However, the new macs are shipped with the latest mac os version, macos high sierra which supports the apple file system or apfs. List of all wd firmware and software available for download. Eb its going to take us a while to hit that, and its compatible with both mac and pc. Hi, i have a 10tb gdrive usb not usbc harddisk and i have. Open windows file explorer, locate and rightclick on wd my passport that you need to format, select format. My passport ultra was previously used on my windows 7 pc.
Also is it ok to erase all the present files on the disc. Pick your wd my passport in the external hard drive list. Individual files on a fat32 drive cant be over 4gb in size thats the maximum. How to format a drive for mac and pc compatibility. File system formats available in disk utility on mac. A wd my passport formatted with mac file system will be a dud on the windows and viceversa. The drive comes preformated in the exfat file format. The best format for your external hard drive the hellotech blog. If the drive is smaller than 2tb, you can format it as fat or exfat on the pc and then connect it to the mac. Unable to format my passport to exfat wd portable drives. After erasing my passport drive, the instructions are to partition the drive. By formatting the passport as an exfat or fat32 drive, you can use it with.
This is a file system limitation that affects both macoss and windows, and the only workaround is to format the drive to exfat. My new 5tb easystore wd drive formatted on the pc in exfat with. The wd my passport ultra comes with the software which can be easily installed on your windowsmac computer. This is useful if a drive is being used under both operating system osto. You can find effective ways here to format wd my passport for mac and pc to fat32 or exfat file system with the.
So you figured, fine, ill just get an external hard drive. Router worked perfectly, and readyshare found both a smaller wd passport 500g and the 3tb out of the box. Wd 4tb my passport for mac portable external hard drive blue, usbcusba wdba2f0040bblwesn. Before proceeding further, it is recommended to take a backup of your important files. You just need to know how to format external hard drive for ps4. 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. Use a windows pc to format your wd my passport drive first to exfat.
Make sure your wd my passport external drive is chosen. I formatted my wd my passport 0748 hard drove to exfat, but ps4 still cannot format it to external storage. This software allows you to check the disk health and you can format to hfs using that. When i insert it into my laptop it was giving a message to fomat disk. Rename the drive, reset its file system to fat32 or exfat. Establish a connection between the western digital my passport ultra 1tb and the mac computer. Fat32 has several limitations, including a 4 gb perfile limit. Formatting wd elements for mac by quick workarounds. How to format a drive for mac and pc compatibility posted by ant on march 11th, 2012 43 comments if you have an external hard drive or usb flash drive that youd like to use on both macs and windows pcs, choosing the right file system to format the drive can be confusing. After tearing my hair out all evening trying to reformat this stupid drive, it turns out wd has decided to include hidden partitions that make reformatting it almost impossible. I looked at my old passport in utilities and it was formatted as ntfs.
Western digitals passport external drive for mac isnt eternally bound to macos. Click the icon for your external hard drive in the sidebar on the left. Look for the external hard drive icon on your desktop. To support osx, win and smarttvs at the same time id choosen exfat for my. 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.
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. I have since reformatted it on my pc just to get all the info off of it. I was following the wd comunity instructions, but when i opened the new simple volume wizard on my windows 10, it would not give me an. Compared with fat32, exfat is an optimized fat32 file system that can be widely used for removable devices of large capacity. Wd my passport ultra 1tb setup and troubleshooting guide. Jun 19, 20 i have a wd my passport external hard drive 1 tb. Wd 4tb my passport ultra silver portable external hard drive, usbc wdbftm0040bslwesn. In some cases exfat formatted drives wont mount on the mac os due. Wd drive utilities lets you check the ssd for errors and format it. Wd elements, such as a file transfer to or from the drive, or security. Being able to use your external hard drive as an extended storage simply cannot take the place of the backup option, as both options have their own purposes.
Do i use disc utilities fat32 or is there some other format. If you want to format your wd my passport to fat32, you must make sure that the size is smaller than 32gb. You cant reformat them for use as just a normal drive with linux. Reformatting my passport 1tb to exfat wd community. But youre not sure what file system to choose and which file formats would be compatible with your mac or pc. Jul 04, 2018 on macbook pro with high sierra os, i want to reformat my mypassport to exfat so i can place files there from my mac and from my windows 10. This guide introduces three common scenarios in which you might find your wd my passport external hard drive readonly on mac.
Format western digital passport to fat32 with wd quick formatter 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. Two methods mentioned above apply to formatting wd passport for mac as well. When i select the drive and click partition, it displays the name, the format is exfat and there is a size field. However, i then reformatted the 3tb for exfat to make it usable for both windows and mac, and now it is not found by readyshare. Mar 11, 2019 fat32 has several limitations, including a 4 gb perfile limit. When considering using an external hard drive for ps4, the most significant problem with fat32 is the maximum file size it allows. How to convert wd external drive to apple file systemapfs. 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. Locate the icon assigned to western digital my passport drive and rightclick the connected drive icon and click format in the popup menu. Easily use your wd my passport for mac and windows in 7 steps. This format enables the drive to be used between mac and pcs, but ideally, you should reformat to the correct file format before use. Use a mac with an older release of mac os to format your wd passport drive. Use full scan to recover data from how to format my wd my passport for mac on to windows 10 which can not be found with undelete and unformat and recover partition,after showing an error,display as raw file system,unformatted,unknown partition,unpartitioned,needs to be formatted,or the file system is not exfat,not fat32,not ntfs. Format wd my passport for mac and pc with ms dos fat 32 or exfat file system and share digital files between mac and windows system.
Select the file system from the dropdown list, which is available in the format expansion and choose either exfat or fat32. After connecting the wd my passport ultra 2tb setup to the computer, launch the application found inside the drive and follow the onscreen tips to set up the drive. Can i format the hdd from my wd passport wireless without loosing features. Gdrive usb formatted as exfat cannot be mounted in mac os. I checked disk a wd ultra passport 4 tb drive 4,096 reported in each allocation unit. If you want to transfer files from a mac to windows pc and vice versa using an. A western digital external hard drive can be used on both windows and mac osx. I checked disk my wd my passport same size as you show. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. Granted, fat32 is less efficient than ntfs in windows, but it has inherent benefits too, like its compatibility. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. Free download western digital fat32 formatting tool for.
After your mac computer detects the wd my passport ultra 1tb hard drive, mount it. Nov 21, 2015 this video explains, why external hard drive does not work with every operating system and how to solve it. How to format an external hard drive for ps4 ryli gaming. I found the instructions and am trying to follow them. File system formats available in disk utility on mac apple. Make external harddrive compatible with mac and windows computer, how to format using disk utility on mac. Feb 14, 2017 how to format a wd my passport portable hard drive for mac. How to format external hdd for ps4 as extended storage, and in this article, were going to do a similar thing. It has exfat file system and when i ran chkdsk on it says that the allocation size is 1,048,576 bytes. But the irritating thing is that now memory size of my 16gb pendrive becomes 200mb. Wd my passport usb drive i used the wd quick drive format to format my passport 0820.
If your wd external drive isnt in this new format, you wont be able to use it if your mac has been updated to macos high sierra. For a hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a pc and mac computer, it must be formatted to exfat or fat32 file format. In the main console, locate the partition on the wd passport external hard drive, right click it and choose format partition. Download the wd discovery software for mac from the western digital site.
How to format a drive for mac and pc compatibility macyourself. Disk utility on mac supports several file system formats. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive. How to format external hdd for ps4 as backup storage. Thankfully, msdos fat32 and exfat 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. Is it likely that exfat is the problem or is there something else awry. On macbook pro with high sierra os, i want to reformat my mypassport to exfat so i can place files there from my mac and from my windows 10. I guess it wouldnt hurt too much if you dont mind performance issues. Format western digital passport to fat32 with wd quick formatter. Look for your wd my passport drive on your desktop. Use full scan to recover data from wd my passport essential reformat on a mac which can not be found with undelete and unformat and recover partition,after showing an error,display as raw file system,unformatted,unknown partition,unpartitioned,needs to be formatted,or the file system is not exfat,not fat32,not ntfs. This is a file system limitation that affects both macs and pcs, and. That means if you have a single game file which size is larger than 4gb, it cannot, by any means, be saved on a drive thats.
Oct 25, 2018 format western digital passport to fat32 with wd quick formatter. Simply put, your ps4 isnt recognizing the file system of your drive, which is most probably ntfs. Mar 11, 2018 the wd my passport ssd is the smallest and lightest portable hard drive from western digital to date. Enter a name for the external hard drive in the name field. Two effective ways to format wd passport for windows. Hi all, i was trying to format my new hdd my passport 4tb to exfat so that i can use it on mac and windows. The size field is greyed out and the value shows as 1,000gb. Reformat wd my passport ultra for mac not apple community. How to use external hdd with windowsmaclinuxandroid. This video explains, why external hard drive does not work with every operating system and how to solve it. After comparing ntfs vs fat32 vs exfat, you can choose a suitable file system for your drive according to your needs. I was following the wd comunity instructions, but when i opened the new simple volume wizard on my windows 10, it would not give me an option to select exfat in the section file system. The volume does not contain a recognized file system. Proceed with the following instructions to know how to format the wd my passport ultra 1tb setup drive on the mac computer.
Can i format the hdd from my wd passport wireless without. Format wd my passport for mac to windows scoutfile. Also find out the difference between file system i. Hello, i just recently bought a wd passport wireless to take on holidays.
The wd my passport ultra comes with the software which can be easily installed on your windows mac computer. I wanted to load some movies onto the drive by the usb connection, unfortunately my synology does not recognize exfat drives which is the wds format. Wd my passport ultra 2tb setup and driver installation. How do i format my external hard drive to exfat on mac. External drive like wd elements, my book and my passport can be formatted to fat32 via this tool. Choose exfat as the file system in the format partition screen. If the wd my passport readonly 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 readonly wd my passport hard drive. On this popup screen, choose ntfs, fat32 or exfat among listed file systems and click ok. I just formatted a new usb in exfat using a mac as you described, then out it in a windows machine running vista ultimate and guess what this message popped up. Wd my passport for mac portable external hard drive 4.
Can i format the drive to ntfs for example without loosing all the features from the drive automatic import from sd card for example. No need to worry or try to claim warranty because your new external hard drive is fine. High level view of the steps to making wd passport compatible with mac and windows 1. You can choose file system format based on your actual condition, for example, hard drive usually adopts ntfs, while usb drives like sd card and. Now follow this guide you can easily format your wd my passport portable hard. Sandisk extreme external ssd 2tb formatting question. Seagate backup plus slim 2tb external hard drive portable hdd silver usb 3.
Sep 12, 2018 hi all, i was trying to format my new hdd my passport 4tb to exfat so that i can use it on mac and windows. How to format wd my passport for mac and pc easeus. In the format partition section, select the file system to be exfat and change the volume label to a desired name for the drive. Ill store my media files on it while keeping the internal hard drive clear for apps and the os. Essentially, its a file system thats both readable and writable on any modern mac or windows machine sorry, leopard users. From the volume format menu, choose mac os extended. If i reformat it to the exfat file system, will i lose any storage capacity. Wd security lets you set a password to take advantage of the 256bit encryption on board. Cant get windows to view my 1tb my passport ext hd neowin. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. If you need to transfer files larger than 4 gb between mac and windows computers, exfat extended file allocation table is the best option.
How to format an external hard drive to work with mac. Not sure what extended format is and if its suitable. Nov 04, 2019 exfat permits can store individual file beyond 4gb and can work with windows, mac and can be supported by playstation 4 and xbox one. Use the exfat file system and never format your external.
1434 1258 1022 1500 594 49 146 459 398 1444 1251 600 1224 1269 1249 802 1581 1478 671 1371 930 385 152 236 457 970 459 658 1429 1323