When I bought the WD My Passport Ultra drive, I was surprised to see that it didn’t support OS X out of the box. Yes, it had some software specifically made for OS X on it, but even that didn’t help. Turns out, it just wasn’t in the right format. These hard drives are customized to run well on Windows (as you’d expect), and they don’t run well with OS X.

Solution 5: Repair the WD My Passport in Disk utility. Disk Utility is a built-in used to erase, format or manage internal disks and external storage devices. The most important feature of Disk Utility is First Aid, which helps detect and repair any issue with your disk. Here is how to run First Aid on your Mac to repair the unreadable WD My. Click the Finder, open the 'Applications' folder, open the 'Utilities' folder and choose 'Disk Utility.' Step 3 Select the WD Passport drive. Select the drive you wish to reformat. My Passport Ultra was previously used on my Windows 7 PC. I have since reformatted it on my PC just to get all the info off of it. I want to format it to work on my Macbook Pro for Time Machine, so I looked into how to do that. It told me to open the Disk Utility, and to choose the drive and then choose 'Erase'. Note: ex-FAT is a better choice for formatting WD My Passport on Mac. Now, click the ‘Erase,’ button and wait a few minutes and let the macOS erase data on the drive and reformat it by FAT32 or ex-FAT format. Once formatting is done, you can use the drive in macOS or OS X as a regular hard drive. Disk Drive Format Your My Passport Ultra drive is formatted as a single NTFS partition for compatibility with all updated Windows operating systems. If you want to use the drive with a Mac computer, see Reformatting the Drive and Troubleshooting. Physical Description As shown in figure 2, the My Passport Ultra drive has: A USB 3.1 interface port.

So to get it running, what we’ll need to do is format it in Journaled format, which is OS X only format or MS-DOS (FAT), which means it will run with both OS X and Windows. If you’re only going to be using the hard drive on a Mac, I recommend you stick with Journaled.

Why You Need to Re-Format the External Hard Drive

When I first got the hard drive, I wasn’t able to copy anything over to it (but I was able to copy from it). Disk Utility showed that it was formatted to MS-DOS (FAT) but I’m pretty sure it would have been NTFS instead. If you experience the same issue, your only recourse is to reformat it in one of two formats.

If you’re only going to use the external hard drive with Macs or you want to use it for Time Machine backups, format it in Mac OS Extended (Journaled). If you’re like me who also needs to use at least a part of the hard drive from Windows PCs, you’ll need to choose MS-DOS (FAT) format. But here you won’t get great support for Time Machine. Plus you can’t make partitions bigger than 2 TB or move files larger than 4 GB around.

How to Re-Format the External Hard Drive

First, connect the external hard drive, bring up Spotlight Search by using the keyboard shortcut Cmd + Space and type in Disk Utility. Press Enter and Disk Utility will launch. You can also find it in Utilities folder in Applications.

Now, from the left column select 1 TB WD My Passport (or whatever your hard drive name is), and click on the Erase tab.

From here, in Format, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled), give it a name if you want, and click Erase.

You’ll get a warning. Again, click Erase.

In a couple of seconds, you’ll have an OS X ready hard drive to go.

Related: Check out our Ultimate Guide to OS X Yosemite.

How to Create Partitions

I’m planning on using my hard drive for both Time Machine backups and to carry media files around. I might need to use the hard drive with Windows computers so I’m going to format one of the partitions as MS-DOS (FAT), fully aware of its limitations. The other one, for Time Machine backups, will be in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format.

To create a partition, select the hard drive from the left column and click the Partition tab.

From the drop-down below Partition Layout, select the number of partitions you want. Don’t go overboard here.

Now, just below, you’ll see a visual representation of the partitions. You can use the breakpoint to change the size of the partitions by moving it up or down. You can also click on a partition, give it a name and select the format.

Once you’ve decided all the details, simply click the Apply button. From the pop-up, select Partition.

Disk Utility: Check out the two tips for using Disk Utility and 8 ways to free up space on your Mac.

What Do You Use It For?

How To Format My Passport Ultra For Mac

What are you planning on doing with the external hard drive? Time Machine backups perhaps? Or just storing media? Share with us in our forums section.

The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.Also See#backup #hard disk

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Can I Use WD Hard Drive on Mac and PC

Before you get the answer, you must figure out what kind of file system can work well on both the macOS and the Windows system. macOS supports a handful of common file systems - HFS+, FAT32, and exFAT, with read-only support for NTFS. While Windows employs two major file systems: NTFS and FAT. FAT was inherited from old DOS and has exFAT as its later extension. In addition, the ReFS file system was developed as a new generation file system for server computers starting from Windows Server 2012.

That is to say, only FAT32 and exFAT can work on both Mac and PC. If you want to share digital files between Mac and Windows system easily, you must convert WD My Passport to FAT or exFAT. Here are three ways to format a WD My Passport, follow any one of them to convert to FAT.

1. Solution 1. Format WD HDD with Software (FREE)

How to Format WD My Passport in Windows Platform (Free)

You can format a Western Digital My Passport external hard drive to ex-FAT or FAT32 format using a free ex-FAT or FAT32 converter - EaseUS Partition Master or use built-in applications Windows.

Solution 1. Format WD My Passport Using Software (Free)

It is a wise choice to use a professional format tool. With the help of EaseUS Partition Master Free, you can perfectly bypass the format limitation of the Windows disk management tool and help you format WD My Passport to FAT32 or exFAT easily without any obstacles. What's more, this Windows partition software helps you create, resize, clone, move, and merge partitions without difficulty. Follow the details below to convert WD My Passport to FAT32 or exFAT.

Step 1: Launch EaseUS Partition Master, right-click the partition on your external hard drive/USB/SD card which you want to format and choose the 'Format' option.

Step 2: Assign a new partition label, file system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3), and cluster size to the selected partition, then click 'OK'.

Step 3: In the Warning window, click 'OK' to continue.

Step 4: Click the 'Execute Operation' button in the top-left corner to review the changes, then click 'Apply' to start formatting your external hard drive/USB/SD card.

Solution 2. Format WD My Passport Using File Explorer

Windows limits FAT32 partitions to 32GB. It does not offer the ability to format a drive larger than 32GB to FAT32, the only available choices are NTFS or exFAT. If you want to format your WD My Passport to FAT32, you must make sure that the size is smaller than 32GB. If it is larger than 32GB, you can only format it to exFAT.

Step 1. Open Windows File Explorer, locate and right-click on WD My Passport that you need to format, select 'Format'.

Step 2. Rename the drive, reset its file system to FAT32 or exFAT.

Step 3. Click 'Start' to begin the formatting.

How to Format WD My Passport in macOS/OS X Platform

The easiest way to format the drive to FAT32 or exFAT is by using macOS's built-in Disk Utility for FAT32 or exFAT.

Tips: The instructions below are designed to help repartition and format a hard drive. Once the process begins, all the data on the drive will be lost!

Step 1. Connect WD My Passport to your Mac.

Step 2. Once that's done, double left-click on the Mac HD, the internal Mac hard drive visible on the top-right corner of the desktop screen.Select 'Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility'.

Step 3. Select your WD My Passport on the sidebar, choose 'Erase'.

Step 4. Rename the drive, select the 'Volume Format' drop-down list and choose 'MS-DOS (FAT)' or 'ex-FAT File System'. Then click 'Erase'.

How To Format Wd My Passport Ultra For Mac

Wait for the process to complete and let the macOS erase data on the drive and reformat it by FAT32 or ex-FAT format. Then, you can use the drive in macOS or OS X as a regular hard drive.

Difference Between FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS

FAT is known as the File Allocation Table. The successive major versions of the FAT format are named after the number of table element bits: FAT12, FAT16, and FAT32. FAT32 is the oldest of the three file systems available to Windows. Individual files on a FAT32 drive can’t be over 4 GB in size. A FAT32 partition must also be less than 8 TB, which admittedly is less of a limitation unless you’re using super-high-capacity drives.

exFAT, Extended File Allocation Table, is optimized for flash drives. It was added to older versions of Windows with updates to Windows XP and Windows Vista. This file system doesn't have the limitations of FAT32. You can use it when you need a bigger file size and partition limits than FAT32 offers.

NTFS, NT File System, is the modern file system Windows likes to use by default. It is packed with modern features not available to FAT32 and exFAT. However, it only works with all versions of Windows, but read-only with Mac by default.

If you want to use WD My Passport or any other hard drive on Mac and PC, you need to format a Western Digital My Passport external hard drive in exFAT or FAT32 format.

Tips to Avoid Formatting WD My Passport Without Backup

How To Format Wd My Passport Ultra For Mac Yosemite 10.10

Just as I have mentioned above, once the process begins, all the data on the drive will be lost. To avoid unnecessary data loss issues, we highly recommended all users extract or back up important data to another device or partition in advance. You can copy files one by one to a new disk or drive. If you have quite a lot of data to be transferred, professional backup software shall be your best choice. Here we recommend you try EaseUS Todo Backup which allows you to directly back up target data with simple steps.

Step 1: Launch EaseUS Todo Backup software and then choose 'File Backup', 'Disk/partition Backup' or 'System Backup' for different backup purpose.

How To Format Wd My Passport Ultra For Mac Yosemite 10.10

Step 2: Choose the system, disk partition, files or apps that you want to back up. Then select a destination where you want to store the backup file.

Step 3: Click 'Proceed' to start the data backup process.

Hot Topics - People Also Ask These Questions

What is the difference between NTFS, fat32, and exFAT?

NTFS is the commonly used file system for Windows internal drives. Windows OS can only be installed on an NTFS partition. FAT32 is an older file system used for external drives due to its great compatibility. exFAT is a replacement for FAT32, which is not as compatible as FAT32 but without the limitations of FAT32.

Can I use WD hard drive on Mac and PC?

Yes. If you want to use WD My Passport or any other hard drive on Mac and PC, you need to format a Western Digital My Passport external hard drive in exFAT or FAT32 format.

Can I convert exFAT to NTFS without losing data?

You are unable to directly convert exFAT to NTFS without losing data, as there is no such utility that can help you perform the exFAT to NTFS conversion. You can back up exFAT partition data to another drive and then format the exFAT partition to NTFS with EaseUS Partition Master Free.

How do I format my WD Passport?

Step 1. Run EaseUS Partition Master, right-click the hard drive partition you intend to format and choose Format.

Step 2. In the new window, set the Partition label, File system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3/exFAT), and Cluster size for the partition to be formatted, then click OK.

Step 3. Click OK in it to continue.

Step 4. Click the Execute Operation button on the top-left corner to review the changes, then click Apply.

Conclusion

You can format your Western Digital My Passport external hard drive to FAT32 or exFAT format to transfer the data between a Mac and Windows system conveniently. According to the solutions above, the EaseUS partition tool stands out for its convenience and easiness. It's always your best choice.