Format wd hard drive for windows and mac

Next, under the partition layout column, specify the number of partitions you want. Easily use your wd my passport for mac and windows in 7 steps. Now your entire wd elements external hard drive is. Now your entire wd elements external hard drive is in a format both computers can use. How to format wd external drive for mac apple community. How do i make my wd passport work on both windows and mac. 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. The macbook i had at the time broke down a few years later. To partition and format the drive with disk utility, follow these steps. 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. This is because the drive has been initialized for windows nt file system, ntfs for short, and ntfs is. People might need to format a hard drive or an external hard drive in windows 10 for various reasons.

Follow these instructions if you plan to share an external hard drive between pc and mac computers. To use hfsexplorer, connect your macformatted drive to your windows pc and launch hfsexplorer. How to format or partition an external hard drive on mac. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. 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. How to format wd my passport in windows system just like disk utility on mac, there is an inbuilt tool known as disk management in windows. This is useful if a drive is being used under both operating system osto. Wd quick formatter tool allows you to reformat wd external hard drive to ntfs, fat32. To share that drive between a mac and windows pc you need software. Doubleclick on the macs main hard drive to open its window on the desktop. What you should know that formatting will erase all data on the drive. Well show you everything you need to know about the. A western digital external hard drive can be used on both windows and mac osx. Click the wd drive download for mac and install it on your system once the download process is complete.

How to properly formatreformat a hard drive for mac os. Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on mac. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. If you have already written any data to the drive, back it up before proceeding to the next. Dec, 2019 you can format the external hard drive or usb drive to make it compatible with both mac and windows machines. Once the process begins, all the data on the drive will be lost. Accidental deletion, disk formatting, computer corruption or damage, etc. Starting clean how to format new hard drive on windows 10 formatting is an essential task before starting to use a new drive, and in this guide, well show you how to do it on windows 10. How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. Want to format a hard drive for mac and pc compatibility.

Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. 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. You can reformat a western digital external drive to fat32 or exfat to make it compatible with mac and pc, when you want to use it under. 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. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing data. Accessing mac formatted wd hard drive from pc external. Im stuck trying to get my apple formatted drive to be read on my pc laptop. Some hard drives may also include drivers, firmware, or format wizards so be sure to check the user manual before formatting the hard drive.

Choose the exfat file system in the list and click start. 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. How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac. To format a western digital my passport external hard drive in exfat or fat32 format, you. You can format a drive as fat32, which would allow it to work on both windows and mac, but it wont do automatic backups, wont take files larger than 4gb and will have a high risk of data corruption. It will automatically locate the connected drive, and you can load it. Of course, there are more than two methods that can help you format a wd my passport portable hard drive under mac os. Unformat hard drive recovery program as long as you protect your formatted hard drive well, its quite easily to unformat hard drive and get the vital data back.

How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system answer id 291 a western digital external hard drive can be used on both windows and mac osx. Wd my passport ultra 2tb setup and driver installation. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Rather than use a macformatted drive, you should get the important files off of it and use exfatformatted drives for moving data between macs and pcs. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. You can format the external hard drive or usb drive to make it compatible with both mac and windows machines. If you are going to use the external hard drive on mac only, i would format it as mac os extended journaled and a guid partition.

How to format an external hard drive on windows 10. To access the disk management tool, click the windows icon and type disk management. Then your western digital external hard drive is ready to use on your mac and on your windows pc. You can format your external hard drive from either the pc or mac. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. Your wd elements drive will be on your macs desktop under the name you gave it. After realizing that you can reformat wd hard drive to fat32 or exfat to make it compatible with mac os x and still can be used under windows, it is time to check out how to reformat wd hard drive for mac and pc in windows successfully. You can format a western digital my passport external hard drive to exfat or fat32 format using. Easily format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac. The loss of data from your wd hard drive can be caused by numerous things.

How to properly format reformat a hard drive for mac os. Two effective ways to format wd passport for windows. 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. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. As the default file system in windows, it can only read by mac os, writing to it is not available. Oct 25, 2018 format western digital passport to fat32 with wd quick formatter.

A drive can be formatted with exfat using either a windows or a mac computer. Format wd elements for mac and pc have your drive for both. I usually use a firewire that connects into the hard drive in two places. 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. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Wd 2tb black my passport for mac portable external hard. Another format, called fat32 is compatible with both os platforms. 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. Apple may provide or recommend responses as a possible solution based on the information provided. You can select the exfat format when using the disk. From the volume format menu, choose mac os extended. Your wd elements drive will be on your mac s desktop under the name you gave it.

How to partition and format a wd drive on windows and macos. Wd passport external hd not recognized on windows 10. 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. Enter a name for the external hard drive in the name field. Plug the cable attached to the wd external hard drive to the appropriate port on the mac, for example, the usb port. My question is if i am able to set my hard drive to a format in which it can work on both windows and mac. Continue below to format an external hard drive or learn more about disk management. Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. I then found the instructions to format it to mac but now whenever i connect it to a pc, it wont work.

In the resulut, your external hard drive will work just fine with mac and windows. Two easy methods to format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac. Because the file system on the wd passport for mac external hard drive is a mac os extended journaled file system. Jan, 2020 thus, well protecting the formatted hard drive is extremely important, which can determine if you can unformat hard drive or not. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. With disk utility open, locate the hard drive you want to partition and select partition. Wd quick formatter is short for western digital quick formatter, a format tool developed by western digital technologies, inc. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. Connect your western digital my passport hard drive to your windows pc through the usb cable.

Reformatting a western digital my passport hard drive to function well on windows and macintosh systems is neither timeconsuming nor technologically demanding. If you are going to use it on both mac and windows, i would format it in windows as ntfs and use paragon ntfs for mac. The wd my passport ultra comes with the software which can be easily installed on your windowsmac computer. First, note the number of the disk in the disk management window. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b.

Wd my passport ultra 1tb setup and troubleshooting guide. This is useful if a drive is being used under both operating system osto move files between the two environments. Some people are asking for a way to format a hard drive for mac. Then, ill introduce you to workable and easy ways to format wd passport external hard drive, wd elements external hard drive and other external hard drives. To download the driver for your mac system, specify the mac os version in the correct textbox. How to format a hard drive on mac to work on mac and pc. Please keep in mind that reformatting will result in the loss of all the data on the hard.

Wd external hard drive work for mac os an apple community. And in a few minutes your wd elements drive is exfat formatted ready for you to use on your mac and windows pc. Two ways for reformatting wd hard drive for mac and pc. 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. This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only. Aug 30, 2019 how to format an external hard drive on windows. Apr 16, 2020 step 6 once formatting completes, you can then use your drive in mac as a usual hard drive part 3. A hard drive or hard disk can be used in any type of computer, whether for pc windows or for mac. Windows will format the drive as exfat and youll be able to use the drive on both windows and mac. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. If youre a windows user, youll have to reformat it to ntfs or just buy the regular wd drive, which is usually same price or even cheaper and comes already formatted for windows. For example, in the screenshot below, the macformatted drive is disk 2. Plug in the external hard drive into the system and open windows explorer by clicking on the computer section in.

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. How to format new hard drive on windows 10 windows central. Inside, enter the applications folder and then the utilities folder. Jan 17, 2019 starting clean how to format new hard drive on windows 10 formatting is an essential task before starting to use a new drive, and in this guide, well show you how to do it on windows 10. External drive like wd elements, my book and my passport can be formatted to fat32 via this tool. Apple formatted wd drive on windows 10 microsoft community. 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. Mar 12, 2018 want to format a hard drive for mac and pc compatibility. However, all of the solutions can be divided into two types. You can format an external hard drive or thumb drive to work seamlessly with both mac and windows by using the exfat file system.

To start, your first step will be to find disk utility. I have just purchased a wd my passport external 4 tb drive and wish to use it on both my pc as well as my imac. If you recently purchased an external hard drive or portable ssd for your mac, you probably noticed that mac os x doesnt allow you to write data on to the drive. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system.

Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdoc is the. Plug in the external hard drive into the system and open windows explorer by clicking on the computer section in the side bar, you will see your. Moving files from macformatted external hard drive to pc. Just keep in mind if you want to use your drive also for os xs time machine backups, we advise you to format your drive through mac because there is an additional step to make drive compatible. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with. Click the file menu and select load file system from device. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. How to low level format or write zeros full erase to a wd hard drive or solid state drive you need to use wd smartware or wd drive utility to format your external drive. Oct 15, 2015 hi, i am trying to access my wd hard drive which i have been using on my mac from my pc. The tips and shortcuts below will give you the necessary info and tidbits you need to format wd elements for mac. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and.

A new windows explorer window opens, on the left side. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step. Understanding hard drive partitioning with disk management. Format your external drive with exfat for both mac and. Free download western digital fat32 formatting tool for. If you are techy and use windows and mac computers frequently, then you might need to transfer data between mac and pc.

This process is data destructive and cannot be undone. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. Back up all important information on the drive before beginning. 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. In such a case, its necessary to reformat wd hard drive to make it compatible with mac operating system. 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. If you run into the issue of not having enough space format it to be the ex fat as. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac.

From what i understand, windows doesnt always like the way macs do the formatting on some larger drives, though, so give it a try and if your windows machines dont like it, just format the drive with windows. If youre a mac user, this drive comes formatted in hfs, so itll work for your right out of the box, no problems. Jan 14, 2020 and in a few minutes your wd elements drive is exfat formatted ready for you to use on your mac and windows pc. How to format a hard drive to work on mac and pc youtube. Heres a look at how the different hd format types function. I read that i needed to reformat the hd drive which i did but now neither the pc nor the mac even sees the hd. For instance, users want to write data to and read data from, to do a clean installation of the windows system, to get rid of a virus or malware, to erase the data before giving the drive to someone else or throwing it away, or some other reasons. To format the drive in windows, rightclick it in the file explorer window and select format. The western digital ultra portable 2tb external hard drive is a small and portable hard drive that can securely store your files offline.

After installing the software, connect your wd drive to the system and start using it. Mar 15, 2018 rather than use a macformatted drive, you should get the important files off of it and use exfatformatted drives for moving data between macs and pcs. Using wd 4 tb my passport for both mac and pc external. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive. This thing is still unknown for many users but doesnt worry its not complex. Most external hard drives hd are sold in a format called ntfs, which is designed to work with windows.

If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. You have to set it up correctly before getting starting. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. A windows pc cannot see, read, write to that file system. Next, open a command prompt window as administrator. How to format wd my passport for mac and pc easeus. 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. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. Im using model 15au123cl hp laptop intel core i5 7th gen and wd external drive wd3200h1q00. How to format an external hard drive with wd quick.