Format Western Digital Hard Drive For Mac
As of 2018, Western Digital offers no shortage of external drives for Mac computers – from the My Book Essential to the My Book Pro and the My Book Studio, nearly 30 WD drives play nicely with Apple’s macOS operating system, as does the My Passport Studio model. But with more than 262.5 million PCs shipped in 2017, according to data from Statista, there’s a good chance your Passport Studio will need to play nicely with a Windows computer, too. When it comes to cross-platform flexibility, you’ve got a few options for crossing the Mac and PC streams. About eFAT and FAT32 Here’s something your My Passport for Mac Quick Install Guide might not tell you: Hard drives usually come formatted in two different ways, one catering to Windows and one catering to Mac. NTFS-formatted drives work with Windows computers, and HFS+ drives work with Mac.
However, by formatting your My Passport differently, you can ensure compatibility in a variety of different ways. Hard drives formatted to exFAT or FAT32 can read and write data on both Mac and PC operating systems, though FAT32 is limited to a 4-gigabyte-per-file size limit. Formatting your drive will erase all its data, so be sure to back it up before making the change. External Drive for Mac to Windows 10 If you’ve got a WD external drive for Mac platforms and you want it to work on a Windows 10 PC, exFAT format is your best bet.
To start formatting, connect your WD Passport to your Mac; then open “Mac HD” and click “Applications,” “Utilities” and “Disk Utility.” From the Disk Utility window, select the Passport hard drive. Here, you’ll usually see two listings of partitions available on the drive – select the listing that is furthest left.
Click the Disk Utility’s “Erase” button; assign the drive a name in the “Name” field; then hit “Erase,” and click “Done” when the erasing process is complete. Now, click the “Partition” button at the top of the Disk Utility and click “Format.” Choose “exFAT” from the drop-down menu that appears and click “Apply” to format the drive, which will take a few minutes. Once the formatting is complete and you get a message that says “Operation successful,” click “Done.” To Windows 8 and Earlier The external drive for Mac to Windows 8 transition makes use of Window’s built-in Disk Management software rather than the macOS Disk Utility, but you’ll still want to format your WD Passport as an exFAT drive. To do so, connect the Passport to your PC, enter the Windows 8 Start menu and choose “Disk Management.” In the Disk Management app, right-click on the drive and select “New Simple Volume.” from the menu that appears. This brings up the New Simple Volume Wizard. Click the “Next” button until you get to the “Format Partition” window and choose “exFAT” under “File System” (you can also change the name of the drive under “Volume label” if you wish).
Make sure the “Perform a quick format” box is checked, and click “Next” when you’re ready. Click “Partition” and then “Finish” to format the drive to a cross-platform compatible exFAT mode.
How to format WD My Passport Portable Hard Drive on Mac? How to format WD My Passport Portable Hard Drive on Mac? By Shirly Chen, 2017-02-14 “Hi, I have a 2TB WD My Passport portable hard drive and a MacBook Pro. I am looking for a solution to format the WD My Passport portable hard drive on my MacBook Pro. Do you know how to do that?” – Jason Do you know how to format WD My Passport portable hard drive on Mac? If you don’t have any ideas, you can find a reliable solution in this article.
Formatting is a good method to help you regain the full storage of your WD My Passport portable hard drive. It is also a good way to remove virus-infected files completely.
And with special tool, you even can permanently destroy all the data on your WD My Passport portable hard drive after formatting. TWO easy methods to format WD My Passport portable hard drive on Mac Of course, there are more than two methods that can help you format a WD My Passport portable hard drive under Mac OS. However, all of the solutions can be divided into two types: format, format & wipe. The difference is if the formatted data can be recovered by data recovery software. Now, I will show you the two methods to format WD My Passport portable hard drive on Mac.
Method 1: format WD My Passport portable hard drive on Mac with disk utility. Disk utility is a Mac application, you can run it on your Mac. It will list all the hard drives and devices on your Mac computer.
Format Western Digital Hard Drive For Mac
You just need to select the WD My Passport portable hard drive and erase it. Disk utility will erase the data and format your WD My Passport portable hard drive.
Some other applications also can help you quick format your WD My Passport portable hard drive on Mac. Start Menu for Mac, for example, can help you quickly format your WD My Passport portable hard drive on Mac. Please note that this type of formatting can permanently destroy your data.
Western Digital Passport For Mac
The formatted data still stored on the unused disk space of WD My Passport portable hard drive and can be recovered by or manual data recovery service. Method 2: format WD My Passport portable hard drive on Mac with Super Eraser for Mac. You may know to how to. So it is not safe to sell or donate your device if you just quick format it. It is strongly recommended to destroy the sensitive data before you sell, donate, give away or lend your WD My Passport portable hard drive to other people. Now, you need special Mac data erasure tool – to help you format WD My Passport portable hard drive on Mac and completely destroy the formatted data, beyond the scope of data recovery.