tv shows, and backups of all my work, documents etc, but i dont use it with time machine. 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. Looking for free western digital fat32 formatting tool to format wd my passport ultra or other external hard drives to fat32 so that you can use it in both windows 7 and mac. 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. A western digital external hard drive can be used on both windows and mac osx. 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. A western digital wd external hard drive can be used with any computer once it has been formatted by the. Use a mac with an older release of mac os to format your wd passport drive.
In the next 5 minutes read, you will master yourself in formatting a wd my passport safely and in a manner best suited for sharing your digital files between a macos and windows os. Once formatting is done, you can use the drive in macos or os x as a regular hard drive. Now, i will show you the two methods to format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac. I then tried reformatting it by erasing and setting the format from windows nt file system ntfs to mac os extended journaled for my macos sierra version 10. How to reformat a wd external hard drive it still works.
Some people are asking for a way to format a hard drive for mac. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Theres no need to even instal the software on your computer. Disk wont format external drives for mac wd community. This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only. Format wd elements for mac and pc have your drive for both. Easily format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac. Formatting will erase all data on the disk, please save important data by online backup or. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Just activate password protection and set your own personalized password using wd discovery.
Disk utility is builtin on your mac and is commonly used to erase, format or manage internal disks and external storage. It is time to learn how to format your external hard drive or other external drives to a common file system for mac and windows. In this video tutorial, i show you how to easily format an external hard drive to work on both a mac and a pc. Try wd advanced format utility alternative easeus external hard drive formatter to format disk while wd external drive format failed with wd quick formatter tool.
Out of the both its not mac compatible, but you can format it for use with your mac in just a. My passport for mac portable storage is ready right out of the box including all necessary. How to force a hard drive to unmount for formatting in. It is the reliable disk formatting tool for windows mac. Best format for an external hard disk apple community. In general, windows builtin tools disk management and diskpart can format drive to exfat easily. Disk utility is a very beneficial tool, that will make your life much easier. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. 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. Mac disk utility and wd disk utility is highly recommended for no matter formatting a device or erasing a device, or repairing device errors.
How to convert a mac formatted drive to a windows drive. Error message when formatting a new drive wd community. The my passport for mac drives builtin 256bit aes hardware encryption with password protection helps keep your digital lifes contents secure. Select the unmountable wd external hard drive and click erase on the top. Format wd my passport for mac, 10 quick steps mactakeawaydata. Apple may provide or recommend responses as a possible solution based on the information provided. If you run into the issue of not having enough space format it to be the ex fat as. Paragon disk wipe allows you to create a bootable usbflash drive or external hard drive that will help you to completely erase a whole hard disk, a separate partition or just clean free space. Trying to format new my passport backup on imac desktop running sierra ver.
This is useful if a drive is being used under both operating system osto. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. So, if you want to use an external hard drive on both windows and mac, you need to format it to a filesystem that is compatible with windows pc and mac. Tutorial on how to format a western digital elements harddrive for a mac. Fat32 is another option, but it limits file transfer to 4gb, so choose exfat when formatting your drive. Yes, im trying to format it on a mac sorry, i thought i had posted in the mac section. Pick your wd my passport in the external hard drive list. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. When finished, you can mount your wd external hard drive on mac and use it again. How to format wd external drive for mac apple community. I know i am supposed to format it for mac via disk utility before i can use it, but this process also fails.
Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. 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. You can do that by typing disk format or disk management in windows search or going to control panel administrative tools create. You may use the first tool 1 mac disk utility or wd disk utility as free alternative instead of this paid tool. Free download western digital fat32 formatting tool for. For earlier versions of the mac operating system, screens may be slightly different. Bought wd 6t external my book to use with time machine. File system formats available in disk utility on mac.
Open disk utility clicking on the main disk not the secondary click on erase an put as format. Top level view of formatting wd elements for a mac and a pc. I did restart the computer as you suggested, but again received the message the disk. Download wd quick formatter to format external drive in. All of my wd my passport for mac, portable hard drives that ive purchased over the last 8 years have worked straight out of the box without recourse to having to use the bundled wd software. You can do that by typing disk format or disk management in windows search or going to control panel administrative tools.
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