How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Wds bestselling my book essential usb external hard drive features wd smartware. 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. Wd my passport for mac portable external hard drive. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. For a hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a pc and mac. Time machine compatibility for mac, the my book desktop hard drive can back up your photos. How to backup mac to an external hard drive 5 steps. Unfortunately, the mybook drive is not recognized by my macbook air. Trying to access from pc via usb cable with only one access point in wd hard drive, but it doesnt show up on the pc. The only downside to these drives is that they are not formatted for macos out of the box. Select the file system from the dropdown list, which is available in the format expansion and choose either exfat or fat32. Following site procedures for reformatting to mac os extended journaled and erasing the disk using mac disk utility, i received the message unmounting disk mediakit reports not enough space on device for requested operation. Equipped with wd backup software for windows and apple time machine compatibility for mac, the my book desktop hard drive can back up your photos, videos, music, and documents.
Wd my passport external hard drive set up guide manual for. Any hard drive can be formatted for mac and here is how you do it. Mac cant read wd elements external drives for mac wd. You can find effective ways here to format wd my passport for mac and pc to fat32 or exfat file. Read the license agreement and click accept to continue and display the wd drive utilities screen. Buy wd 2tb my book desktop external hard drive usb 3. The my book desktop hard drive also works great with acronis true image wd edition software to schedule full system backups. So i plan to connect a wd mybook 4tb hard drive to the time capsule and dump my photos there. How to format a wd my book for airport ti apple community. This wd my passport mac model is an evolution over the 2015 my passport ultra. This drive connects directly to your mac through usb. Do i need formatting software for the western digital drive.
When you buy a western digital wd 1 tb my book external hard drive, they. How to recover wd my book studio hard drive on mac. Password protection the my book drive s builtin 256bit aes hardware encryption with wd security tools helps keep your content private and safe. I have a wd elements 1tb which works perfectly when i use it with timemachine. Youll find below the ten quick steps, using words and pictures. Its a good idea to backup your data for your mac using time machine. Western digital my book for mac user manual pdf download. I know i am supposed to format it for mac via disk utility before i can use it, but this process also fails. Te lights are on on the wd and i can unmount it, but cannot find it anywhere where i can access and copy files over. If the wd my passport for mac drive is still not showing up in finder or on the desktop, you can see whether it is showing up in disk utility or not. We would like to show you a description here but the site wont allow us.
Apple may provide or recommend responses as a possible solution based on the information provided. Disk wont format external drives for mac wd community. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive. The my passport line of drives from western digital has been very good to me and my clients on mac, pc and linux systems. Drag the wd drive utilities application to the alias applications folder on the screen that displays. If you already have an older version of wd fat32 formatter installed on your system, you will need to remove it first. 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. Software and firmware downloads wd support western digital. It will list all the hard drives and devices on your mac computer. My book for mac user manual checking drive status use the wd smartware icon to determine whether the drive is encrypted locked, how full the drive is, the drives serial number, and the temperature condition of the drive.
Product title wd 8tb my book desktop external hard drive usb 3. Western digital wdbeks0020hbk my book for mac 2tb usb 3. The best external desktop drive is the wd 4tb my book desktop external hard drive usb 3. Western digital produces a line of external hard drives called the mybook. If you use a mac, the likelihood that youll have to reformat the drive is higher. Feb 10, 2012 tutorial on how to format a western digital elements harddrive for a mac. How to format an external hard drive for mac youtube. The wd my book for mac is our favorite external hard drive.
I usually use a firewire that connects into the hard drive in two places. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Our latest edition, formatted for mac, now features visual, easytouse, automatic, continuous backup software and drive lock security protection. Easily format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac. Password protection with hardware encryption the my book devices builtin 256bit aes hardware encryption with wd security software helps keep your content private and safe. First, use the usb cable or usbc cable if youre on the newest. How to reformat a mybook external hard drive on mac osx. Disk utility is a mac application, you can run it on your mac.
The secret to reformatting a western digital wd 1tb my book. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. Hi, i am trying to access my wd hard drive which i have been using on my mac from my pc. 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. Oct 15, 2015 hi, i am trying to access my wd hard drive which i have been using on my mac from my pc. In addition to simplifying the backup process for both windows and mac computers, this hard drive features 256bit aes hardware encryption to ensure stored files remain secure. This sleek drive is designed to work with your mac right out of the box. 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. Disk drive format your my book drive is formatted as a single exfat partition for compatibility with all updated windows and mac operating systems. Operation failed dont understand the space issue and since the disk is unmounted ii am unable to do. 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. Of course, if you are using it with a mac, then youll want to reformat it using mac os. The wd my book 8tb external hard drive in black, is suitable to store massive amounts of photos, videos, music and documents.
Accessing mac formatted wd hard drive from pc external. My book 4tb desktop hard drive with password protection and. How to solve my wd hard drive not recognized in windows 10. Ultra wd backup, my passport ultra metal, my passport for mac, my passport for mac. Formatted exfat for outofthebox compatibility with windows and mac. Nov 28, 2017 the macbooks memory is totally full and i need to transfer my pics elsewhere. Go to sidebar tab, tick external disks under devices to show your wd my passport hard drive for mac in finder. In the alias applications folder, doubleclick the wd drive utilities application. If the wd my passport for mac drive is still not showing up in finder or on the desktop, you. Capacity condition factory reconditioned capacity select 2tb 3tb. Now, i will show you the two methods to format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Equipped with wd backup software for windows and apple time machine compatibility for mac, the my book desktop hard drive can back up your photos, videos, music and documents. How to format wd my passport for mac and pc free easeus.
One such eminent utility is yodot mac data recovery that can be employed on mac computers to restore data not only from wd my book studio hard drive but also from other models of hard drives like seagate, apple, lacie, iomega and many others. Locate the icon assigned to western digital my passport drive and rightclick the connected drive icon and click format in the popup menu. Western digital provides data storage solutions, including systems, hdd, flash ssd, memory and personal data solutions to help customers capture and preserve their most valued data. The first and foremost thing is to remove the wd my passport safely. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Our bestselling my book for mac external drive is an elegant, highcapacity storage solution for all the chapters of your digital life. Xbox one will not format external hard drive microsoft. Our favorite external hard drive the sweet setup accessoriesfavoriteexternalharddrive. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. This utility will format a western digital external usb or firewire hard drive back to its. Equipped with wd backup software for windows and apple time machine compatibility for mac, the my book desktop hard drive can back up your photos.
Out of the both its not mac compatible, but you can format it for use with your mac in just a few minutes. There is a video after that you can watch as extra help. Although mybook hard drives are capable of working with both macs. Dec 25, 2016 if you want to transfer files from a mac to windows pc and vice versa using an external portable hard drive then you have to have the external drive formatted in a file system both oss can read. How to format wd external drive for mac apple community. How to partition and format a wd drive on windows and macos. Purchasing the best hard drive is all about what you need out of it. Fix wd my passport for mac not showing upnot working on mac. Whether you need to know how to format wd my passport for your mac. My book western digital store western digital store. Ever run out of storage space and start wondering if it would be possible to take a crowbar to your new unibody macbook pro to pry it open and put another hard drive in.
How to reformat passport external hard drive from read only to. Shop staples for wd my book wdbbgb0080hbknesn 8tb usb 3. The power connector, interface port, and a security slot on the back usb 3. 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. Password protection the my book drives builtin 256bit aes hardware encryption with wd security tools helps keep your content private and safe. This reliable and good to excellent performing line has a long positive history with me.
Our latest edition features visual, easytouse, automatic, continuous backup software and drive lock security protection. I was worried about my ability to format it for mac use, but the wd support information that detailed how to do it made it surprisingly easy. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. I bought this external hard drive to extend the storage of my 500gb xbox one, it was super easy to setup and quite a relief because my xbox one drive was close to be full, i just plugged in and the console told me the step by step process, was very easy, now i have a lot of space to download all the digital games i own, the unit runs smooth with no lag while playing, at 1 month of use i have. Western digital wdbc3g0030hal my book studio 3tb firewire 800 desktop external hard drive mac formatted condition refurbished quantity 1 2 3 limit 3 per customer. It seems that wd doesnt make my books for macs any more. This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only. However, it is frustrating that you have to sacrifice storage space because you spent the extra money to get a solidstate drive instead of the cheaper hard disk drive. Wd my book essential drive not recognized on my mac. You can use this software to regain access to all types of files like doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx. Click the wd smartware icon to display a list of drives and select the my book drive.
1084 1390 127 414 426 486 317 822 1189 1498 212 341 142 750 350 622 162 515 593 1273 1344 40 352 1020 312 696 847 1328 1262 1153 406 1215 1260 617 1332 664 664 433 706 633 310 35