I just took it off the drive and copied it onto my PC. Then I took the drive to my Mac and erased all the stuff and went back to the PC to install the stuff that was there before. And that means youll have to reformat the drive before you can transfer your files to it. But cant write to an NTFS formatted external drive. Thats a file system format a Windows PC can write to. As does your WD My Passport Ultra external hard drive. Click the Erase button, Disk Utility will start formatting the.
WARNING: Formatting the drive will erase all data on the drive, so you should copy any data you want off the drive prior to formatting. I just took it off the drive and copied it onto my PCs external hard drive. As standard your WD external hard drive comes formatted in NTFS. Check step 2 to confirm Disk Utility is Showing All Devices. If the Security Options button is not available, Disk Utility cannot perform a secure erase on the storage device. OSX utilities like Disk Utility probably cant help you. Secure erase options are available only for some types of storage devices. Formatting a WD external hard drive does not require any. (Optional) If available, click Security Options, use the slider to choose how many times to write over the erased data, then click OK. A Western Digital (WD) external hard drive can be used with any computer once it has been formatted by the computer's operating system.
Select ExFAT as the Format option, and type a name for your external drive. Select the external drive you wish to format. If the Scheme pop-up menu isn’t available, make sure you selected the storage device you want to erase-it’s at the top of the hierarchy.Ĭlick the Format pop-up menu, then choose a file system format. Open Disk Utility on your Mac by clicking Spotlight search, then type Disk Utility, and press enter. Step 2 Follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with Time Machine on your Mac system. Step 1 Open Finder, Applications, then go to Utilities and Disk Utility.
#WD DRIVE UTILITIES MAC EXTERNAL FORMAT FOR MAC#
Ĭlick the Scheme pop-up menu, then choose GUID Partition Map. To format an external hard drive for Mac with Time Machine, you must follow the steps below. In the sidebar, select the storage device you want to erase, then click the Erase button. If you want to erase any other type of storage device: Double-click Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities folder.
#WD DRIVE UTILITIES MAC EXTERNAL FORMAT HOW TO#
Note: If you want to get your Mac ready to trade in, sell, or give away, and your computer is a Mac with Apple silicon or an Intel-based Mac with an Apple T2 Security Chip, use Erase Assistant. How to format Western Digital portable hard drive on Mac DoYourData Super Eraser Mac can help you easily format WD portable hard drive under Mac OS and permanently wipe all data.