How To Use Wd Hard Drive On Mac And Windows
Whether it's because yous've a Windows PC you employ at work.
And when yous're domicile it's easier for you to proceed your work on your Mac.
The question you're asking yourself is:
Can I utilise my WD Passport For Mac and Windows PC?
The respond is Yeah.
And in this article yous find inspiration to do merely that.
Follow the text and pictures. And learn the few steps it takes to prepare your WD My Passport for Mac and Windows.
High Level View Of The Steps To Make WD Passport Work With Mac And Windows
i. You lot plug in the WD My Passport Into Your Mac
two. You format your My Passport to Mac Os Extended (Journaled) file system.
iii. Next you format your bulldoze to an ExFAT file system.
4. After that you can apply your Passport external difficult drive on both Mac and PC.
And the whole thing takes merely a few minutes to do.
Plugging In Your WD My Passport Into Your Mac And Windows PC
Before yous start, y'all'll need to connect your drive.
Yous'll either find this super easy and straight frontwards. Or you may need a cable or adaptor depending on the Mac and PC you lot have.
Your Western Digital My Passport bulldoze uses an external hard drive standard called USB 3.0.
You don't demand to understand the ins and outs of this standard. Information technology's enough to know that the different USB standards ascertain the speed the drive works at.
And the plugs used to connect the hard drive to your Mac or your Windows PC. The connection types are as well known equally ports.
Your WD My Passport portable drive has a USB B micro port.
Its cablevision comes with a connection for the USB B Micro port for the hard drive. And at the other terminate, the end that connects to a reckoner has a USB A connection.
That end looks like this.
What If You Bought A WD My Passport For Mac?
The cable supplied with the 'For Mac' version of this hard bulldoze is different. It notwithstanding has the Micro B connection for your WD drive. But on the other terminate it has a USB C port.
Bank check The USB Port You Have On Your Mac And On Your Windows PC
You may take a USB A port. Or on the newer Macs and Windows PCs you may have a USB C port. And find you lot'll need an adaptor cable or device.
The USB standard is thankfully backwards compatible. Then every bit long as you have the right cable or adaptor you'll be fine.
How To Make WD Passport Work On Mac And Windows
You'll employ your Mac to format your WD external drive to use on Mac and Windows.
You'll find it's amend to format your drive on Mac.
Because Macs tin can be choosy virtually their formatting.
And throw upwards problems when you format on a Windows PC. And so you lot use the drive on your Mac.
Setting up your WD drive on your Mac moves whatsoever of these problems out of the picture.
Important Side Note:
My Passport comes with Western Digital software already on the drive. WD Discovery which includes WD Bulldoze Utilities, WD Backup and WD Security.
If you plan on using this software in the future. Re-create the software off your bulldoze before you start.
Considering making your WD My Passport compatible with Mac and Windows clears all files off your portable storage.
1. Turn On Your Mac And Log In.
Plug in your WD My Passport's USB cable into its Micro USB B port. Then plug the other end into a USB port on your Mac.
The WD My Passport gets its power from the Mac and the drive's LED lite will start flashing as it powers up.
2. Look For The External Difficult Drive Icon On Your Desktop.
Or your Mac may requite y'all a bulletin asking whether you lot would like to format the WD My Passport drive.
If your Mac has asked that question select Yes.
If it hasn't yous'll see an icon on your desktop like this.
Your WD My Passport drive not showing up on the desktop?
Open a finder window. And click on Preferences.
Check the box 'External Disks'. It'south under the General tab.
Now you open up a piece of disk management software on your Mac. It's chosen Disk Utility.
Yous'll utilise Deejay Utility to format your WD drive.
You find Deejay Utility in the Applications folder on your Mac.
Inside the Application folder y'all'll encounter the Utilities folder. Double click on that.
So double click on Disk Utility.
Your other way is to search for Disk Utility via the spotlight search.
Yous tin find Spotlight search at the top of your desktop.
Click on spotlight search and type in 'Disk Utility'.
Double click on Disk Utility to open it upwardly.
3. Cull Your Western Digital My Passport External Bulldoze.
You click where I've circled on the above picture. Y'all click at the 'top level' – where you see the WD My Passport drive commencement listed.
A small arrow to the left of your Passport external storage shows the levels.
If the drive levels are not showing, click on Deejay Utility > View.
Pick the option to show all devices.
Then your drive and the volume will appear.
Then y'all'll be fine to select your drive at the summit level. Pick it where the red pointer show.
Now have a await at the height of the Disk Utility screen and click on the Erase option.
iv. Give Your External Passport Mac Bulldoze A Proper name.
On the side by side screen of Deejay Utility you will exist able to enter a new proper noun for your WD My Passport bulldoze. Why not choose a proper name that reflects is use on both Mac and Windows PC?
For the drive format select Mac Os Extended (Journaled).
And the Scheme is GUID Partitioning Map.
Click on Erase.
In a few moments y'all've formatted your WD external hard bulldoze.
You'll format your WD My Passport drive twice.
Once as Mac Os Extended (Journaled) file arrangement. The 2nd time as ExFAT.
This is considering to format your bulldoze as ExFAT from NTFS. It has to be formatted equally Mac Os Extended first.
And and so you'll have your WD My Passport hard drive compatible with Mac and Windows PC.
v. Pick Your WD Hard Drive A Second Time.
Double click on Erase.
half dozen. And then Select The ExFAT Format.
You accept just formatted the WD Passport drive equally a Mac Bone Extended (Journaled) file organisation. This time select ExFAT from the format drop downwards menu.
Leave the division map as GUID as before.
Then Select the Erase button at the bottom right of the window.
Several short moments later on you're done.
Your Western Digital My Passport bulldoze is at present formatted to piece of work on both Mac and PC.
And when you plug your My Passport drive into either you will be able to come across the bulldoze, read and write files. Re-create and Paste files and create folders on both Mac and PC.
seven. Ejecting Your Western Digital My Passport Drive
Never just pull out your USB cablevision either from your Mac or your Windows PC. You need to eject the drive first.
By ejecting the drive your estimator can write anything it is still belongings in its retention to the hard drive. And you'll keep the risk of corrupting your files to the smallest possible.
To Properly Eject the WD My Passport Drive.
1. On your Mac. Put your cursor over the WD My Passport Icon on the desktop.
Right click. Next click on the Squirt option.
ii. Expect until y'all can't see the Icon on the desktop.
3. Then check the LED lights on your WD My Passport drive. When they cease flickering and you accept a steady constant calorie-free you know the bulldoze is idle.
And then you lot're free to unplug the USB cable.
An Alternative Way to Eject on your Mac or for Your PC
Go to the Finder Window on your Mac or the Explorer window on Windows PC. Right click on the file icon of your WD My Passport bulldoze there.
Choose Squirt.
Look till the icon disappears and the flickering on the drive stops. Then y'all can pull out the USB cable.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Why Didn't My WD Passport Work On My Mac And PC?
Western Digital sells the WD My Passport with a file system called NTFS (New Technology File System).
A file organisation is how this Passport WD bulldoze stores your all your files. Whether they are documents, photos or music on the drive.
Your Mac can read NTFS. Then when you lot plug in the drive your Mac can see the documents. And you can copy them off onto your Mac.
But yous can't write any files back, update any of the documents or delete them. This is considering all those actions mean the Mac has to write to the bulldoze and it can't.
To write to the drive you either need 3rd party software that allows yous to do that.
There is an article on the site all nearly this here.
Or you reformat the drive equally I take led you through in the commodity.
2. Why Can't 'WD Passport For Mac' Piece of work On Windows?
The version of the Western Digital external storage sold in a 'For Mac' guise does not work on Windows. Not without some tertiary party software or without reformatting.
Why?
Considering the file system on the My Passport For Mac external hard drive is Mac Bone Extended (Journaled). And this turns it into Mac portable storage – a bulldoze for Mac.
This file system is likewise called HFS+.
A Windows PC tin't see, read, write to HFS+.
To share that drive between a Mac and Windows PC you demand software. Software that translates HFS+ into something the PC can empathise.
You can take a look at the software options in my commodity.
Or follow the steps in this commodity to reformat the bulldoze to ExFAT.
three. How To Open up WD My Passport For Mac On Windows?
Because your Western Digital portable drive has a Mac Bone Extended (Journaled) file system (HFS+) written on it. Your Windows PC can't encounter, or open up the drive.
Your options are to use a third political party software solution that sits on your windows PC. This software would permit your PC to meet, read and write to the drive.
Yous can read all about it in this document on the site.
Or you lot can reformat the drive to ExFAT and freely open your WD external hard bulldoze without any special software on it.
iv. Why Do You lot Utilize The ExFAT Format?
Because both your Mac and Windows PC can read and write to ExFAT.
What does this mean?
Re-create your documents onto an ExFAT formatted WD My Passport drive. And plug into either computer.
Whether information technology'south your Mac and or your PC it will meet those documents.
And use those documents on both computers. If it's your music collection you desire to enjoy and listen to on both your Mac and PC, and so you can with ExFAT.
Both a Mac and a Windows PC can also read and write to FAT32 formatted drives.
Why didn't I advise that?
And you may see some sites suggesting you format to FAT32.
But FAT32 has a file size restriction of 4GB. OK, so you'll probable have file sizes smaller than that.
But as the older file organization standard FAT32 is boring.
Much slower than ExFAT. And ExFAT can store a file up to 16 Exibyte in size.
These days ExFAT is the file arrangement to cull for your modern Mac and Windows PC.
To Close
Y'all'll find it so much easier when y'all tin piece of work on your documents from either your Mac or a Windows PC.
And encounter the photos you have stored. Or hear your favorite tunes on your Mac or PC.
You lot'll find other documents on the site all about your My Passport portable hard bulldoze.
Why not take a wait?
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Source: https://mactakeawaydata.com/wd-my-passport-for-mac-and-windows/
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