Dec 29, 2014  Journaled vs. Make external harddrive compatible with mac and windows computer, How to format using disk utility on Mac. Exfat, fat32, journaled. WD Elements, WD My.

Dropping the drive on the floor even from 12-16 inches will break it. Sorry, but if you need the data, you're looking at data recovery, and that's if they can help you. What OS are you using and does the drive show in Disk Management? Does it say anything in Disk Management down where the bars are shown like Raw? Never trust important data to just one drive intern.

FAT32 will let you directly plug the drive into both windows and mac. But you are limited to an individual file size of 4GB mac OS extended will be readable only by macs but your files can be larger. **there are ways to make the different file systems readable by the other type of computer, i'm referring to default OS capabilities. *** when sharing the drive over the network the format only matters to the computer the drive is physically plugged into.

If you plan on regularly moving data back and forth paragon's NTFS on Mac or HFS on windows are highly regarded and fairly cheap. You only need one. There are a couple of file systems both can read but they don't handle 1Tb very gracefully. Edit: exFAT would work pretty well for you actually.

This means that if you have a newer Mac, say a Macbook Air or Macbook Pro with Thunderbolt connections you will need to purchase for yourself a USB C to USB A adaptor, or a USB cable that is USB C at one end and USB B Micro at the other end. Neither the nor the My Passport drives are Thunderbolt drives and won't read and write at Thunderbolt speeds.

This name will represent your drive when you connect it with Windows Explorer or Mac and will be mentioned above the drive letter for the My Passport drive. Therefore, enter a descriptive name. Now, again select a ‘Quick Format’ option, then click ‘Start’ option, wait for a few minutes to get your drive reformatted with the FAT32 file system, so that you can use it. After successful formatting, you can directly save or move files to it like any other external hard drive. In macOS / OS X Platform • Connect your Western Digital My Passport drive to Mac computer, and let the OS detect and mount the drive for use.

The USB 3.0 interface work much faster (300%) compared to USB 2.0 compatible. In addition, the drive is compatible with Apple Time Machine for backups fast and easy, and it comes, as mentioned earlier, with applications WD Drive Utilities – Security.

But despite the best of the best device specifications; there remains one small glitch to rectify. We know, Macs and Windows have their native file systems such as the new APFS or HFS and the NTFS. A WD My Passport formatted with Mac file system will be a dud on the Windows and vice-versa. Thankfully, MS-DOS FAT32 and ex-FAT formats have survived to date, and these are the file system 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, there are things you have to keep in mind and follow the correct steps.

In short, if you're only using it on Mac, go with HFS+ (a.k.a. MacOS Extended). If you want to use it on Windows as well, consider a different format (see advantages and disadvantages another poster provided) or multiple partitions (as suggested by others, e.g., above).

I'm not sure. When I bought the drive several years ago I only owned that Macbook Pro so it's quite possible I did. What would I need to do to make it recognizable by both? How to compress a video for email on a mac. Then it probably formatted as HFS or HFS+ then. There are some free utilities that let you read HFS from windows but not write. OSX can read NTFS but not write.

Where for this comparison they have over 3,800 User Benchmarks recorded. The speed test and results are taken as an average of all these tests.

(only mentioning because this comes up frequently in relation to this question in the forums). ​ (Hierarchical File System, a.k.a. Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Don't use case-sensitive) • Read/Write HFS+ from native Mac OS X • Required for or or backups of Mac OS X system files. [*]To Read/Write HFS+ from Windows, Install [*]To Read HFS+ (but not Write) from Windows, Install • Maximum file size: 8EiB • Maximum volume size: 8EiB • • You can use this format if you only use the drive with Mac OS X, or use it for backups of your Mac OS X internal drive, or if you only share it with one Windows PC (with MacDrive installed on the PC) (Windows NT File System) • Read/Write NTFS from native Windows. • Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X [*]To Read/Write/Format NTFS from Mac OS X, here are some alternatives: • For Mac OS X 10.4 or later (32 or 64-bit), install (approx $20) (Best Choice for Lion and later) • For 32-bit Mac OS X, install (free) (does not work in 64-bit mode) • For 64-bit Snow Leopard, read this: • Some have reported problems using (approx $36). • Native NTFS support can be enabled in Snow Leopard and Lion, but is not advisable, due to instability. • AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support NTFS • Maximum file size: 16 TB • Maximum volume size: 256TB • You can use this format if you routinely share a drive with multiple Windows systems.

But only if you have windows 7/8 and OSX snow leopard or newer.

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. 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.

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.

• This answer explains how to format a WD drive for use on Windows and macOS. • This answer explains how to setup and use WD Security and WD Drive Utilities on a Windows or Mac computer. • This answer explains how to install WD Apps software in Windows (10, 8, 7, or Vista) and macOS (10.8.x Mountain Lion through 10.12.x Sierra). • WD Discovery Online User Guide. • Direct Attached Storage Online User Guide and Solutions • This article explains how to safely eject a USB device from a computer. • WD2Go™ Cloud Online User Guide for Information, Configuration and Solutions.

Pro tip: If your external drive has a large volume, like mine -- a 2TB Seagate Expansion -- I highly recommend you also create multiple partitions. I'll also show you how to do that below. Most External Hard Drives Are Initiated with NTFS During the last several years, I've used several removable drives, including a 500GB WD My Passport, 32GB Lexar flash drive, and a few others. Three weeks ago, I bought a brand new to backup my MacBook Pro before I updated to the latest macOS, 10.13 High Sierra (also see I encountered). When I connected the Seagate to my Mac, the drive icon showed up like this. What is NTFS?

If this is indeed the problem, and none of the ports on your computers provide enough power, then there are two things you can do: 1) get a USB 'Y' cable which will aggregate the power from two different sockets or 2) use an external power supply if your HD has a socket for one (if it does not, you may be able to obtain another HD enclosure, which does have such a connection, and transfer the drive itself to 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 – Super Eraser for Mac to help you format WD My Passport portable hard drive on Mac and completely destroy the formatted data, beyond the scope of data recovery. When you run Super Eraser for Mac to format your WD My Passport portable hard drive for Mac, it will format the hard drive at first. Then it will shred and wipe all the formatted data. And last, it will overwrite the unused disk space with zero bites. So once your WD My Passport portable hard drive is formatted by Super Eraser for Mac, all the existing data and history data on the device will be permanently lost, can’t be recovered by any method.

• On a Windows system and if the drive is greater than 2TB, the screen below will be displayed. Decide if the drive is to be used with a computer running Windows XP.

​The WD Elements and the WD My Passport external hard drives are targeted at the portable drive, on the go market place. The WD Elements is positioned as their entry-level drive for the portable consumer and Western Digital is quite open in saying it is a basic drive. The WD My Passport drive is aimed at the market above the Elements drive and classed as the start of their premium external hard drive range.

Window’s Disk Management and Mac’s Disk Utility applications are secure platforms to erase your WD My Passport easily. You don’t require any third-party software to format your WD My Passport with FAT or ex-FAT. Caution: Avoid Formatting your WD My Passport without Backup We can’t rule out the possibilities of human errors resulting in the accidental formatting of the WD My Passport external drive. A silly man-made mistake will permanently remove all of the contained pictures, videos, audio files, and docs instantly from the WD My Passport.

It's best to use Disk Utility. Please see for more information. • When the application is started, the WD Quick Formatter's welcome screen will appear displaying the following warning message.

Started their company in 1970 so have been around for nearly 40 years. I would say any company that has been around that long must be doing something right. Their products have a great reputation in the market place for reliability, going head to head with some of the best names out there in the consumer market place.

• 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.

Journaled vs. Make external harddrive compatible with mac and windows computer, How to format using disk utility on Mac. Exfat, fat32, journaled. WD Elements, WD My Book western digital, my passport wd, we my cloud,wd my passport ultra, Western Digital,Samsung M3 Portable 2.5 inch, slim, D3 station, ultraslim,S3, Toshiba Canvio,Slim,Connect, basics, 100gb 200gb 300gb 400gb 500gb 1tb, 2tb, 3tb, 4tb, 5tb, 6tb 7tb 8tb 9b 10tb 20tb, 40gb 50gb 60gb 70gb 80gb 90gb. Usb 3.0, usb 2.0, usb 4.0 which journaled or exfat?

I personally prefer to use the facilities provided by Mac OS for encrypting my hard drive data and adding a password. Because, without the WD Security software installed and accessible by your Mac, you will not be able to access the data on the My Passport drive. If you are sharing the hard drive between Mac’s the software has to be loaded on that Mac as well. What if your Mac has failed and the backup you need to restore it with is on the My Passport drive.

Hello Zanaelf If you look at the format of the external hard drive, it is probable setup to NTFS and is something that Macs can read and copy from but cannot write to it. The only way you can do that is to reformat the drive to either so that it will be for Macs to write to or you can format it to FAT and it can read and write to both. Check out the articles below for more information. Also check out the other discussion that I provided as another user found a 3rd party piece of software that may assist you further if you do not want to reformat the drive. Regards, -Norm G. Hello Zanaelf If you look at the format of the external hard drive, it is probable setup to NTFS and is something that Macs can read and copy from but cannot write to it.

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 or data recover service. Now, I will show you the two methods to format WD My Passport portable hard drive on Mac.