So, you just bought an external hard drive or a portable SSD and wanted to use it on your Mac. But somehow, macOS doesn’t allow you to write data to the drive.
I recently bought a WD My Passport External Hard drive for mac. Upon using it says that it needs to format in order to work for mac. I want to move my files from my pc to my mac and i was wondering if it would still work on pc if i reformatted it for mac.
That’s all because it’s been initialized with Windows NT File System (NTFS), which is primarily for PCs. Apple Mac machines support a different file system.
In this post, I’m going to show you how to format your external drive for a Mac compatible file system i.e. Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Just follow this easy step-by-step guide and you’re all set.
Important note: If you have useful files stored on the external drive, be sure to copy or transfer them to another safe place prior to formatting. The operation will erase all data and your files will be gone for good. You could use a recovery program like Data Rescue to retrieve them, but the odds of recovery vary.
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 2TB Seagate Expansion to backup my MacBook Pro before I updated to the latest macOS, 10.13 High Sierra (also see those High Sierra issues I encountered).
When I connected the Seagate to my Mac, the drive icon showed up like this.
When I opened it, the default content was all there. Since I wanted to use it on Mac, I clicked the blue logo with the text “Start_Here-Mac”.
It brought me to a webpage on Seagate’s site, where it clearly indicated the drive was initially set up to work with a Windows PC. If I wanted to use it with Mac OS or Time Machine backup (which is my intent), I’ll need to format the drive for my Mac.
I then right-clicked the external drive icon on Mac desktop > Get Info. It showed this format:
Format: Windows NT File System (NTFS)
What is NTFS? I’m not going to explain here; you can read more on Wikipedia. The problem is that on macOS, you can’t work with files saved on an NTFS drive unless you use a paid app Paragon NTFS for Mac.
How to Format an External Drive to Work with Mac (from NTFS to Mac OS Extended)?
Note: The tutorial and screenshots below are based on macOS Sierra 10.12.5. They might be different if your Mac has a different version.
Step 1: Open Disk Utility.
The quickest way to do this is a simple Spotlight search (click the search icon on the upper right corner), or go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
Step 2: Highlight your external drive and click “Erase”.
Make sure your drive is connected. It should show up on the left panel under “External”. Select that disk and click the “Erase” button, the one highlighted in red in the screenshot below.
Step 3: Select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” in Format.
A new window will pop up asking which file system you’d like to format the external drive to. By default, it’s the Windows NT File System (NTFS). Select the one shown below.
Pro tip: If you want to use the external drive for both Mac and PC, you can also select “ExFAT”. Learn more about the differences between these file systems from this thread.
By the way, you can also rename your external drive.
Step 4: Wait until the erasing process is complete.
For me, it took less than a minute to format my 2TB Seagate Expansion.
You can also check to see if the format was successful. Right-click on the icon for your external drive on Mac desktop, then select “Get Info”. Under “Format”, you should see text like this:
Congratulations! Now your external drive has been formatted to be fully compatible with Apple MacOS, and you can edit, read, and write files to it as you want.
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. Make sure you select the disk icon right under “External”. If you select the one below it, the Partition option will be greyed out and become unclickable.
Step 2: Add partitions and allocate volume for each one.
After clicking “Partition”, you’ll see this window. Located on the left is a big blue circle with the name of your external drive together with its volume size. What you need to do next is click the add “+” button to increase the number of partitions on your external disk. Then allocate the desired volume to each partition. You can do that by clicking the small white circle and dragging it around.
After that, you can rename each partition and define a file system for it.
Step 3: Confirm your operation.
Once you hit “Apply”, a new window pops up asking for your confirmation. Take a few seconds to read the text description to make sure it reflects what you intend to do, then click the “Partition” button to continue.
Step 4: Wait until it says “Operation successful.”
To check whether the operation is really successful, go to your Mac desktop. You should see multiple disk icons show up. I chose to create two partitions on my Seagate Expansion — one for backup, the other for personal use. You can find more info in this post: How to Backup Mac to an External Hard Drive.
That wraps up this tutorial article. I hope you find it helpful. As always, let me know if you have any issues during the formatting or partitioning process.
May 31,2019 • Filed to: Data Recovery Tips • Proven solutions
Summary:
Many users asked me about the same problem: 'My Macbook can recognize my WD MY Passport, but when I want to open it and find some files, the system shows that the drive is unreadable. The files in the drive is important, do you know how to get the data back before I repair it.' Data loss problems are common in our daily life, find a suitable method to recover the data is very necessary for you. And you should know that to recover files from My Passport external hard drive is not a difficult task, this article will provide you the full guides to solve your problem.
Part 1. WD My Passport External Hard Drive Data Recovery for Mac
As long as lost files on your WD My Passport drive haven't been overwritten by new data and you drive can still be recognized as a drive by your Mac, you’re likely to restore all lost data with the help of a WD My Passport data recovery program such as iSkysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
This powerful utility enables you to recover WD My Passport data lost for various situations and it'll do no harm to your drive. With its comprehensive recovery mode and simple operation, you can easily get back all kinds of files, such as photos, audio files, document files, videos and more. Besides, is compatible for all Mac models and Mac OS X versions including Yosemite, El Capitan and macOS Sierra.
iSkysoft Data Recovery
A Life Saver to Solve Your Data Loss Problems!
- It is compatible with both Windows and Mac operating system.
- It supports a large number of storage device type including hard drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, etc.
- All major types of files can be recovered including music, images, video, documents, emails, and archives.
- It has a deep scan features for in-depth scanning of the hard drive for searching files to recover.
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Part 2. How to Recover Data from WD My Passport Hard Drive on Mac (El Capitan, macOS Sirra and macOS High Sierra)
Steps on How to Recover Deleted Photos and Videos on WD My Passport Hard Drive
Step 1. Choose File Types to Start WD My Passport Recovery
After launching the tool on your Mac, you'll get 6 file type option tabs as follow. If you want to recover lost, deleted or formatted files from WD My Passport drive, you can select one or more file types. After that, try to click 'Next' button to continue.
Step 2. Scan Your WD My Passport Drive
Then your WD My Passport hard drive will be listed in the window. You can select it and click 'Start' to start scanning for lost data.
Step 3. Recover Files from WD My Passport Hard Drive
After scanning, found contents on your hard disk will be listed according to folders in the window. You can view original name or preview photos and documents to check whether the lost data are found or not.
Part 3. Tips About WD My Passport Data Recovery on Mac
WD My Passport external hard drive has been widely used all over the world. However, files on WD My Passport hard drive can be lost due to deletion, formatting, data transferring, virus infection, system error and some other reasons. If you have backup of lost files on somewhere else, you can retrieve them within seconds. Otherwise, you need WD My Passport data recovery software to solve your problem.
Since lost files can be easily overwritten by new data on your WD My Passport drive, please stop using it immediately when files are lost.