Reformat My Passport For Mac
Posted : admin On 10/12/2019- I just got a WD My Passport drive, 1TB. It's formatted for Windows NT. How should I re-format this for Mac 10.7.5? Do I use disc utilities FAT32 or is there.
- It is easy use your WD My Passport for Mac and Windows in 7 steps. You’ll find other documents on the site all about your WD My Passport portable external hard drive. Why not take a look: Format WD My Passport for Mac, 10 Quick Steps. How to Use WD My Passport for Mac 5 Ways No Anger. Partition WD My Passport For Mac, Teach Yourself in 10 Steps.
It is easy use your WD My Passport for Mac and Windows in 7 steps. You’ll find other documents on the site all about your WD My Passport portable external hard drive. Why not take a look: Format WD My Passport for Mac, 10 Quick Steps. How to Use WD My Passport for Mac 5 Ways No Anger. Partition WD My Passport For Mac, Teach Yourself in 10 Steps.
You have a WD My Passport portable external drive and you want to make it work on both Mac and PC.
Whether it’s because you’ve a Windows PC you use at work. And when you’re home it’s easier for you to continue your work on your Mac.
Or
Now, I will show you the two methods to format WD My Passport portable hard drive on Mac. Method 1: format WD My Passport portable hard drive on Mac with disk utility. Disk utility is a Mac application, you can run it on your Mac. It will list all the hard drives and devices on your Mac computer. Your My Passport for Mac drive is formatted as a single HSF+J partition for compatibility with Mac OS X operating systems. If you want to use the drive with a Windows computer, see Reformatting the Drive and Troubleshooting. About Your WD Drive My Passport for Mac User Manual 2. Jul 17, 2015 But this time, Western digital has introduced a range of portable hard drives named 'My Passport', which are designed for both Mac and Windows systems. These portable hard drives are shipped in preformatted or in the NTFS (Windows) or HFS+ (Mac) format. In order to use the same drive on both the platforms, you need to format or reformat it.
You need to work at home because then you can watch a sick child. Or be there when the kids come home from school.
Or it could be that you have both types of computers in your home. Your work and home life would run so much easier if you could just get the dang thing to work on both.
The question you’re asking yourself is: Can I use my WD Passport on both Mac and PC?
The answer is Yes.
And in this article I aim to inspire you to do just that.
Learn the few steps it takes to set up your WD My Passport for Mac and Windows.
High Level View of the Steps To Making WD Passport Compatible with Mac and Windows
- You plug in the WD My Passport Into Your Mac
- You format your WD My Passport to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system.
- Next you format your WD My Passport drive to an ExFAT file system.
- After that you can use your WD Passport on both Mac and PC.
And the whole thing takes only a few minutes to do.
____________
Plugging in Your WD My Passport Into Your Mac and PC
Before you start you’ll need to connect your drive.
You’ll either find this super easy and straight forward. Or you may need a cable or adaptor depending on the Mac and PC you have.
Your WD My Passport drive uses an external hard drive standard called USB 3.0. You don’t need to understand the ins and outs of this standard. It’s enough to know that the different USB standards define the speed the drive works at.
And the plugs used to connect the hard drive to your Mac or your Windows PC. The connection types are also known as ports.
Your WD My Passport portable drive has a USB B micro port.
Its cable comes with a connection for the USB B Micro port for the hard drive. And at the other end, the end that connects to a computer has a USB A connection.
That end looks like this.
What If you Bought a WD My Passport for Mac?
The cable supplied with the WD My Passport for Mac is different. It still has the Micro B connection for the WD My Passport for Mac drive. But on the other end it has a USB C port.
Check the USB port you have on your Mac and on your Windows PC
Specify a network address translation (NAT) prefix and subnet mask to enable Internet connectivity.Docker EngineThe Docker Engine page allows you to configure the Docker daemon to determine how your containers run.Type a JSON configuration file in the box to configure the daemon settings. NetworkYou can configure Docker Desktop networking to work on a virtual private network (VPN). If you have anycontainers that you would like to keep running across restarts, you should consider using. When your proxy configuration changes,Docker restarts automatically to pick up the new settings. Docker for mac.
You may have a USB A port. Or on the newer Macs and Windows PCs you may have a USB C port. And find you’ll need an adaptor cable or device.
The USB standard is thankfully backwards compatible. So as long as you have the right cable or adaptor you’ll be fine.
My favorite cable and adaptor are: (Commissions Earned)
1. USB C to Micro B Cable, QCEs
2. Apple USB-C to USB Adapter
Click on the above links to view on Amazon.
Got the right cable for your Mac and your Windows PC. And you may find you’ll need two different cables. But that’s fine as long as you have the cable you need in the right place at the right time.
How to Make WD Passport Compatible with Mac and Windows
The method you’ll learn uses your Mac to format your WD passport for Mac and Windows.
I recommend doing it this way, as Macs can be choosy about what formats their hard drives.
And throw up issues when you format the external hard drive on a Windows PC and then you use on your Mac.
Setting up your WD My Passport drive on your Mac moves any of these issues out of the picture.
Side Note:
If you have documents, and files already on your WD My Passport drive copy them off before you start doing this.
If you can’t copy them off. Or you have no room either on the Mac or your Windows PC to put them there.
Then you’ll want to take a look at my article here. It covers the options available when you want an external hard drive working on a Mac and PC but you can’t reformat. Because you don’t want to loose the documents on there.
1. Turn on Your Mac and Log In.
Plug in your WD My Passport’s USB cable into its Micro USB B port. Then plug the other end into a USB port on your Mac.
The WD My Passport gets its power from the Mac and the drive’s LED light will start flashing as it powers up.
2. Look for the External Hard Drive Icon on your Desktop.
Or your Mac may give you a message asking whether you would like to format the WD My Passport drive.
If your Mac has asked that question select Yes.
If it hasn’t you’ll see an icon on your desktop like this.
Your WD MyPassport drive not showing up on the desktop?
Open afinder window. And click on Preferences.
Check theboxes ‘Hard Disks’ and ‘External Disks’
Now you open up a piece of software on your Mac called Disk Utility.
You’ll use Disk Utility to format your WD My Passport drive.
You find Disk Utility in the Applications folder on your Mac.
Inside the Application folder you’ll see the Utilities folder. Double click on that.
Then double click on Disk Utility.
Your other way is to search for Disk Utility via the spotlight search.
You can find Spotlight search at the top of your desktop.
Click on spotlight search and type in ‘Disk Utility’.
Double click on Disk Utility to open it up.
3. Make Sure your WD My Passport External Drive is Chosen.
You click where I’ve circled on the above picture. You click at the ‘top level’ – where you see the WD My Passport drive first listed.
A small arrow head to the left of your My Passport external drive shows the levels.
If thedrive levels are still not showing, click on view on the top left of your DiskUtility pop up window.
Then openup the view menu and click the box to show all devices. The drive and the volume.Then you’ll be find to select your drive at thetop level.
Now take a look at the top of the Disk Utility screen and click on the Erase option.
4. Give Your WD My Passport External Drive a Name.
On the next screen of Disk Utility you will be able to enter a new name for your WD My Passport drive. Why not choose a name that reflects is use on both Mac and Windows PC?
For the drive format select Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
And the Scheme is GUID Partition Map.
Click on Erase.
In a few moments the WD Passport drive is formatted.
You will format the WD My Passport drive twice. Once as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. The second time as ExFAT. This will make the WD My Passport hard drive compatible with Mac and Windows PC.
5. Choose the WD My Passport Drive A Second Time.
Double click on Erase.
6. Then Select the ExFAT Format.
You have just formatted the WD Passport drive as a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. This time select ExFAT from the format drop down menu.
Leave the partition map as GUID as before.
Then Select the Erase button at the bottom right of the window.
Several short moments later you’re done.
The WD My Passport drive is now formatted to work on both Mac and PC. And when you plug your My Passport drive into either you will be able to see the drive, read and write files. Copy and Paste files and create folders on both Mac and PC.
7. Ejecting your WD My Passport Drive
Never just pull out your USB cable either from your Mac or your Windows PC. You need to eject the drive first.
By ejecting the drive your computer can write anything it is still holding in its memory to the hard drive. And you’ll keep the risk of corrupting your files to the smallest possible.
To Properly Eject the WD My Passport Drive.
1. On your Mac. Put your cursor over the WD My Passport Icon on the desktop.
Right click. Next click on the Eject option.
2. Wait until you can’t see the Icon on the desktop.
3. Then check the LED lights on your WD My Passport drive. When they stop flickering and you have a steady constant light you know the drive is idle.
Then you’re free to unplug the USB cable.
An Alternative Way to Eject on your Mac or for Your PC
Go to the Finder Window on your Mac or the Explorer window on Windows PC. Right click on the file icon of your WD My Passport drive there.
Choose Eject.
Wait till the icon disappears and the flickering on the drive stops. Then you can pull out the USB cable.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Why Didn’t My WD Passport Work on My Mac and PC?
WD My Passport is sold with a file system called NTFS (New Technology File System).
A file system is how the My Passport external drive stores your all your files. Whether they are documents, photos or music on the drive.
Your Mac can read NTFS. So when you plug in the drive your Mac can see the documents. And you can copy them off onto your Mac.
But you can’t write any files back, update any of the documents or delete them. This is because all those actions mean the Mac has to write to the drive and it can’t.
To write to the drive you either need third party software that allows you to do that.
There is an article on the site all about this here.
Or you reformat the drive as I have led you through in the article.
2. Why Can’t ‘WD Passport For Mac’ work on Windows?
The version of the Western Digital external drive sold in a ‘For Mac’ guise does not work on Windows. Not without some third party software or without reformatting. Why?
Because the file system on the WD Passport For Mac external hard drive is a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. This file system is also call HFS+. A Windows PC cannot see, read, write to that file system.
To share that drive between a Mac and Windows PC you need software. Software that translates HFS+ into something the PC can understand.
You can take a look at the software options in my article.
Or follow the steps in this article to reformat the drive to ExFAT.
3. How to Open WD My Passport for Mac on Windows?
Because WD My Passport for Mac has a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system (HFS+) written on it. Your Windows PC can’t see, or open the drive.
Your options are to use a third party software solution that sits on your windows PC. This software would allow your PC to see, read and write to the drive.
You can read all about it in this document on the site.
Or you can reformat the drive to ExFAT and freely open the WD Passport without any special software on it.
4. Why ExFAT when Formatting WD Passport for Mac and Windows?
Because both your Mac and Windows PC can read and write to ExFAT.
What does this mean?
Copy your documents onto an ExFAT formatted WD My Passport drive. And plug into either computer.
Whether it’s your Mac and or your PC it will see those documents.
And use those documents on both computers. If it’s your music collection you want to enjoy and listen to on both your Mac and PC, then you can with ExFAT.
Both a Mac and a Windows PC can also read and write to FAT32 formatted drives.
Why didn’t I suggest that?
Format Wd Passport Drive
And you may see some sites suggesting you format to FAT32.
But FAT32 has a file size restriction of 4GB. OK, so you’ll likely have file sizes smaller than that.
But as the older file system standard FAT32 is slow.
Much slower than ExFAT. And ExFAT can store a file up to 16 Exibyte in size.
These days ExFAT is the file system to choose for your modern Mac and Windows PC.
Last Words
I hope I inspired you to take the 7 steps to set up your WD My Passport for your Mac and for your Windows PC. You’ll find it so much easier when you can work on your documents from either computer. See the photos you’ve stored on both or hear your favorite tunes on your Mac or PC.
Don’t just read – go ahead and give it a go. It is easy use your WD My Passport for Mac and Windows in 7 steps.
You’ll find other documents on the site all about your WD My Passport portable external hard drive. Why not take a look:
Summary: This guide introduces three common scenarios in which you might find your WD My Passport external hard drive read-only on Mac. If the WD My Passport read-only on Mac problem is caused by the NTFS file system, installing iBoysoft NTFS for Mac to edit, rename, delete the saved files and transfer files to the read-only WD My passport hard drive.
Western Digital is one of the most popular hard drive manufacturers. Its product line covers WD My Passport, WD My Passport Ultra, WD My Book, WD My Passport for Mac and more. Among those external hard drive categories, WD My Passport external hard drives are the most widely used ones. However, many users complain their WD My Passport is read-only on Mac like the user below in WD community.
'I have a WD My Passport 320GB external hard drive that I am trying to hook up to my iMac for the first time. I'm running macOS 10.13. I'm extremely frustrated because this drive is in a read-only mode, and I can't figure out how to change it! Any suggestion to fix this?'
--A user from WD Community
If you are looking for solutions for solving read-only WD My Passport on Mac problem, you have come to the right place. This post will explain three common reasons why your WD My Passport is not writable and corresponding fixes.
- Table of contents
- Why is the WD My Passport read-only?
- Scenario 1: Your WD My Passport hard drive is NTFS-formatted
- Scenario 2: You have read-only permission to access WD My Passport hard drive
- Scenario 3: Your WD My Passport hard drive is corrupted
- Conclusion
Why is the WD My Passport read-only?
Sometimes, the WD external hard drive is read-only on Mac when you just got a brand new WD external hard drive. In other times, it suddenly became read-only after you have been using it for a while. The most common reasons for a read-only WD external hard drive, like WD My Passport, are listed below:
Formatting Wd Passport For Mac
- Your WD My Passport hard drive is NTFS-formatted.
- You have read-only permission to access the WD My Passport hard drive.
- Your WD My Passport hard drive is corrupted.
If you are not sure which reason has caused your WD My Passport external hard drive read-only on Mac, check the scenarios one by one. If you know the reason already, you can jump to the scenario that best describes your situation.
Scenario 1: Your WD My Passport hard drive is NTFS-formatted
By default, macOS can mount a Windows NTFS volume or drive in read-only mode. You can view the files saved on the NTFS-formatted partition or drive but can't make any changes to them. In addition, the WD My Passport hard drive won't let you add any files to it. To check if your WD My Passport is NTFS formatted, follow the steps:
- Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utilities.
- Click the WD My Passport (you may have changed its name) at the left sidebar. The file system information will be displayed on the right.
Note: You can also right-click the disk icon at the desktop and choose 'Get Info' to check the file system information.
After having confirmed that the WD My Passport is formatted with NTFS, many people will choose to convert NTFS to APFS (for macOS Catalina, Mojave and High Sierra) or reformat the WD My Passport hard drive to make the WD external hard drive compatible with Mac. In fact, installing an NTFS for Mac driver is a much easier way.
Solution: Install an NTFS for Mac driver to make WD My Passport writable
We will introduce an NTFS for macOS drivers - iBoysoft NTFS for Mac. It can help read and write to NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drives on Mac.
iBoysoft NTFS for Mac: NTFS for Mac driver and more
iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is an NTFS disk management tool. It can manage NTFS drives with NTFS write support. It can easily and effectively mount NTFS drive on Mac automatically in read-write mode. It works with macOS 10.15/10.14/10.13/10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8.
Three simple steps to read and write to NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drive easily.
Step 1: Download, install and launch iBoysoft NTFS for Mac on your Mac.
Step 2: Connect the NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drive to Mac.
Step 3: Write to NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drive after the drive has been mounted successfully.
Besides an NTFS mounter, iBoysoft NTFS for Mac can also open, unmount, eject, erase and repair NTFS volumes. It can list all attached external disks including USB flash drives, SD cards, memory sticks, external hard drives and so on. You can open them with one click. Moreover, you can reformat them to NTFS with iBoysoft NTFS for Mac if you need.
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Scenario 2: You have read-only permission to access the WD My Passport hard drive
If your WD My Passport external hard drive is not formatted with NTFS but you have no write permission to it, it is probably because you have read-only permission to access the WD My Passport. Since your WD external hard drive is write-protected, all your write access is denied.
To know your permission to the WD My Passport, follow the steps below:
- Right-click the WD My Passport disk icon at the desktop and choose 'Get Info'.
- Check the information at the bottom under the Sharing & Permissions tab.
If you can see the message 'You can only read', then you will understand why you can't write to your WD My Passport drive.
Solution: Change read-only permission on the WD My Passport drive
Follow the instruction below to change permission on the WD My Passport on Mac:
Step 1: Click on the lock icon at the right corner in the Get Info window.
Step 2: Enter password if asked.
Step 3: Check the 'Ignore ownership on this volume'.
Step 4: Click on the gear button and choose 'Apply to enclosed items…'.
Step 5: Click 'OK' when you are asked to confirm the operation.
By now, you have regained the read and write access to the WD My Passport.
Scenario 3: Your WD My Passport hard drive is corrupted
If you are sure that the read-only WD My Passport is not caused by NTFS file system nor read-only permission, another possible cause might be the disk corruption. When an external drive is corrupted, people suddenly have trouble reading or/and writing to the disk. Then you will have to fix the corrupted WD My Passport external hard drive to make it writable again. We will introduce two solutions here:
- Fix the read-only WD My Passport in Disk Utility on Mac
- Reformat the WD My Passport on Mac
Solution 1: Fix the read-only WD My Passport in Disk Utility on Mac
This solution might help you solve the read-only external hard drive problem without formatting. You will utilize a built-in tool on Mac called Disk Utility. It is used to manage internal and external disks on Mac. There is a function called First Aid in Disk Utility that can be used to check for and repair errors on the selected disk or volume.
Here is how to fix the read-only WD My Passport in Disk Utility:
Step 1: Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
Step 2: Select the WD My Passport drive at the left sidebar.
Step 3: Click on First Aid and click on 'Run' to repair the WD My Passport drive.
Step 4: Click 'Done' after the operation completes.
If First Aid fails to repair the WD external hard drive, your disk might be seriously corrupted. You will have to reformat the WD My passport to make it not read-only.
Solution 2: Reformat the WD My Passport on Mac
Reformatting the corrupted disk is the ultimate solution for fixing the read-only WD My Passport drive. Follow the steps below to know how to make the WD My Passport compatible with Mac and PC.
Step 1: Make sure you have a copy of your important files on WD My Passport hard drive, or recover data from the external hard drive with iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery.
Step 2: Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
Step 3: Click on the WD My Passport drive at the left sidebar.
Step 4: Check Click 'Erase' on the top of the Disk Utility window.
Step 5: Input a name.
Step 6: Choose FAT or exFAT as format for convenience because either of them is compatible with both Windows and macOS. Of course, you can choose another file system that best meets your needs.
Step 7: Choose 'GUID Partition Map' as Scheme.
Step 8: Click on 'Erase' button.
You can reconnect the WD external hard drive to Mac again to see if it is writable now.
Conclusion
The external hard drive read-only on Mac problem doesn't happen to WD external hard drives only. It is quite common to see other notable external hard drive brand get the same complaint like Seagate, Samsung, Toshiba, etc. When you come across the read-only disk problem on Mac, the post is always helpful.