How To Format My Passport Ultra For Both Mac And Pc
I have a 500GB passport formatted for MAC and I need to be able to use it for PCs as well. Can someone please give me detailed instructions how to format it so it works for both and still be able to read and write files from multiple computers. I need to be able to share files between computers MAC and PC). 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. WD My Passport Ultra 1TB drive not detected on PC, how to fix it? 'I have a WD My Passport Ultra 1TB portable drive for storing movies, photos, and important personal files. This morning, WD My Passport suddenly became inaccessible, couldn't be detected by my computer. How to Format WD My Passport for Mac and PC Stellarinfo.com A WD My Passport formatted with Mac file system will be a dud on the Windows and vice-versa. Thankfully, MS-DOS FAT32 and ex-FAT formats have survived to date, and these are the file system to make your WD My Passport work with a Mac and a Windows PC simultaneously.
This is because you must format the drive with a specific file system before using it with a computer, and Windows and Mac computers run on different file systems. The only solution to making your hard drive compatible with a different operating system is to reformat the drive. This, however, erases all of the data on the drive.
This is a file system limitation that affects both Mac's and PC's, and the only workaround is to format the drive to exFAT. For more information about what these limitations are please see. The easiest way to format the drive to or is by using macOS's built-in Disk Utility or Windows' built-in Disk Management. Critical: Never attempt to connect any external drive to multiple computers at the same time. This could quickly damage the drive's partition and corrupt the data on the drive. ExFAT in macOS 10.11 (El Capitan) and above There are two easy ways to format a drive to use is by using Mac OSX's built-in Disk Utility; using Erase (Step 4) or Partition (Step 7).
Change WD drive letter and path to make WD drive detectable When your WD become inaccessible, you can follow the guidelines below to change WD drive letter and path to make it detectable and accessible again in Windows PC: Step 1. Press Win + R to bring up Run dialog > Type: diskmgmt.msc to open Disk Management. Right-click on WD drive and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths. Clic k Add and choose the drive letter beside Assign the following drive letter > Click OK.
Format WD hard drive or external hard drive to NTFS for saving data again. • If the WD hard drive still doesn't show up or cannot be detected, some physical errors may have occurred to your device. Please try these tips for a guide: • 1. Search and find some manual guide online to check the physical error on your WD hard drive. Or you can take your WD drive to a local hard drive repair center for professional help. (If you are not professional, please try this tip.).
In case the answer did not answer your question, you can always visit the for help from WD users.
FAT32 FAT32 is a legacy file system in the Windows world. However, it is still widely used as almost all Flash-based drives use this format. Mac OS X supports this format for both reading and writing, as does Windows. It has notable limitations, including difficulties with files of size larger than 4 GB.
Using the FAT32 Formatter for older WD drives Western Digital has a Windows based utility that will reformat an older Western Digital external USB or FireWire hard drive back to the factory default FAT32 partition. The FAT32 formatter software is only for older external single drive units and can only format a drive that is 1TB and below. It will not work on an external drive that is greater than 1TB in size. It also may not work on models released after 2007. When run, this utility can only create a single FAT32 partition for the full capacity of the hard drive. Please follow the directions below to download and use the Western Digital FAT32 formatting utility. • Download the (select the product being formatted from the list first).
By default, the maximum disk space is already selected and it is recommended to leave it at the maximum disk space. Note: To create multiple partitions, select or type a specific number of megabytes (MB) for the first partition and continue to the next step. Once done with this process, the remaining space will display as unallocated space. Now, create another New Simple Volume in the remaining unallocated space for the next partition.
Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size. Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.
The actual HDD are the same, they are just formatted differently. A lot of external drives actually come formatted FAT32 by default so that there is not a problem with it being 'picked up' by Windows or OS X. Even in NTFS OS X can read it but it can't write to it without a 3rd party software.
• Downloadable HFS driver to read⁄write on Windows®. • Compatibility may vary depending on user’s hardware configuration and operating system. Capacity 4TB, 2TB Interface USB-C ready, USB 3.0 compatible Additional Details • Innovative Style and Function • Included WD Discovery™ software for social media and cloud storage import, backup and password protection • 3-year limited warranty Package Includes • My Passport Ultra for Mac portable storage • USB-C™ cable with USB 3.0 adapter • WD Discovery™* software for WD Security™ and WD Drive Utilities™ • Quick install guide *Internet activation required.
But despite the best of the best device specifications; there remains one small glitch to rectify. We know, Macs and Windows have their native file systems such as the new APFS or HFS and the NTFS. A WD My Passport formatted with Mac file system will be a dud on the Windows and vice-versa. Thankfully, MS-DOS FAT32 and ex-FAT formats have survived to date, and these are the file system to make your WD My Passport work with a Mac and a Windows PC simultaneously.
Or is the FAT32 program made so i can download it on a PC to format my Passport to be PC useable? I hope i’m being clear, if not i’m sorry.
This is not specifically a Windows problem. I had the same issue a couple of years back with a Formac external drive. It looks like your Mac provides enough power which is why it's okay on the Mac but not on the PC. You need to use a cable with two ends: one for power, one for data. If the drive didn't come with that, you might need to buy one from elsewhere. Alternatively, if the drive has a separate AC power port you can supply power to it through that.
In fact, some users may run into other situations to format their WD my passport HFS+ external hard drive. For example, many uses will find themselves in a dilemma when facing following problems: • WD my passport shows not formatted error with on Mac • WD my passport external is attacked by virus • WD my passport portable HFS+HDD contains bad sectors Some people will format the WD my passport HFS+ external hard drive when they encounter the similar problem above because they have no other choice in order to access the drive. However, they may find that they are in another difficult situation that there is nothing on the formatted external. Today, we would like to introduce solution and share tips for data recovery when you format WD my passport HFS+ external HDD either by mistake or due to other reasons.
After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.' S ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area.
I saw in another forum that I should use a cable that has 2 USB ends, because Windows requires more power to make the hard drive to work. I thought: 'Thats insane. ' Its getting hard to make this piece of **** work. You can't format a hard drive as all three of those filesystems unless you partitioned the hard drive. And even if you did that, what you store in the partition that is formated as HFS+ will still not be visible to the Windows computer. I'm not sure if a hard drive that big can be formated as FAT32, but that is the file system that you want to format the drive as to be able to read and write from both Mac OS X and Windows. The 'for Mac' part of the brand is only for marketing purposes really.
The problem exists on the USB cable. If the WD drive cannot be detected either, you can selectively follow below 3 methods to get problems fixed and repair the WD My Passport drive to work again.
• Click on the drop-down next to Format and from the drop-down menu select MS-DOS (FAT). This is the format that the drive will be formatted to. • Now, click on Apply. • Disk Utility will begin the formatting and repartitioning process. This may take several minutes. FAT32 in macOS 10.10 (Yosemite) and earlier The easiest way to format a drive to use is by using Mac OSX's built-in Disk Utility. For instructions on how to do this, please see the instructions below: • Begin by connecting the WD drive to the Mac computer.
My Passport Ultra Driver
Oh, I know about WD releases, Ive had my eyes GLUED to that issue from the beginning. Yes, the bare drives themselves arent the issue, but the OP mentioned 'WD My Passport' And, alas WD (same as Seagate does) includes lots of nice 'helpful' (translate counterproductive and useless) software packages with their external USB and RAID drives.I did notice today that the local Apple store had pulled ALL the WD MyBook for sale. Here is what you mentioned: (but once the external is repartitioned its all a 'close the door after the horse is gone' situation, even with the 'fix') WD is happy to announce the release of. Fixed an issue related to reports of some customers, under certain conditions, experiencing data loss when updating to Apple's OS X Mavericks (10.9).
How To Format My Passport Ultra To Fat32 Format
Please reply us with the required information. We would be happy to assist you further on the issue. Regards, Ashish Sondhi.
If the device will only be used on a Mac OS X computer, use HFS+. 
This will offer the most complete support for Mac OS X features. If the device will only be used in Windows, use NTFS, for the same rationale. If the device will be mounted on both Windows and Mac computers, and you will not be using very large files (all files.