Reformatting A Western Digital External Hard Drive For Mac

• When the application is started, the WD Quick Formatter's welcome screen will appear displaying the following warning message. After reading the warning, click Continue to move to the next screen. • Click on Accept to accept the End User License Agreement. • Next, the application will scan for WD external drives to be formatted. • Depending on the size of the drive and the, one of two screens will appear. If the system is running Mac OSX, follow the instructions under the first choice below.

When you buy a Western Digital (WD) 1 TB My Book External Hard Drive, they usually come formatted for Windows using FAT32. Of course, if you are using it with a Mac, then you'll want to reformat it using Mac OS Extended (HFS+). A Western Digital (WD) external hard drive can be used with any computer once it has been formatted by the computer's operating system. Formatting a WD external hard drive does not require any additional software; the computer's operating system provides the software that is needed. For the most desirable results when reformatting on Windows systems, use Western Digital's Formatting Utility. Due to a system limitation, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista can only create 32GB FAT32 partitions, regardless of the drive's capacity. My Passport for Mac portable external hard drive helps you protect your creative files with password protection, 256-bit AES hardware encryption and Apple Time Machine compatibility. With the My Passport for Mac drive connected to your Mac, you can add up to 4TB of space for your favorite music and photos. 2018 Western Digital.

Should a Mac computer be available, we are able to provide support for formatting the drive as FAT32 under that OS. Another option is to ask on our for community assistance in finding or using a FAT32 formatting application.

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. • Once the drive appears on the desktop, click on Go on the top tool bar.

• • • • • Reformatting a Western Digital My Passport hard drive to function well on Windows and Macintosh systems is neither time-consuming nor technologically demanding. Back up all important information on the drive before beginning; any data left on the drive will be destroyed during the reformatting process. For the most desirable results when reformatting on Windows systems, use Western Digital's Formatting Utility. Due to a system limitation, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista can only create 32GB FAT32 partitions, regardless of the drive's capacity.

That said, let us talk about the performance of these drives – 1) Build and form factor – Nice sleek looking enclosures. All black, the sides are fingerprint magnets with a glossy finish. The top and bottom panels have a matte finish. Looks matter to me, even if it just an external drive. The microUSB and AC sockets are closely spaced with a small white indicator light besides them.

Of course, if you are using it with a Mac, then you’ll want to reformat it using Mac OS Extended (HFS+). The problem: When you try to reformat in Disk Utility, you’ll get a very cryptic error that says that there was an unknown error with the partition map. The solution: If you go to the partition map and click the “Options” button, you’ll be able to select which scheme to use for the boot records. It turns out, if the boot record scheme is set to “Master Boot Record”, you will not be able to format it as Mac OS Extended. Flipping it to GUID or Apple Partition Map will work.

ExFAT in macOS 10.10 (Yosemite) and earlier One of the easiest ways 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. • Once the drive appears on the desktop, click on Go on the top tool bar. From the drop-down menu, click on Utilities. • In Utilities, select and open Disk Utility.

• 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.

Reads at 30MB/s and writes at about 24MB/s, which is good and fast enough for my needs. As always, users have to be careful with all hard drives, internal or external. I am handling my drives with the utmost care. I don’t want to lose any important data.

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. For example, on a 2TB drive, set the volume size to 1000000 (1 TB) and continue to the next step. When done, begin the New Simple Volume process again and select the remaining capacity, the unallocated space, for another 1TB partition. • Assign a drive letter to represent the volume being created, and click Next.

Especially, when you are going to throw an old WD portable hard drive into a trash, you’d better reformat it and permanently erase all your private data on it. However, do you know how to reformat WD portable hard drive?

FAT32 in Windows 10 and earlier Important: Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP can only (using the actual operating system itself) create FAT32 partitions that are 32 GB or smaller. In order to format a drive larger than 32 GB using Windows OS, additional software may be required. Western Digital provides the software that allows users of our internal hard drives to format their drives. Users of our external drives will need to find third-party software to accomplish this task. Using Acronis True Image WD Edition for Windows (For Western Digital internal hard drives) Acronis True Image WD Edition can format any capacity internal single drive unit made by Western Digital.

Format WD External Hard Drive On A Mac Step Plug the cable attached to the WD external hard drive to the appropriate port on the Mac, for example, the USB port. Step Double-click on the Mac's main hard drive to open its window on the desktop. Inside, enter the 'Applications' folder and then the 'Utilities' folder. Scroll down to the Disk Utility program. Double-click on the Disk Utility program to launch it. Step Click once on the WD external hard drive's icon that is in the left column of the Disk Utility program's main screen. Select the 'Erase' tab at the top of the Disk Utility program's main screen.

Once selected, click on Partition on the right-side area. • In the Partition area, click under Partition Layout and select 1 Partition. Then, click on Options. • In the Options window select Master Boot Record and then click Ok. • To the right, insert a name for the drive, and click on Format. From the drop-down, select ExFAT.

If there is data on the drive that is needed or is not backed up, it will need to be copied to another location before proceeding. • The drive is now formatting and a status bar will be seen at the bottom that says formatting the disk and gives the name of the drive, the format it is applying, and the name that was specified. When it is done, this bar will go away and the drive should now be listed on the desktop.

• Once the Format is completed, click on the Format Another Drive button to select another WD external drive to format, or click on the Exit button to exit the program.

This could quickly damage the drive's partition and corrupt the data on the drive. ExFAT in macOS 10.11 (El Capitan) and macOS 10.12 (Sierra) 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).

Right-click on the icon of the WD external hard drive--the icon is in the middle of the window that has appeared on the screen. Step Select 'Properties' from the pop-up window. Select the 'Format' tab at the top of the new window that appears. Name the WD external hard drive in the 'Name' text field at the top of the window.

Format WD External Hard Drive On A PC Step Plug the cable attached to the WD external hard drive to the appropriate port on the PC, for example, the USB port. Step Go to 'Start,' 'My Computer,' 'Devices.' Right-click on the icon of the WD external hard drive--the icon is in the middle of the window that has appeared on the screen.

Download vandyke clientpack for mac. Formatting and Reformatting a hard drive or hard disk is an easy task (if you know how). Graphic converter free download mac. But it is also dangerous as it can result in loosing data or corrupting the drive when it is not done properly.

• In the Options window select Master Boot Record and then click Ok. • To the right, insert a name for the drive, and click on Format.

How to properly Format/Reformat a hard drive for Mac OS A hard drive or hard disk can be used in any type of computer, whether for PC (Windows) or for Mac. 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. In this guide I will show you how you can properly format/reformat a hard drive for Mac OS. Formatting a hard drive for Windows will be discussed in another article.

When done, click on Apply. • A window will come up showing that formatting and partitioning the drive will erase all data that is on the drive. If there's no needed information within the drive, then click on Partition. If there is data on the drive that is needed or is not backed up, it will need to be copied to another location before proceeding. • The drive is now formatting and a status bar will be seen at the bottom that says formatting the disk and gives the name of the drive, the format it is applying, and the name that was specified.

Then, click on Options. • In the Options window select Master Boot Record and then click Ok. • To the right, insert a name for the drive, and click on Format. From the drop-down, select MS-DOS (FAT). When done, click on Apply. • A window will come up showing that formatting and partitioning the drive will erase all data that is on the drive.

Choose the drive listing that is farthest to the left for the drive that will be formatted. It is usually directly above the name of the drive, and is the drive selection that has the total size being displayed. Once selected, click on Partition on the right-side area. • In the Partition area, click under Partition Layout and select 1 Partition. Then, click on Options.

Note: For help installing the WD external drive on a computer or formatting/re-formatting a WD external hard drive on Windows XP or Mac OS X, please see the answers below: •. Important: Reformatting the drive will erase the pre-loaded software, if it is not possible to save the software that came with the drive, it can be found in the under each specific drive's page.