- FORMAT WD EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC AND WINDOWS HOW TO
- FORMAT WD EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC AND WINDOWS PORTABLE
- FORMAT WD EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC AND WINDOWS SOFTWARE
- FORMAT WD EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC AND WINDOWS WINDOWS
And of course, you should also check out our list of the best power banks out there too. Looking for something gaming specific? Check out our best SSD for PS5. Or if you're thinking of moving over to the cloud, check out our guide to best cloud storage.
All of them are secure, so if your computer fails or your laptop gets lost or hacked, it's less of a disaster if you have one of the best external hard drives with a regular back up. Both types are ready to plug in and use, whether that's into your Mac or PC, via Thunderbolt or USB (though some are ready to use on Mac, and need to be formatted to use on PC).īelow, we've listed the very best external hard drives and the best SSDs, all at the best current prices online, and include all the facts and figures you need to get the right one for you.
FORMAT WD EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC AND WINDOWS PORTABLE
Then there's the SSD, which is the faster and more portable option, which also comes at a higher price. They're relatively slow and due to their moving parts, don't do well from being knocked or dropped. There's the traditional external hard drives, which are ideal to store the maximum amount of data for the lowest price. If you want to use WD My Passport or any other hard drive on Mac and PC, you need to format a Western Digital My Passport external hard drive in exFAT or FAT32 format.First of all, you'll need to know what type of external hard drive you need. However, it only works with all versions of Windows, but read-only with Mac by default. It is packed with modern features not available to FAT32 and exFAT.
FORMAT WD EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC AND WINDOWS WINDOWS
NTFS, NT File System, is the modern file system Windows likes to use by default. You can use it when you need a bigger file size and partition limits than FAT32 offers. This file system doesn't have the limitations of FAT32. It was added to older versions of Windows with updates to Windows XP and Windows Vista. A FAT32 partition must also be less than 8 TB, which admittedly is less of a limitation unless you’re using super-high-capacity drives.ĮxFAT, Extended File Allocation Table, is optimized for flash drives. Individual files on a FAT32 drive can’t be over 4 GB in size. FAT32 is the oldest of the three file systems available to Windows. The successive major versions of the FAT format are named after the number of table element bits: FAT12, FAT16, and FAT32. Don't stray from them and tamper with instructions you don't understand.ĭifference Between FAT32, exFAT, and NTFSįAT is known as the File Allocation Table.
Plug the wall/power bar and let power enter it.
FORMAT WD EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC AND WINDOWS SOFTWARE
If you lost data after formatting your WD HDD on Mac, you can run EaseUS Mac data recovery software to get data back. Then, you can use the drive in macOS or OS X as a regular hard drive. Wait for the process to complete and let the macOS erase data on the drive and reformat it by FAT32 or ex-FAT format. Rename the drive, select the "Volume Format" drop-down list and choose "MS-DOS (FAT)" or "ex-FAT File System". Select your WD My Passport on the sidebar, choose "Erase". Once that's done, double left-click on the Mac HD, the internal Mac hard drive visible on the top-right corner of the desktop screen.Select "Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility". Once the process begins, all the data on the drive will be lost! Tips: The instructions below are designed to help repartition and format a hard drive. The easiest way to format the drive to FAT32 or exFAT is by using macOS's built-in Disk Utility for FAT32 or exFAT.
FORMAT WD EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC AND WINDOWS HOW TO
Click "Start" to begin the formatting.ģ - How to Format WD My Passport in macOS/OS X Platform Rename the drive, reset its file system to FAT32 or exFAT.
Open Windows File Explorer, locate and right-click on WD My Passport that you need to format, select "Format". If it is larger than 32GB, you can only format it to exFAT. If you want to format your WD My Passport to FAT32, you must make sure that the size is smaller than 32GB.
It does not offer the ability to format a drive larger than 32GB to FAT32, the only available choices are NTFS or exFAT.