- Jan 04, 2012 If you want to insure full Mac compatibility of a new external hard drive or flash disk, you’ll want to format the drive to the Mac OS Extended filesystem. This is particularly necessary for purchases of generic PC drives, which almost always come preformatted to be Windows compatible rather than.
- Sep 08, 2019 Select the Erase button. This is what you use to format the drive. Give the hard drive a name and select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system as the format. This is the format the Mac uses. Click the erase button to start the format of the WD Elements hard drive and away you go.
Hello, I just bought a Western Digital WD Elements 1.5 TB External hard drive, and I'm running a MacBook Pro with OS X Version 10.6.2. I'm wondering how I reformat the hard drive, which comes from the factory formatted for PC's.
Summary: Have you received the error: 'The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer' on Mac? Don't worry, this article will focus on how to fix WD My Passport is corrupted or unreadable on Mac. To avoid the loss of important data, you'd better recover data from the unreadable WD My Passport with iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery.
WD My Passport external hard drive is able to work on Mac and Windows for data transferring or backup. It is popular for its auto backup and passport protection features, keeping your files and folders safe. However, there are times that the WD My Passport becomes unreadable or corrupted on Mac. You may be greeted with errors like 'The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer', which prevents you from accessing all data stored on the drive.
It's so frustrating when you meet this issue. If you are struggling to solve this issue, you will find a collection of verified troubleshooting steps.
- Table of contents
- 1. Causes of WD My Passport not readable on Mac error
- 2. How to fix 'WD My Passport unreadable' on Mac error?
- 3. Conclusion
How To Format Wd Elements For Mac 2017
Note: If you received the disk not readable error with three options: Initialize, Ignore and Eject, please don't select 'Initialize'. Initializing the drive will erase all of the data that is currently sitting on the drive, which makes it difficult to recover data.
Causes of WD My Passport not readable on Mac error
Let's at first take a look at the complaint from community.wd.com:
'My WD My Passport 2TB Portable External Hard Drive has suddenly become unreadable on my laptop (MacBook Pro Server with macOS 10.12 Sierra) and I have tried on a MacBook Pro 2011 running 10.13 High Sierra with the same results. Any suggestions to fix my unreadable WD drive?'
The good news is, even though you have been prompted with an error message, at least your WD My Passport drive is recognized. There are many reasons that can lead to a drive not being readable, but essentially this is because the internal file system is damaged. Some of the possible reasons for this error are described as follow:
- Mac malfunctions
- Outdated drivers
- Faulty connections
- Write-protected drive
- The WD My Passport is not formatted
- An internal file system error or bad sectors
- Virus/malware infection to your WD My Passport
- Incompatibility issue between your WD My Passport and Mac machine
- Accidental interruption or removal of your WD My Passport during transferring data
![Mac Mac](https://www.disk-partition.com/articles/images/format-wd-elements-for-mac-8523/format-partition-settings.png)
How to fix 'WD My Passport unreadable' on Mac error?
In most cases, the issue can be repaired with a simple initialize. But this operation will remove all data stored on this drive. Are there any other ways to fix WD My Passport unreadable issue on Mac? Of course, just try these solutions one by one:
Solution 1: Re-insert the WD My Passport
The first and foremost thing is to remove the WD My Passport safely from Mac and then re-plug it into the USB port properly. https://divjjum.weebly.com/how-to-format-ssd-for-mac.html. If the external hard drive mounts and appears on the left sidebar of Finder, then you can access the drive. However, if the WD drive still won't mount or the error persists, continue with the next method below.
Solution 2: Check the Mac computer
The next step is to check whether your Mac machine has a problem or not. Just connect a different storage device to your Mac. If this error still pops up, the problem may refer to your Mac machine, you can restart your Mac to see if everything works well. Otherwise, if you can see the other drive in Finder, the problem is associated with the previous WD My Passport.
Solution 3: Check if the WD My Passport is encrypted
The WD My Passport for Mac corrupted or readable issue can also happen if the drive is encrypted by BitLocker. By default, the Mac computers cannot recognize a BitLocker encrypted drive, which means you are unable to read or write BitLocker encrypted drive on Mac.
You can insert the drive in a PC and then turn off the BitLocker encryption so that it can be read on Mac. In addition, you can access a BitLocker encrypted drive with the help of a third party tool.
Solution 4: Update Mac drivers
Drivers enable one or more hardware devices to communicate with the computer's operating system. If drivers are out-of-date, a variety of issues will happen such as the disk not readable error. Apple handles all system and driver updates for your system. To check if any updates are available, please do the following:
- Step 1: Go to Apple menu and select 'App Store'.
- Step 2: Click on the 'Updates' button located on the top pane.
- Step 3: Check available updates for your system and applications.
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 Passport:
- Step 1: Open Disk Utility from your /Applications/Utilities folder.
- Step 2: Select the unreadable WD My Passport in the left side bar.
- Step 3: Select the 'First Aid' tab.
- If Disk Utility tells you the disk is about to fail, back up your data and replace the disk. You can't repair the disk. Otherwise, continue to step 4.
- Step 4: Click Run.
- If Disk Utility reports that the disk appears to be OK or has been repaired, you're done. Otherwise, you have to back up as much of your data as possible.
Solution 6: Recover data and erase the WD My Passport
If the error still exists, you have no choice but erase the WD My Passport. But keep in mind that you will lose all data store on this disk. If you didn't back up important data, you should get lost data back with free Online data recovery software at first.
Step 1: Recover data from the unreadable WD My Password on Mac
If you are not sure which data recovery tool you can trust, iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery is highly recommended to recover data from the unreadable or corrupted WD My Passport. This free Mac data recovery can scan and recover data from unreadable SD cards, internal Macintosh hard drives, external hard drives, USB flash drives, etc. iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery provides a complete Mac data recovery solution even if your Mac won't boot/turn on, your device is failing, inaccessible or has lost a partition.
Moreover, iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery can also recover recently or permanently deleted files, recover data from formatted hard drives, recover data from unmountable hard drives, and recover data from inaccessible drives, etc. This software supports recovering documents, photos, videos, emails, and music files. It's fully compatible with macOS Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra 10.13/Sierra 10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.
1. Download and install iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery on Mac.
Wd Elements 2tb
2. Launch iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery.
3. Select the unreadable WD My Passport and click 'Next' to search for lost files.
4. Preview the searching results, choose those you want and click 'Recover' to get them back.
5. Go over to ensure all lost files have been successfully restored.
Step 2: Erase the unreadable WD My Password in Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from /Applications/Utilities folder.
2. Click on View > Show All Devices in the menu bar.
3. Select the WD My Passport from the list of devices on the left pane and click the'Erase' button on the top.
4. Name your drive, select a file system format and then click 'Erase'.
Now that you've formatted the WD My Passport, the disk unreadable error will be resolved and the drive can be ready to use. Then you can copy the recovered data back.
Dec 13, 2015 I have purchase Microsoft 360 Home, the $9.99/mo version. When installing Office, the only apps that appear in my applications area (I use a Mac) are PowerPoint, Word, Excel, OneNote and Outlook. I believe I get Microsoft Access with my subscription, so my question is- how do I download and install it without it prompting me to purchase 360 again? Microsoft access for mac.
Solution 7: Ask data recovery service for help
However, if the solutions above don't fix the WD My Passport unreadable issue for you, or your WD My Passport even won't show up on Mac, it's probably the drive has been physically damaged. In that case, you should send it to a local data recovery service or replace it with a new one.
Conclusion
Hope these solutions have helped you fix the WD My Passport corrupted or unreadable issue. If you have any question about this article, stay in touch with us for further assistance. Specifically, we'd love to hear if you have other solutions for this issue.
I’ve seen similar posts to this but cannot figure out the answer either, so I’ll ask my question afresh.
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I have the WD Elements SE portable 1TB HD and my Samsung TV won’t read any of the files on it. However, it DOES see that it the HD is there.
![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/3/4/3/134341542/658887818.jpg)
I have 3 sorts of files on the har drive – .avi, .mv4 and .mp4.
The HD is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
All three sorts of files work when I connect the HD to my computer (Mac).
I have seen a lot of speak about formatting to Fat32, but three issues with this – one, I don’t know what this means; two, I don’t know how and three, I’m concerned if I do this then my Mac will no longer read the drive (or however I should technically describe this) and thus that I won’t be able to actually PUT the files on the HD in the first place.
SO – what I want to be able to do is save the files to my HD, then plug it into the TV and watch them. Very, very basic wish, but seems not a basic way to get to it!
Zipped files for mac. Unzipping a file on a mac computer is user-friendly and intuitive. To unzip files on a mac, simply follow the steps below: Double click the zipped file. The file will automatically be decompressed by Archive Utility into the same folder the compressed file is in. Access the extracted files. Oct 17, 2019 Free and low-cost third-party compression apps are available for the Mac, but Mac OS X and macOS both come with a built-in compression system that can zip and unzip files.This integrated system is relatively basic, which is why many third-party apps are also available. A quick look at the Mac App Store revealed more than 50 apps for zipping and unzipping files.
I’m sorry if the answers to my questions are very obvious but I’m not much for computer tech-speak, and when I went searching for the HD in the first place the guy I bought it off assured me it would be capable of doing what I want (eg, save movie files to it and watch on computer) without any issues.
I’m willing to accept that he may have been way off (though he said he does it, so not sure?), so now I’m looking to understand what I need to do to make this happen.
Any answers would be great, and in plain English speak please… and hopefully in an easy-to-do way for laymen like me!
How To Format Wd Elements For Mac Os
- i foud the best way to sort this is, i did 3 partitions on my ext hard drive.
one with Mac OS Extended (case sensitive Journaled)
second & third with MS Dos (Fat)use the mac one for time machine
second Fat one for pics & music to viw on samsung tv.third Fat one i let samsung tv re-format it so that i can also use it as pvr for recording tv.it works great- You're a genius!
- Hello, If you want your TV to read your external drive it has to be formatted in FAT32. One disadvantage of FAt32, is that it does not allow files bigger than 4GBs. The advantage of FAT32, is that it can be read in different operating system like mac, linux and windows. Mind you, there are some TVs that are to read NTFS formatted drives but in your case it is better to use Fat32 so that you mac can read it too.The reason your TV, can not read the contents of your drive is because it is formatted with HFS, which is a format compatible with MAC but not with your TV. There are several formats for hard drives, ntfs, fat32, (fat16, fat), ext2, ext3, ext4, hfs, etc. The most widely used format for PC is NTFS, which is the default for most new computers. Fat32 is an older format which can be used in linux, mac and pc. Fat16 and fat are the precursors of Fat32 and are not widely used anymore. Ext2,3,4 are formats compatible with linux. Hfs is compatible with mac.If you want to format your external hard drive to Fat32 in a mac you can use the mac utilities to format it. Before doing that, make sure to copy any files you have in your hard drive to a folder in your mac. Once you format a drive, you loose all the information on it. You can do the following to format drive:-- connect external to mac
-- go to Applications
-- select utilities
-- select disk utility
-- click on partition
belonging to your external hard drive
-- select the partition (there should be only one)
-- choose msdos(fat) as your format
-- click on
applyOnce your external is formatted with Fat32, copy/move the files back to your external from your mac. Once that is donw, all you have to do is connect your external hard drive to your TV and provided the files in your drive are compatible with TV, it should be able to read files and you should be able to view your movies.You would have to read in the TV's manual about the formats that the TV recognizes. I am sure that .avi an mp4 should be read by your TV. Mac or pc for video editing. I am not sure about .mv4.- My External Harddrive is formated to NTFS and plays videos of my HD ..however it fails to open up some folders which contain videos in them. it presents an error sign saying the folder cannot be opened have any ideas in which why this maybe the case ..funny enough my friend has a samsung tv of a lower model d5000 which plays all these vids with no issue despite it being formatted to NTFS whilse mine the d8000 fails to do so
- Hello, what kind of files are stored in the folder your Tv cannot open?
- If you read through your HDTVs manual you will find that it only supports FAT32 ~ maybe also NTFS.Mac OS Extended Journal (HFS+) is a proprietary file system and even a Windows PC can't read it without the appropriate tools or drivers installed ~ let alone a TV.I'm afraid you will have to reformat your Hard Drive
* This will delete all data on the drive1. open up Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities/
)
2. select your external drive ('1TB WD Elements' or whatever it is called)
3. click on the Partition tab
4. select the following settings:
Partition Layout: 1 Partition
Format: MS-DOS (FAT)
the name will change to 'UNTITLED' but you can change it to whatever you want
click the Options button at the bottom and select 'Master Boot Record'When everything is set click Apply at the bottom right.
Again, this will delete all data from the drive so you will want to backup it beforehand.- This works great for me! Thanks so much for the advice!