Using yourWD Elements drive for both your home Mac and work Windows PC means. A 1TB, 2TBor larger drive could make your life so much easier. Because both of your computerscan get to the same document.
After allhow else could you so easily move, look at and work on your docs on bothcomputers?
And it’squick and easy for you to do on your iMac or MacBook Pro or Air.
Here you will get to know about the process to format your “My passport” portable drive in FAT32 and ex-FAT file system in both Windows and Mac platforms. In Windows Platform: 1. Connect your Western Digital My Passport hard drive to your Windows PC through the USB cable. Mac instructions above will now work for exFAT. I will leave Windows instructions below for the benefit of Windows users. How to format using exFAT (on Windows): Plug the disk into a Windows Vista SP1 or Windows 7 computer. Open the Computer window. Right click on the drive, and select Format. Select exFAT from the drop down box, and click on Start. When connected to a USB 3.0 port, WD Elements portable hard drive delivers fast data transfer rates. Improve PC performance When your internal hard drive is almost full your PC slows down. Oct 27, 2017 The problem is that on macOS, you can’t work with files saved on an NTFS drive unless you use a paid app Paragon NTFS for Mac. How to Format an External Drive to Work with Mac (from NTFS to Mac OS Extended)? Note: The tutorial and screenshots below are based on macOS Sierra 10.12.5. They might be different if your Mac has a different version. Connect WD external hard drive to your Windows PC. Download and run the WD Quick Formatter for Windows 10/8/7. In the welcome screen, click Continue to move to the next screen 4. In the End User License Agreement page, click on Accept. Next, WD Quick Formatter tool will scan for WD external drives to be formatted.
And you canfind out here.
Top LevelView of Formatting WD Elements for a Mac and a PC
1. Connectup your WD Elements drive to your Mac
2. You useDisk Utility. First to format your WD Elements external drive to Mac OSExtended (Journaled) file system.
3. Then youquickly follow up by formatting to ExFAT.
4. Thenyour Western Digital external hard drive is ready to use on your Mac and onyour Windows PC.
Ahead ofStarting Your WD Elements Mac and PC Formatting
You’ll needyour Mac on and you logged in.
You maywant to think about connecting your MacBook Pro or Air to external power. Why?
Because youdon’t want your Mac’s battery to fail half way through formatting your WesternDigital Elements drive. And because theUSB cable powers your Elements drive. It’s taking its power from your Mac. You’llwant to make sure there’s enough power to drive the drive. https://vxdtpv.weebly.com/blog/external-hard-drive-for-mac-and-pc.
Your WD Elements drive comes with a USB cable that has a type A connector that plugs into your Mac.
Do you havea Macbook Pro 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018? Yes?
Your Mac will have a USB C port and you’ll need an adaptor cable.
They areeasy enough to get on Amazon.
Want to find out more about connection options for your Mac? Do take a look at this article on the site.
You mayalso need to use the adaptor cable on your Windows PC if it has USB C ports onit.
All pluggedin?
Great youcan start.
How toFormat WD Elements for Mac and PC?
The stepsbelow will format your WD Elements drive so that the whole drive is shareable.This means that both your Mac and PC can see all the drive.
Side Note:Erase will wipe any files you have on your WD Elements drive. If you have files on there and you want tokeep them, copy them off onto a Windows PC first.
1. Can yousee your WD Elements external drive on your desktop?
No?
How To Format Wd Elements For Mac And Pc
Open up afinder window. You need to change your finder window preferences.
Check theoptions to show ‘Hard Disks’ and ‘External Disks’ on your desktop.
2. Start UpDisk Utility.
You’ll find Disk Utility inside your Utilities folder. And your Utilities folder is inside your Application folder.
Open up afinder window. Type Disk Utility intothe search bar.
Click tosearch your Applications folder.
Then doubleDisk Utility in the finder window.
The yellowarrows in the above picture shows you where.
3. Pickyour Western Digital Elements Drive.
Once DiskUtility has started up you’ll see the Disk Utility pop up window.
On the lefthand side of your pop up window you’ll find the drives attached to yourMac. Your Mac’s internal disk drive is underthe heading ‘Internal’. And you’ll find your Elements drive under the‘External’ Heading. Click to select yourWD Elements drive.
Be sure topick it at the top level. The yellow arrow shows you where.
Can’t seethe different drive levels as shown in the picture?
Go to thetop left of the Disk Utility Window.
Click onView
And chooseto ‘Show all Devices’. This allows Disk Utility to show you the drive and thevolume.
Now pickyour WD Elements drive under the ‘External’ heading at the top level.
It’simportant you choose your WD Elements drive at the top level. If you don’t,you’ll have all sorts of problems formatting your Elements drive.
4. SelectErase.
At the topof your Disk Utility pop up window you’ll see a button for Erase. Click on that.
Worriedabout clicking Erase? Don’t. As the next windows shows you a bunch of thingsyou need to do first.
5. Giveyour WD Elements Hard Drive a Name.
You’ll begoing through this stage of the formatting twice. Giving the name Untitled at this point isfine.
This firsttime round you format your Elements drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) filesystem.
Choose thatoption for the drive format. The red arrow on the picture shows you where toclick. By clicking there you open up the up down arrows to expand the list ofavailable file formats.
Pick GUIDPartition Map for the scheme.
Then Clickon Erase on the bottom right of the pop up window.
DiskUtility now takes a few minutes to format your WD Elements drive.
Your drivewill change from NTFS to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system.
Once yourformatting is done.
6. NowFormat Your WD Elements Drive as ExFAT
Go though steps 3 and 4 again.
This timewhen naming your drive choose a name that is easy for you to remember. Onethat’ll help you know exactly what you’re using your WD Elements drivefor. Sharing between a Mac and a PC.
This timeyou select the file system format of ExFAT.
Choose theScheme as GUID Partition Map as you did before.
7. Click toErase.
You Clickon Erase on the bottom right hand corner of the pop up window.
https://vxdtpv.weebly.com/2-for-5-big-mac.html. And in afew minutes your WD Elements drive is ExFAT formatted ready for you to use onyour Mac and Windows PC.
Your WDElements drive will be on your Mac’s Desktop under the name you gave it. Anydesk for mac.
Now yourentire WD Elements external hard drive is in a format both computers can use.
You cancreate folders. Copy files from your Mac onto your Elements drive.
Plug yourWestern Digital Elements drive into your PC. Work on documents on the drive and put docs from your PC onto the drive.
And whenyou plug back into your Mac your Mac can see and use those files.
What if youwant a separate area on Your WD Elements drive for Mac and PC?
You would dothis by creating partitions on the hard drive.
Think ofpartitions as slicing your WD Elements drive into different size pieces. And youuse each piece for different things.
Say you maywant two partitions.
One partition for your Time Machine back up of your Mac.
And anotherfor both Mac and your PC to share files.
Thepartition that you want your Mac to use for backup you format as Mac OS Extended(Journaled) file system.
YourWindows PC will not see that partition when you plug your Elements drive intoyour PC.
Thepartition you want to share with both Mac and Windows you partition as ExFAT.
To FormatYour WD Elements With a Partition for Mac and PC
1. Follow steps 1 through to 5 above.
Your whole drive is now formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system.
Once youhave formatted your Western Digital Elements drive …
2. In DiskUtility, Click on Partition.
At the topof your Disk Utility screen you’ll see the button to partition.
Click onit.
This timeDisk Utility shows you the partition pop up Window.
3. Createyour first Partition.
Give yourpartition a name. In this example our first partition is for a Time Machinebackup. You could call it Time Machine. Makes it easy to remember.
Just like whenyou formatted choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. And the Scheme asGUID Partition Map.
4. Click the+ button under the large circle.
The largecircle is a picture showing your whole disk. When you click + you’re tellingDisk Utility to create a second partition. Disk Utility splits your WD Elements drive into two equal parts.
5. Click onthe New Partition.
Click onthe picture of your WD Elements drive. Click on the side of the picture withyour unnamed partition.
Give thepartition you plan to share a name.
ChooseExFAT for the format. And GUID Partition Map for the scheme.
6. Don’twant Equal sizes?
If youdon’t want a 50/50 split. Then you can type in the size you want eitherpartition to be. Right there on the screen where it says size.
The picturewill move and adjust to show you the percentage each partition has.
7. ClickApply.
When you’rehappy press Apply.
Your Macwill create the partitions, and format them as you want. And after a shortwhile your partitioning is done.
And yourpartitions will appear on your Mac’s desktop as drive icons.
You candouble click on them to open up finder windows. Finder windows that you cancopy and paste to and drag and drop to.
Why Doesn’tYour WD Elements Drive Work Out of the Box on your Mac and PC?
Western Digital ships the Elements external hard drive formatted as NTFS.
This meansyour PC will be able to use the drive right away.
Your Mac can read the files on an NTFS formatted WD Elements drive but can’t update those files. Or put more files on the Elements Drive.
ExFATluckily is a file format that both your Windows PC and your Mac can use.
Plug yourWD Elements drive into either and they can see all the files on the drive. Notonly that, they can write files onto the drive.
This makesthe drive completely shareable.
Saving youmoney because you won’t have to use a more complicated way to share files.
Format Wd Elements For Mac El Capitan
And all thefiles you want to use are right there on the one drive.
Last Words
And now you can relax because you have your WD Elements drive formatted for your Mac and PC. Success. You’ve formatted your WD Elements for a Mac and PC. And now you can get on with sharing your files between them both.
You’ll find other documents here all about your WD Elements drive. Please take a look.
Summary: Have you received the error: 'The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer' on Mac? Don't worry, this article will focus on how to fix WD My Passport is corrupted or unreadable on Mac. To avoid the loss of important data, you'd better recover data from the unreadable WD My Passport with iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery.
WD My Passport external hard drive is able to work on Mac and Windows for data transferring or backup. It is popular for its auto backup and passport protection features, keeping your files and folders safe. However, there are times that the WD My Passport becomes unreadable or corrupted on Mac. You may be greeted with errors like 'The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer', which prevents you from accessing all data stored on the drive.
It's so frustrating when you meet this issue. If you are struggling to solve this issue, you will find a collection of verified troubleshooting steps. https://vxdtpv.weebly.com/blog/how-to-check-for-mac-updates.
- Table of contents
- 1. Causes of WD My Passport not readable on Mac error
- 2. How to fix 'WD My Passport unreadable' on Mac error?
- 3. Conclusion
Note: If you received the disk not readable error with three options: Initialize, Ignore and Eject, please don't select 'Initialize'. Initializing the drive will erase all of the data that is currently sitting on the drive, which makes it difficult to recover data.
Causes of WD My Passport not readable on Mac error
Let's at first take a look at the complaint from community.wd.com:
'My WD My Passport 2TB Portable External Hard Drive has suddenly become unreadable on my laptop (MacBook Pro Server with macOS 10.12 Sierra) and I have tried on a MacBook Pro 2011 running 10.13 High Sierra with the same results. Any suggestions to fix my unreadable WD drive?'
The good news is, even though you have been prompted with an error message, at least your WD My Passport drive is recognized. There are many reasons that can lead to a drive not being readable, but essentially this is because the internal file system is damaged. Some of the possible reasons for this error are described as follow:
![Instructions Instructions](/uploads/1/3/4/0/134055015/650281844.png)
- Mac malfunctions
- Outdated drivers
- Faulty connections
- Write-protected drive
- The WD My Passport is not formatted
- An internal file system error or bad sectors
- Virus/malware infection to your WD My Passport
- Incompatibility issue between your WD My Passport and Mac machine
- Accidental interruption or removal of your WD My Passport during transferring data
How to fix 'WD My Passport unreadable' on Mac error?
In most cases, the issue can be repaired with a simple initialize. But this operation will remove all data stored on this drive. Are there any other ways to fix WD My Passport unreadable issue on Mac? Of course, just try these solutions one by one:
Solution 1: Re-insert the WD My Passport
The first and foremost thing is to remove the WD My Passport safely from Mac and then re-plug it into the USB port properly. If the external hard drive mounts and appears on the left sidebar of Finder, then you can access the drive. However, if the WD drive still won't mount or the error persists, continue with the next method below.
Solution 2: Check the Mac computer
The next step is to check whether your Mac machine has a problem or not. Just connect a different storage device to your Mac. If this error still pops up, the problem may refer to your Mac machine, you can restart your Mac to see if everything works well. Otherwise, if you can see the other drive in Finder, the problem is associated with the previous WD My Passport.
Solution 3: Check if the WD My Passport is encrypted
The WD My Passport for Mac corrupted or readable issue can also happen if the drive is encrypted by BitLocker. By default, the Mac computers cannot recognize a BitLocker encrypted drive, which means you are unable to read or write BitLocker encrypted drive on Mac.
You can insert the drive in a PC and then turn off the BitLocker encryption so that it can be read on Mac. In addition, you can access a BitLocker encrypted drive with the help of a third party tool.
Solution 4: Update Mac drivers
Drivers enable one or more hardware devices to communicate with the computer's operating system. If drivers are out-of-date, a variety of issues will happen such as the disk not readable error. Apple handles all system and driver updates for your system. To check if any updates are available, please do the following:
- Step 1: Go to Apple menu and select 'App Store'.
- Step 2: Click on the 'Updates' button located on the top pane.
- Step 3: Check available updates for your system and applications.
Solution 5: Repair the WD My Passport in Disk utility
Disk Utility is a built-in used to erase, format or manage internal disks and external storage devices. The most important feature of Disk Utility is First Aid, which helps detect and repair any issue with your disk. Here is how to run First Aid on your Mac to repair the unreadable WD My Passport:
- Step 1: Open Disk Utility from your /Applications/Utilities folder.
- Step 2: Select the unreadable WD My Passport in the left side bar.
- Step 3: Select the 'First Aid' tab.
- If Disk Utility tells you the disk is about to fail, back up your data and replace the disk. You can't repair the disk. Otherwise, continue to step 4.
- Step 4: Click Run.
- If Disk Utility reports that the disk appears to be OK or has been repaired, you're done. Otherwise, you have to back up as much of your data as possible.
Solution 6: Recover data and erase the WD My Passport
If the error still exists, you have no choice but erase the WD My Passport. But keep in mind that you will lose all data store on this disk. If you didn't back up important data, you should get lost data back with free Online data recovery software at first.
Step 1: Recover data from the unreadable WD My Password on Mac
If you are not sure which data recovery tool you can trust, iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery is highly recommended to recover data from the unreadable or corrupted WD My Passport. This free Mac data recovery can scan and recover data from unreadable SD cards, internal Macintosh hard drives, external hard drives, USB flash drives, etc. iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery provides a complete Mac data recovery solution even if your Mac won't boot/turn on, your device is failing, inaccessible or has lost a partition.
Moreover, iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery can also recover recently or permanently deleted files, recover data from formatted hard drives, recover data from unmountable hard drives, and recover data from inaccessible drives, etc. This software supports recovering documents, photos, videos, emails, and music files. It's fully compatible with macOS Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra 10.13/Sierra 10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.
1. Download and install iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery on Mac.
2. Launch iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery.
3. Select the unreadable WD My Passport and click 'Next' to search for lost files.
4. Preview the searching results, choose those you want and click 'Recover' to get them back.
5. Go over to ensure all lost files have been successfully restored.
Step 2: Erase the unreadable WD My Password in Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from /Applications/Utilities folder.
2. Click on View > Show All Devices in the menu bar.
3. Select the WD My Passport from the list of devices on the left pane and click the'Erase' button on the top.
4. Name your drive, select a file system format and then click 'Erase'.
Now that you've formatted the WD My Passport, the disk unreadable error will be resolved and the drive can be ready to use. Then you can copy the recovered data back.
Solution 7: Ask data recovery service for help
However, if the solutions above don't fix the WD My Passport unreadable issue for you, or your WD My Passport even won't show up on Mac, it's probably the drive has been physically damaged. In that case, you should send it to a local data recovery service or replace it with a new one.
Conclusion
Hope these solutions have helped you fix the WD My Passport corrupted or unreadable issue. If you have any question about this article, stay in touch with us for further assistance. Specifically, we'd love to hear if you have other solutions for this issue.