Summary : Let's figure out how to format your WD Passport on macOS & Windows. In this blog post, we will walk you through the formatting process and share instructions to format an external drive on macOS & Windows.
But before you proceed, understand that formatting carries a risk of hard drive corruption and data loss. So, in case, if you had accidentally lost your data due to drive formatting or corruption, we also recommend a data recovery software that can rescue data from your HDD. Take a free trial to evaluate the software now.
How to format a hard drive on Mac. Formatting a hard drive for Mac isn't rocket science, but I wouldn't let your neighbor's first-grader do it for you, either. Here's how to format a hard drive on Mac: Start up your computer and log in. Open Finder, click the Go drop-down menu, and select Utilities. Then select Disk Utility.
- How to Partition an External Hard Drive on Mac. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive (in fact, you should for better file organization), here's a step-by-step guide: Step 1: Highlight your drive and click 'Partition' in Disk Utility. Open the Disk Utility app and highlight your external hard drive.
- How to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC? You can format the drive from either the Mac or the Windows machine. However, if you want to use the Mac to format your external hard drive to exFAT, you'll face the problem that the external hard drive may not be compatible with the Windows PC.
- Once fully in macOS Recovery, select Disk Utility to wipe the hard drive. In the Disk Utility menu, choose the drive Macintosh HD under the Internal heading and click Erase in the top toolbar.
- Format a Hard Drive for Mac: Ultimate Guide 2020. In this post, you'll learn how to format a hard drive for your Mac. Furthermore, you'll dive into what best format you can use for your Mac hard drive and what causes you to format a hard drive.
Professional photographers and videographers have their hands laid upon various digital devices. Usually, their arsenal includes a cutting-edge Windows 10 desktop, the latest and the magnificent MacBook Pro, DSLR & SD-Cards, of course, and the trusted & loved external drives, such as the WD My Passport. The WD My Passport drive's role is crucial since the individual will leverage the portable media to safely store their collection of pictures, videos, audio, and docs. But despite the best of the best device specifications, there remains one small glitch to rectify.
We know, Mac and Windows have their native file systems, such as the new APFS or HFS and the NTFS. A WD My Passport formatted with a Mac file system will be a dud on Windows and vice-versa. Thankfully, FAT32 and ex-FAT formats have survived to date, and these are the file systems to make your WD My Passport work with a Mac and a Windows PC simultaneously. In the next 5 minutes read, you will master yourself in formatting a WD My Passport safely and in a manner best suited for sharing your digital files between a macOS and Windows OS.
To format a Western Digital My Passport external hard drive in ex-FAT or FAT32 format, you can bank on built-in applications of Mac & PC. However, while doing this, you have to keep in mind and follow the correct steps. Here you will get to know about the process to format your 'My passport' portable drive in FAT32 and ex-FAT file system in both Windows and Mac platforms.
Warning: Erasing WD My Passport empties the drive. So, back up the storage medium before performing the erase operation either in Windows or macOS Platform.
In Windows Platform
1. Connect your WD My Passport hard drive to your Windows PC through the USB cable. Wait till Windows detects the external hard drive and configure it as an expansion drive automatically.
2. Click the Start button and type this pc, then select This PC app. A new Windows Explorer window opens. See a list of installed drives and their drive letters on the left side of the screen.
3. Locate the icon assigned to Western Digital My Passport drive and right-click the connected drive icon, and click Format in the pop-up menu.
4. Select the File System from the drop-down list and choose either exFAT or FAT32. Enter a relevant name in the Volume label field. How to download google drive on mac. Go with ‘Quick Format,' then click Start.
In macOS Platform
1. Connect your Western Digital My Passport drive to a Mac computer, and let macOS detect and mount the drive for use. Now, a new hard drive icon will appear on the Desktop.
2. On macOS Dock, select Finder. Navigate to Applications > Utilities and select the Disk Utility application.
3. When the Disk Utility opens, choose the Western Digital hard drive icon from the sidebar. Next, click the Erase tab.
4. In the Erase dialog window, select the Volume Format drop-down list and choose APFS (native filesystem), or ‘MS-DOS (FAT)' or ex-FAT. The ex-FAT file system is best for formatting WD My Passport on Mac.
5. Click the Erase button. Let macOS erase data on the drive and reformat it to APFS, FAT32 or ex-FAT format. Once formatting is done, you can use the drive in macOS or OS X as a regular hard drive.
Data Loss due to Accidental Formatting of WD My Passport
We can't rule out the possibilities of human errors resulting in the WD My Passport external drive's accidental formatting. A slight mistake permanently removes all of the contained pictures, videos, audio files, and docs instantly from the WD My Passport. If you have accidentally erased your WD My Passport hard drive, use the free data recovery software for Mac or Windows as per need. The next sections share the data recovery steps in Windows and macOS platform.
Steps to Recover Data from WD My Passport on Windows
a. Select: Run Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition for Windows on your PC and select file type, then click Next. Select WD My Passport from the Recover From screen.
b. Scan: Turn on Deep Scan and click Scan. Wait till the scan completes.
c. Recover: Preview your recoverable files and select all the required files. Click Recover. Specify the drive location to save files, then click Save. Wait till the recovery is over.
Steps to Recover Data from WD My Passport on Mac
a. Select: Launch Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition for Mac on your MacBook, Mac mini, or iMac. Select file type, then click Next. Select WD My Passport.
b. Scan: Toggle on Deep Scan and click Scan. Wait till the scan is over.
c. Recover: Preview your scanned files and select all the necessary ones. Click Recover. Click Browser to specify the save location, then click Save. Wait till the recovery is complete.
Usability of the Free Data Recovery Software
Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition (Windows or Mac) can help you free scan your WD My Passport storage drive, free preview recoverable files, and free recover up to 1 Gigabyte of data. If you need unlimited data recovery capability, you need to upgrade the software from Free Edition to Professional or Premium Edition. All the editions of Stellar Data Recovery have a 30-day money-back guarantee; so, upgrade with confidence.
Tips for Effective Formatting
1. Format your Western Digital My Passport external hard drive to FAT32 or ex-FAT format to conveniently transfer the data between a Mac and Windows system.
2. There are specific third-party systems, like Digital Camcorders and Sony PlayStation, which need the drives to be formatted in either FAT32 or ex-FAT format to perform read and write operation. Check it before selecting a file format.
3. FAT32 supports a maximum volume of up to 8 Terabytes and maximum file size up to 4 Gigabytes. Ex-FAT supports a maximum volume size up to 128 Petabyte and maximum file size up to 16 Exabyte.
4. Due to the limitation of FAT32, it is not useful for every user and affects Mac's and PC's performances. Therefore, it is better to choose ex-FAT instead.
5. Like FAT32, ex-FAT is not a commonly used file system, due to which its support may vary among third-party devices.
6. The corruption chances of the external drive increase if used on both Mac and PC systems regularly. So, please back up the data before sharing them between the two computers.
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Conclusion
We hope the blog helped you format your WD My Passport storage drive for Mac and PC. You can format the drive in either FAT32 or exFAT that are compatible with both macOS and Windows. It is advisable to select the exFAT file system to format the drive due to its large file size storage capacity. But before you format/erase the drive in Windows or macOS, you must back up any important files stored on the drive to preempt data loss. In case you didn't back up before formatting and lost your data stored on the drive, use the recommended free data recovery software available for Windows and Mac to retrieve your lost data.
Yo just got a new external hard drive and want to use it on your Mac. However, the Mac OS does not allow you to write data to the drive. You may wonder how to reformat an external hard drive on Mac. Follow the tutorial below, you'll get everything covered.
Bonus: How to Recover Data from Formatted External Hard Drive on Mac
Reformatting an external hard drive for use with Mac OSX is not as difficult as it might seem. In a few simple steps you are ready to go and can save your back-up files to the external drive, keeping your information safe and giving you peace of mind. Keep in mind that a MAC can generally read other file formats, but for the best performance and to create a bootable disk, formatting exclusively for MAC is required.
Part 1: Which File Format You Should Choose?
Before you begin formatting the drive, there are a few things to do. The most important, you should decide which format to use.
There are a few file formats you can use, but it depends on the purpose you want to use the drive for. Which one is right for your circumstance? We'll describe them here, you'll know your choice after reading the details.
APFS: This is the default file system in Macs with High Sierra. It is efficient and reliable. However, it won't be readable and usable on machines that are not running Mac High Sierra, and Windows or Linux PCs. What's more, it is compatible with SSD and flash storage devices only.
Mac OS Extended (Journaled/HFS+): If you didn't update your Mac OS to High Sierra, the default file system on your Mac shoule be Mac OS Extended. Mac OS Extended (encrypted) would be an ideal option if you probably carry your laptop or external drive here and there. You can encrypt it so that no one can access the contents on your drive.
MS-DOS FAT (aka FAT32): In addition to Mac, it can also be written and read by Linux and Windows. It enables you to regularly share files with your friends who own a PC. Nevertheless, this older file system is limited to no more than 4GB and there might be security issue and disk errors.
ExFAT: It is similar to ExFAT which can be read by both Windows and Mac, but it can store more than 4GB files.
NTFS: As the default file system in Windows, it can only read by Mac OS, writing to it is not available. Luckily, there are third-party tools to help you do so.
Part 2: Format External Hard Drive for Mac with Disk Utility
Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another.
All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your Mac. Disk utility - the MacOS utility application can help you with this. Just follow these steps below:
Step 1. Connect the external drive or the USB drive to the MAC.
Step 2. Start the Disk Utility, located under Applications > Utilities.
Step 3. Find the name of the drive in the left side of the Utilities window and select it. And click Erase button.
Step 4. Follow on-screen prompts to choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system and allow the disk to format.
Bonus: How to Recover Data from Formatted External Hard Drive on Mac
In case you forgot to backup files before formatting the external drive. Here comes the cure - iMyFone AnyRecover - a one-stop solution to recover deleted, lost or formatted files from Mac.
Follow these simple steps using AnyRecover to get your files back!
Get Ready!
First, download and install AnyRecover, following on-screen prompts to accomplish the task.
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Get Set!
How To Format A Macbook Hard Drive
1. After loading AnyRecover, plug your external hard drive into your Mac directly or via USB.
2. Next select the drive under 'External Removable Devices' tab, click 'Start' to begin scanning lost files on the drive.
Go!
1. AnyRecover takes a moment to scan your drive. Once done, it will list out all scanning results by file type.
2. Double click a single file to preview it before recovery.
3. Select the files and press Recover to get them back.
What If?
What if my files were not found? Fear not. We can take this a step further. Enable 'Deep Scan' to try one more time, follow the steps above just as before to locate and recover your files.
Reformatting Hard Drive Windows 10
It is plain to see that AnyRecover for Mac is a tool worthy of top shelf treatment in your arsenal of items that are used to defend, recover and keep your system up and running. Don't get caught without the file you need for that meeting or stumbling looking for baby photos that were stored on disk and suddenly 'hid' from your view. Allow AnyRecover to find and recover your lost files. AnyRecover is easy to use but provides sophisticated results that mean you know what you're doing!
