If you chose the standard format, which we suggested, the time it takes the drive to format will depend almost completely on the size of the drive. Wd quick formatter, also known as wd advanced format drivers afds, is an external hard drive format utility for windows and mac, developed by western digital technologies, inc. So, you just bought a new external hard drive or a portable ssd and wanted to use it on your mac. Usbexternal hard drive not showing up in my computer or. Password protection with hardware encryption the my book devices builtin 256bit aes hardware encryption with wd security software helps keep your content private and safe. The western digital my book, for example, comes formatted to ntfs, but you. I recently purchased a 4tb wd my passport external hard drive from costco. In this guide, well show you how to format an external hard drive so you can not only get rid of the. Sometimes the hard drive is not showing up in this pc but available in disk management. For mac computers, go to the apple menu and select software update. Locate your external drive from the list of devices and drives.
How to solve my wd hard drive not recognized in windows 10. The my book duo drive has massive capacity for storing photos, videos, documents and music. Good afternoon, i want to use the the quick format tool to clean my my book drive. Sep 17, 2015 i have a lacie d2 quadra 1tb external hard drive. A quick format only deletes the organizational structure of the files on the drive, without removing the actual files.
Sometimes internal, external, and new hard drives become unrecognized or totally undetected in varying degrees. Although mybook hard drives are capable of working with both macs and pcs, they are initially formatted for use with only the windows operating. You just need to select the drive letter for your wd my book external hard drive in the window and click start button to begin scanning lost data on it. How to reformat an external hard drive without losing your data. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Please remember that all data will be deleted from the drive, so make sure you have made a backup. That said, if you are using smaller file sizes fat32 can suffice. The maximum individual file size for exfat is 16 eb.
Equipped with wd backup software for windows and apple time machine compatibility for mac, the my book desktop hard drive can back up your photos, videos, music, and documents. This western digital my book external hard drive has universal connections to ensure compatibility with 3. I can find it under device manager and disk management but thats it. Whether you are trying to backup mac to an external hard drive, wipe out any personal information and sell the computer, or even use a new operating system, you need to format the hard drive on your mac or pc. Wd my book world edition white after building a pc with win 10, ive not had my wd my book world edition used for a good while, decided to plug it in and install the drivers etc. But in order for the computer and drive to talk to one another, the drive has to be formatted. Now either because of time, corruption or because it may have been formatted for a mac when i plug it into my pc i cant access it. Free download western digital fat32 formatting tool for.
Equipped with wd backup software for windows and apple time machine compatibility for mac, the my book desktop hard drive can back up your photos. So if you are formatting a drive that has already been used, be sure to copy any files you will ever want to see again onto a computer or backup drive. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the drives on your mac are listed on the lefthand sidebar. Format your western digital my passport external hard drive to fat32 or exfat format so to transfer the data between a mac and windows system conveniently. Apr 17, 2020 western digital my book is a sleek series of western digital wd external hard drives. In the format partition section, select the file system. Now in this interface, you will see a format option.
Your my book drive is formatted as a single exfat partition for compatibility with all updated. Trouble configuring hard drive for readyshare i recently bought a wd 4tb black my passport ultra portable external hard drive usb 3. I backed up my touro and did a full reformat in ntfs using windows 10 and the router now sees it. Switch to raid1 configuration for redundancy and to mirror data on the wd red drives inside. Explora computers buying guide choosing the right format for your. Some people are asking for a way to format a hard drive for mac.
Password protection the my book drives builtin 256bit aes hardware encryption with wd security tools helps keep your content private and safe. Youll want to do it before you sell your machine, for sure, but its also one of the steps you take when you. Initialize a new disk, update the disk driver, or format a drive to get it recognized. Bovke protective case for seagate expansion desktop,western digital wd my bookelements desktop external hard drive usb 3. For instance, users want to write data to and read data from, to do a clean installation of the windows system, to get rid of a virus or malware, to erase the data before giving the drive to someone else or throwing it away.
Free up space on your computer with help from this 8tb western digital my book external hard drive. After youre done, dont forget to remove the external hard. Reformatting a external western digital my book drive ask different. A screenshot of a formatting dialog box in windows, showing capacity, file system, how to reformat your. Using the western digital my book hard drive facilitates our lifes, you can take your favourite media data or any important files to anywhere when you need them. How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow.
Under file system, choose the file system you want to use. External drive like wd elements, my book and my passport can be formatted to fat32 via this tool. If the first scan cannot search your data, you can go to deep scan with allaround recovery data recovery mode which will deeply search more data. Well show you how to format your hard drive on windows and. Insert the my book power adapter into the back of the hard drive, and plug the other end into a standard electrical outlet. How to recover files from wd my book external hard drive. In some cases, data loss is unavoidable to fix the problem, so data recovery software is offered. I need to use it for iphoto and it has the wrong format. The secret to reformatting a western digital wd 1tb my book. One question is by doing this will i need to download the software again and my other question is, is there any danger that doing this will affect my computer hard drive in any way. With a my book external hard drive, produced by western digital, you can store large amounts of digital data, including music, videos and photos.
If it is not ticked, you will lose all of your data. Open the disk utility app located in examplehddapplicationsutilitiesdisk utility. Whether youre selling your computer, trying a new operating system, or setting up an external drive for backups, sometimes you need to completely erase and format a. How to reformat a mybook external hard drive on mac osx. But somehow, macos doesnt allow you to write data to the drive.
If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Raid0 mode provides superfast performance with up to 360mbs 2 sequential read speeds using the usb typec port. Raid0 mode provides superfast performance with up to 360mbs2 sequential read speeds using the usb typec port. However, it is frustrating that you have to sacrifice storage space because you spent the extra money to. If you own a windows computer, the hard drive in your system is probably running the ntfs format, which stands for new technology file system. If your drive is powered on but still isnt appearing in file explorer, its time to do some digging. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. A usb typec port with all cables included makes it universally compatible supports. For instance, users want to write data to and read data from, to do a clean installation of the windows system, to get rid of a virus or malware, to erase the data before giving the drive to someone else or throwing it away, or some other reasons.
How to reformat an external hard drive without losing your. Buying and using an external hd is one thing, getting the most out of it is quite another. Western digital my book is a sleek series of western digital wd external hard drives. In addition, you can use a my book hard drive to back up your computers internal hard drive in case of data loss. Our latest edition features visual, easytouse, automatic, continuous backup software and drive lock security protection. Wd my book world edition white solved windows 10 forums. How to format an external hard drive the easy way in 2020. Disk drive format your my book drive is preformatted as a single ntfs partition for compatibility with all updated windows operating systems. If your product is not listed above, please visit the product page. My book 4tb desktop hard drive with password protection and.
Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. A hard drive can be used on any type of computer pc or mac. Connect the my book external hard drive to your mac computer using a usb cable. How to use a my book external hard drive techwalla. The external hard drive will automatically power on. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab. Apr 29, 2020 you just need to select the drive letter for your wd my book external hard drive in the window and click start button to begin scanning lost data on it. Nov 14, 2017 i recently purchased a 4tb wd my passport external hard drive from costco. Formatting a hard drive is the best way to start from scratch on a geeky project. Find low everyday prices and buy online for delivery or instore pickup.
Some reported that the usb or external hard drive is not showing up on my computer or file explorer but showing in disk management. Plug the cable attached to the wd external hard drive to the appropriate port on the mac, for example, the usb port. Inside, enter the applications folder and then the utilities folder. For instructions on how to format your hard drive on a mac, please reference the following links. E ver run out of storage space and start wondering if it would be possible to take a crowbar to your new unibody macbook pro to pry it open and put another hard drive in. But unfortunately it bit the dust and i decided to get a pc. Many users complained that their external hard drives are connected but not showing on computer or file explorer the windows 1087. Nov 19, 2019 good afternoon, i want to use the the quick format tool to clean my my book drive. A small drive will take a small amount of time to format and a very large drive will take a very long time to format. Formatting a hard drive will wipe all software and all data you have stored on the hard drive. Follow these instructions if you plan to share an external hard drive between pc and mac computers.
If you want to use the drive with a mac computer, see reformatting the drive. What to do when your external hard drive wont show up. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Doubleclick on the macs main hard drive to open its window on the desktop. Plugged it into a switch and its not being recognised at all, even downloaded the wd cd with the drivers and the detection tool doesnt see it either. My book essential user manual about your wd drive 1 about your wd drive welcome to your my book essential external hard drive, an elegant, highcapacity storage solution for all the chapters of your di gital life. If you chose a quick format, your hard drive should only take several seconds to format. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. Click disk management in the bar on the lefthand side, then find the device in the drive viewer.
We would like to show you a description here but the site wont allow us. May 04, 2020 if your drive is powered on but still isnt appearing in file explorer, its time to do some digging. Western digital wd 1 tb my book external hard drive, they usually come formatted. Rightclick on the start icon type computer management click on computer management. Open the start menu and type disk management, and press enter when the create and format. Disk drive format your my book drive is formatted as a single exfat partition for compatibility with all updated windows and mac operating systems. I have a western digital my book 3tb external and a seagate touro s 1tb, and neither can be identified by the r7800. Learn more with 77 questions and 170 answers for wd my book 4tb external usb 3. Since i use a mac, i need to reformat the hard drive in order for it to be used. Format wd my passport for mac and pc with ms dos fat 32 or exfat file system and share digital files between mac and windows system easily. Oct 25, 2018 wd quick formatter, also known as wd advanced format drivers afds, is an external hard drive format utility for windows and mac, developed by western digital technologies, inc. People might need to format a hard drive or an external hard drive in windows 10 for various reasons. All you need to do is to recover data from the raw hard drive and then format the disk to make it usable again.
How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. Open a new finder window by clicking on the icon in the dock. The my book desktop hard drive also works great with acronis true image wd edition software to schedule full system backups. I see the hard drive when i log in to and go to advancedadvanced setupusb settings but cant seem to add it for some reason. You store your vital data in the wd my book hard drive, if you encountered the data loss, you. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. If you can see it in disk management, just rightclick on it and choose format. So, if you dont want to lose any of it back it up on another hard drive. How to reformat my external hard drive for windows 10.