How to fix wd hard drive not recognized on mac without. Youll learn here the things you need to know about using your wd elements for mac. Heres what you need to know, along with our toprated applefriendly drives. Aside from the 4tb, you can also buy a 1tb, 2tb, 3tb, or 5tb hard drive. Choose your wd elements external hard drive on your. I m attaching the drive using the supplied usd cable and it appears on my desktop as an elements disk, but when i use disk utility to format the disk for mac os extended journaled it gives me the following message.
Windowsmac reformat works with windowsmac reformat. Hope this formatreformat a hard drive for mac guide helped. Your disk utility program lives within a folder called utilities. Select the unrecognized wd hard drive from the sidebar. How to open an external drive thats not showing on mac. I want to use this new disk as a time machine backup disk.
How to partition and format a wd drive on windows 8, 7, vista, xp and mac osx. Mac cant read wd elements external drives for mac wd. Western digital elements is a great option if you want lots of storage on the cheap, and can live with some pretty mediocre speeds. Buy western digital elements 1tb portable hard drive usb 3. In such a case, its necessary to reformat wd hard drive to make it compatible with mac operating system. Wd elements drive will not format to mac os extended. Format wd elements for mac and pc have your drive for both. There is a video after that you can watch as extra help.
But there are a couple of things you need to know and do to get it set up just fine. Having attempted this now says erase process failed and has called the disk disk 2s1 and is all greyed out. Heres how to reformat your drive so it can be read by and mac or a pc. May 09, 2019 the best external hard drives for mac in 2020. The internal drive was a wd100emaz sata 6gbs white label drive made in thailand on 03 sep 2019, which is detected and works perfectly in the synology nas. First, reformat to 2 partitions in disk utility, both mac os journaled extended, and make sure to click the options button directly below the partition window for both partions, and choose the appropriate scheme for me it was guid. Jan 03, 2018 new december 2017 wd elements drive will not format to mac os extended journaled. Western digital wdbwlg0040hbknesn elements external. Locate the icon assigned to western digital my passport drive and rightclick the connected drive icon and click format in the popup menu.
The wd my book is ready to go with time machine or superduper. Wd 4tb my book for mac desktop external hard drive usb 3. Western digital wdbwlg0040hbknesn elements external desktop. Macbook external hard drive not recognized how to reformat. Download wd quick formatter to format external drive in. Hello all, im on my second elements 2tb drive that i cannot format using disk utility. For a larger capacity, the hard drive becomes a fraction bigger in size and logically more expensive. This hard drive used to work when i plugged it directly into my tv with its ntfs format. The best external hard drives for mac in 2020 pcmag.
Apr 09, 2018 if disk utility is unable to repair the wd external drive, do not erase the content as doing so will reformat the entire volume but recover all data and replace the drive. How to format wd elements for mac recoverit wondershare. Mac secret trick how to clone mac hard drive with disk utility hdd sdd macbook pro imac 20102019 duration. 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. The wd elements desktop hard drive and the wd my book desktop hard drive and plug and play for windows, so this means it is ready to use as soon as you take it out of the box. Once you have formatted your western digital elements drive 2. If you are running on mac, you will have to reformat the hard drives. To format your wd elements with a partition for mac and pc 1. Step 5 thereafter, click on the erase button and let the system erase everything on the drive and reformat wd elements for mac by exfat or fat32 format. For a hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a pc and mac. Mac cant read wd elements external drive solved mac.
How to format wd external drive for mac apple community. Oct 03, 20 wd has a more extensive desktop line for the mac, with the premium my book studio line, which features an allmetal enclosure and capacities up to 4tb. If first aid cant repair the wd hard drive, or disk utility doesnt recognize the volumes of the drive, probably, the. If disk utility is unable to repair the wd external drive, do not erase the content as doing so will reformat the entire volume but recover all data and replace the drive. The best external desktop drive is the wd 4tb my book desktop external hard drive usb 3. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. Select the unmountable wd external hard drive and click erase on the top. If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. Out of the both its not mac compatible, but you can format it for use with. How to reformat my external hard drive for windows 10. Wd element operates on ntfs format and thus it isnt supported on mac by. Now either because of time, corruption or because it may have been formatted for a mac when i plug it into my pc i cant access it.
Youll find below the ten quick steps, using words and pictures. Youll need to reformat it if you intend to use it for macos, but its a great little unit if youre wanting to tote around a bunch of data. Download and run the wd quick formatter for windows 1087. Feb 11, 2019 mac secret trick how to clone mac hard drive with disk utility hdd sdd macbook pro imac 20102019 duration. If your product is not listed above, please visit the product page. If it is, right click wd hard drive, choose properties and click update driver under driver tab or click on uninstall. Unexpectedly as expected, when booting up the computer the drive came back with only part of the information. I did buy refurbished wd my book desktop off wds official ebay page but i tried to copy it to wd and it stopped copying halfway and it kept happening, had to return it. Improve pc performance when your internal hard drive is almost full your pc slows down. Western digital elements 1tb portable hard drive usb 3. Follow the tutorial to fix the unrecognized, unmountable, unreadable, not showing up wd hard drive without data loss and recover lost data from wd hard drives in macos catalinamojavehigh sierra. 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.
Yes you can use your wd elements drive for both a mac and a pc if you want. The apple support app has updated, smarter features and a bold new look. So i will never buy any hard disk drive refurbished or used. In the end user license agreement page, click on accept. Similarly to the elements, it comes in 1tb, 2tb, 3tb, and 4tb. New december 2017 wd elements drive will not format to mac os extended journaled. Need to reformat wd hard drive for mac if you connect your wd hard drive without reformatting, youll be unable to copy files to the disk as mac read only supports ntfs file system. How to fix wd hard drive not recognized on mac without losing. The exfat file system is a better option when it comes to formatting wd my passport on mac. I did buy refurbished wd my book desktop off wd s official ebay page but i tried to copy it to wd and it stopped copying halfway and it kept happening, had to return it.
I dont know if i should go with wd desktop and reformat it. This item wd 12tb elements desktop external hard drive usb 3. I can find it under device manager and disk management but thats it. I know i am supposed to format it for mac via disk utility before i can use it, but this process also fails. The small, lightweight drive features up to 5tb of storage with wd quality and reliability. Wd elements drive will not format to mac os extended journaled. How to solve my wd hard drive not recognized in windows 10. And the related question can you use your wd elements on a mac. But unfortunately it bit the dust and i decided to get a pc. Hope this tutorial can help to fix wd external hard drive not mountingshowing uprecognizeddetected on mac. And particularly if you want to use for both without using special software.
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. Whether you need to know how to format wd my passport for your mac. Wait while first aid verifying and fixing possible errors of the wd hard drive. A 5tb hard drive can hold approximately 2000 netflix videos. Mac cant read wd elements external drive solved mac data. Connect it, power it up, go to disk utility in applicationsutilities, select the wd disk on the left, go to the erase tab, and choose mac os.
You just connect up your wd elements drive to your mac and format it to exfat. Below are some recommended internal hard drive and external hard drives that you might like. 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. Inputoutput error when reformatting wd elements ext hard. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. Finally i decided that the information was not that critical and decided to reformat the disk. Wd has a more extensive desktop line for the mac, with the premium my book studio line, which features an allmetal enclosure and capacities up to 4tb. In the welcome screen, click continue to move to the next screen 4. I had this model replace a wd book version of usb external hard drive that i purchased 2 days ago and was supposedly formatted specifically for mac os x 10. How to reformat wd external hard drive using wd quick formatter.
Failed wd elements external drive i hace a 1 tb wd elements hd connected to a mac mini. Partition failed partion failed with the following error. Wd 12tb elements desktop external hard drive usb 3. If youre running a newer computer, youll see a huge speed increase thanks to usb 3. The compact design offers up to 14tb capacity, making wd elements desktop storage the ideal solution for easy, addon storage of all your important photos, music, videos and files. If you dont require the data on the hard drive, select the disk and click erase. Hi everyone, i have a wd elements desktop 4tb hard drive on ntfs format. Looking to add storage, or for a smart way to back up your mac.
This drive connects directly to your mac through usb. Formatting wd elements for mac by quick workarounds. To recover your files from the external wd drive, opt for stellar data recovery professional for mac software. At the top of your disk utility screen youll see the button to partition.
Click disk drives and check if there is a yellow exclamation mark with wd hard drive disk device. The sleek design features up to 10tb capacity plus wd quality and reliability. Select the file system from the dropdown list, which is available in the format expansion and choose either exfat or fat32. This item wd 4tb elements desktop hard drive usb 3. The desktop storage pc products are comprised of the valueoriented elements line which is offered in 1tb3tb capacities and the updated my book which hits the topend capacity point. When finished, you can mount your wd external hard drive on mac and use it again. However, i found that i had to reformat the hard drive so that i could use it with my mac running 10. Support communities desktop computers mac mini announcement. 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. Help with wd elements desktop formatting march 2016. Your whole drive is now formatted as mac os extended journaled file system. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. Jan 29, 2012 failed wd elements external drive i hace a 1 tb wd elements hd connected to a mac mini. Fix wd external hard drive not workingrecognizedshowing up.