Then your western digital external hard drive is ready to use on your mac and on your windows pc. The maximum individual file size for exfat is 16 eb. Apr 16, 2020 to format western digital my passport for mac or windows, you can rely on inbuilt applications of your system to format your wd my passport in exfat or fat32 format. I am a complete novice and need help in obtaining an idiots guide to this process otherwise im in danger of losing all my itunes. Please keep in mind that reformatting will result in the loss of all the data on the hard drive so make sure you back up your data elsewhere before starting. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Jan 17, 2019 rightclick the new hard drive and select the format option. Make sure your external hard drive is attached and mounted to. How to partition and format a wd drive on windows and. 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. If you run into the issue of not having enough space format it to be the ex fat as. How to format new hard drive on windows 10 windows central. Jul 31, 2016 you need to format your wd my passport ultra by using low level format. Formatted to windows but need to reformat to mac help wd.
A hard drive or hard disk can be used in any type of computer, whether for pc windows or for mac. 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. 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. Before you get the answer, you must figure out what kind of file system can work well on both the macos and the windows system. 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. Two ways for reformatting wd hard drive for mac and pc. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. By formatting the passport as an exfat or fat32 drive, you.
Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Connect your western digital my passport hard drive to your windows pc through the usb cable. Mar 23, 2020 how to format reformat 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. I show you how to format a western digital or any brandhard drive for use on any device be it a mac, pc, linux, ps3, xbox 360, etc. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Thats all because its been initialized with windows nt file system ntfs, which is primarily for pcs. Free download western digital fat32 formatting tool for. I then found the instructions to format it to mac but now whenever i connect it to a pc, it wont work. How to format wd my passport for mac and pc easeus. To format western digital my passport for mac or windows, you can rely on inbuilt applications of your system to format your wd my passport in exfat or fat32 format. Here is a stepbystep guide on how to format wd passport.
Plug in your wd my passports usb cable into its micro usb b port. On this popup screen, choose ntfs, fat32 or exfat among listed file systems and click ok. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. Under the format menu, choose the file system you want to use. Easily use your wd my passport for mac and windows in 7 steps. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. As the default file system in windows, it can only read by mac os, writing to it is not available. First to format your wd elements external drive to mac os extended journaled file system.
Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab. 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. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the drives on your mac are listed on the lefthand sidebar. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step. 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. Wd passport external hd not recognized on windows 10. 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. Before proceeding further, it is recommended to take a backup of your important files. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. Yes i tried all the ports, i used the hard drive cable to connect my phone to the laptop and windows explorer detected my phone immediately. 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. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Mar 31, 2020 how to share an external hard drive between mac and windows.
How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. How to properly formatreformat a hard drive for mac os. See the above section for more details on which one to pick. 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. Internal hdd and internal ssd drives do not ship preformatted and will need to be partitioned and formatted before being used.
Ive just bought my first mac and understand that i now need to reformat the disc to mac. 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. Super eraser also can help you permanently erase filesfolders from wd portable hard drive, and wipe the free disk space of the wd portable hard drive. Feb 08, 2020 so, you just bought an external hard drive or a portable ssd and wanted to use it on your mac. How to make wd passport compatible with mac and windows. In the main console, locate the partition on the wd passport external hard drive, right click it and choose format partition. And you should make sure that the wd hard drive can be detected by windows as well. 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. Luckily, there are thirdparty tools to help you do so.
How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. Apr 16, 2020 can i use wd hard drive on mac and pc. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. Rightclick the new hard drive and select the format option. Currently i store about 64gb of an itunes library on there. To format the drive in windows, rightclick it in the file explorer window and select format. This is useful if a drive is being used under both operating system osto move files between the two environments. To reformat wd hard drive to exfat or fat32, free download and install the software in advance. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac.
How to format an external hard drive on windows 10. How to format hard drives on windows, mac and linux. As formatting will going to erase everything on your drive and thats why avoid formatting. If you are techy and use windows and mac computers frequently, then you might need to transfer data between mac and pc. Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on mac. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Command prompt is windows command processor and it is used to perform commands in the windows system. Look for the external hard drive icon on your desktop. That said, if you are using smaller file sizes fat32 can suffice. Apr 16, 2020 command prompt is windows command processor and it is used to perform commands in the windows system. How to properly format reformat a hard drive for mac os. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac.
Both mac os x and windows allow users to format their hard drives using builtin utilities. A new windows explorer window opens, on the left side. For a hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a pc and mac. This thing is still unknown for many users but doesnt worry its not complex. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. Give the drive a descriptive name and leave the default settings. How do i make my wd passport work on both windows and mac. May 21, 2018 in this video tutorial, i show you how to easily format an external hard drive to work on both a mac and a pc. Also, if your current hard drive is more than 5 years old, it probably is nearing the end of its service life and needs to be replaced. 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 external hard drive get attached to your system.
The easiest way to do that is hit cmd and the spacebar at. Rightclick on the unallocated space, and select the new simple volume option on the popup menu, as shown. A western digital external hard drive can be used on both windows and mac osx. Format western digital passport to fat32 with wd quick formatter. I then plugged the hard drive in my work laptop which i normally do to exchange work docs and same thing, my laptop couldnt detect it. Step 1 in the windows search, look for the command prompt. You need to format your wd my passport ultra by using low level format. How to format a hard drive to work on mac and pc youtube. 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. Dec, 2019 you can format the external hard drive or usb drive to make it compatible with both mac and windows machines. It enables you to format wd hard drive, seagate hard drive, samsung hard drive, etc.
Some hard drives may also include drivers, firmware, or format wizards so be sure to check the user manual before formatting the hard drive. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. Choose your wd elements external hard drive on your. Now that we know the good and bad about every file system, let see how to format a drive in windows, mac, and linux. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. Apple mac machines support a different file system. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing. Western digitals passport external drive for mac isnt eternally bound to macos. Hi, i have a wd essentials 1tb external hard drive formatted to windows 7.
People might need to format a hard drive or an external hard drive in windows 10 for various reasons. 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. In this video tutorial, i show you how to easily format an external hard drive to work on both a mac and a pc. Continue below to format an external hard drive or learn more about disk management. External drive like wd elements, my book and my passport can be formatted to fat32 via this tool. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac.
But somehow, macos doesnt allow you to write data to the drive. How to format a hard drive using the command prompt toms. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Oct 25, 2018 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. Format wd elements for mac and pc have your drive for both.
How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. How to partition and format a wd drive on windows and macos. How to partition and format a wd drive on windows and macos external hard drives and external solid state drives come preformatted and ready for use. How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac. This is useful if a drive is being used under both operating system osto. In the value label field, type a descriptive name for the drive. Your disk utility program lives within a folder called utilities. For example, in the screenshot below, the macformatted drive is disk 2. 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. 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. To access the disk management tool, click the windows icon and type disk management.
If you are good at working with commands, then you can try to format your hard drive to fat32 using the command prompt. You can format a western digital my passport external hard drive to exfat or fat32 format using. Format your western digital my passport external hard drive to fat32 or exfat format so to transfer the data between a mac and windows system conveniently. 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. There are specific thirdparty systems, like digital camcorders, and sony playstation 3, which need the drives to be formatted in either fat32 or exfat format to perform read from and. Wd support 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. Next, open a command prompt window as administrator. It will not shorten the service life of the wd portable hard drive even the wd portable hard drive is erased 35 times by this software. How to format wd external drive for mac apple community. First, note the number of the disk in the disk management window. 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.
Dec 31, 2017 hi, i have a wd essentials 1tb external hard drive formatted to windows 7. How to reformat western digital portable hard drive. Select your drive in the lefthand sidebar and go to the erase tab. Use the file system dropdown menu, and select ntfs recommended. If your product is not listed above, please visit the product page.
Choose the exfat file system in the list and click start. Rightclick on the start button and select disk management on the popup menu. Wd external hard drive work for mac os an apple community. You should then a see it mount on the desktop, and b automatically get a prompt to use the drive for time machine if not, you can go into the time machine menu top right of the screen, go to tm preferences, and select it. Aug 30, 2019 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 external hard drive get attached to your system. You can format the external hard drive or usb drive to make it compatible with both mac and windows machines. Even though most people associate formatting with system installation, there are many other reasons why you might want to format your hard drive.