Reformatting Wd My Book Hard Drive For Mac

IsWD Elements Compatible with Mac?

You buy a Western Digital (WD) 1 TB My Book External Hard Drive. Of course, if you are using it with a Mac, then you'll want to reformat it.

And therelated question can you use your WD Elements on a Mac?

The answeris yes. Your WD Elements drive can work great on your Mac.

But thereare a couple of things you need to know and do to get it set up just fine.

You’lllearn here the things you need to know about using your WD Elements for Mac.

And some ofthe potential pitfalls.

Plugging in your WD Elements USB Cable into your Mac

Your WD Elements portable hard drive has a USB 3.0 type A connection to your Mac.

Why is thatimportant?

Is your Macan iMac 2017 or later? Or MacBook Pro 2016 or newer?

Tabs studio keygen generator mac. Or MacBookAir 2018?

If youranswer is yes then your Mac will have a USB C (Thunderbolt) port on it.

You’ll beable to use your WD Elements drive. But you will need an adaptor to plug theUSB cable from your Elements drive into your Mac.

Theseadaptor cables are easy to get from Amazon.

And shouldyour Mac be an older Mac with USB 2.0.

Yourfine.

The USBcable provided will fit. And your WD elements drive will work at USB 2.0 speedto match your Mac.

You’ve Plugged in and WD Elements not Showing up on Mac?

You’ve loggedin and connected up your WD Elements external hard drive on your Mac. You wereexpecting to see the drive icon on the desktop.

But it’snot there?

The firstthing to check is your Finder Window Preferences.

Open up afinder window. Go to preferences.

In thefinder preferences pop up window be sure you’ve checked the ‘Hard Drive’ and ‘ExternalDrive’ boxes.

Then yourWD Elements external drive’s icon should appear.

What if your WD Elements is Still not Showing up on Mac?

Using Your WD Elements On Mac?

Your WDElements drive is bus powered.

What doesthat mean?

It meansthat your Elements drive takes its power from your Mac. Your USB cable bothpowers your Elements drive. And transfers your documents backwards andforwards.

Great. Becauseyou don’t have to worry about carrying another power plug and its cable aroundwith you. Particularly when you take your Elements drive out and about withyour Mac.

But becauseyour WD Elements drive gets its power from your Mac check your Mac is chargedenough. Or plug in your Mac so that your Mac doesn’t run out of power part waythrough a large transfer of files.

Is Your WDElements Drive Read Only on your Mac?

When shipped to you your Western Digital Elements drive is in a format called NTFS. NTFS is a PC format that a Windows PC uses. Your Mac can see and read your NTFS Elements drive.

But whenyou want to put documents on the drive, or update any files on the drive yourMac says no. You can only read your Elements external hard drive.

Don’t fretyou can change the formatting. Byreformatting your WD Elements for your Mac.

How do IFormat WD Elements for Mac?

To use yourWD Elements drive on your Mac you need your Elements drive in HFS+ format. Thisformatting is also known as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. Don’t worry about the name.

Just know that this is a file system that your Mac uses for a Time Machine backup.

And if youwant to copy and paste files.

Or drag anddrop files from your Mac onto your WD Elements drive.

It’s theformat you use when you want to use your WD Elements drive just for yourMac. Because a Windows PC can’t see aHFS+ drive when it’s plugged in.

To set upyour WD Elements drive to work on your Mac you’ll need to format it for Mac.

You’ll find my article on how you format the WD Elements hard drive here.

Click overand in a few minutes you’ll have the formatting all done.

How Can YouUse Your WD Elements Drive without Reformatting?

Formattingwill erase any documents you have on your WD Elements drive. So if you’ve put files on there from yourWindows PC. And really what you want to do is use the drive without changinganything on there.

There issoftware you can use that leaves your Elements drive in NTFS formatting. Butmakes it read and writeable from your Mac.

It’s theoption to choose when you mainly use your WD Elements drive on your Windows PC.And sometimes you use your Elements drive on your Mac.

Using YourWD Elements Drive on Your Mac and a PC

Yes you canuse your WD Elements drive for both a Mac and a PC if you want.

And particularlyif you want to use for both without using special software. And its easy to do.

You justconnect up your WD Elements drive to your Mac and format it to ExFAT.

There aresome articles around on the web suggesting FAT32. And yes you can set your Mac to format yourElements drive to FAT32. FAT32 is compatible with Mac and Windows. But thesedays the FAT32 file system is outdated, not as sturdy and has file sizerestrictions.

ExFAT is freelyread and writable by both your Mac and Windows PC. Both operating systems cansee an ExFAT file system. And use the files, photos, movies, music, in fact anyfiles that are on there.

You can find out how to Format your WD Elements external hard drive for Mac and PC using my article here.

Your WDElements Drive Not Working on Mac?

Havingproblems with your Western Digital Elements drive working. And then not workingon your Mac?

1. When you formatted your WD Elements did you check that the format scheme was ‘GUID Partition Map’? You’ll have problems with formatting the drive without setting the scheme right. Because NTFS is set up differently. And a set up hang over from NTFS will mean odd problems with your Elements drive.

2. You should try repairing your Elements drive in Disk Utility using the First Aid option. That may solve your problem.

If thedrive is in a poor state First Aid may well tell you to erase the drive.

Which meansstarting from scratch and loosing the files on there.

3. Did you download Drive Utilities from the Western Digital site onto your Mac?

Yes, DriveUtilities allows you to run a check on your WD Elements drive. And you can seeif the software reports any errors on the drive.

But didyour problems with the drive show up after you downloaded this software?

Check thatyour version of the Western Digital software is compatible with your Mac’soperating system.

You could haveproblems with your Mac OS clashing with the WD Drive Utilities software.

If you’reone of those having problems with your WD Elements drive working and then not.And for no real reason you can see. Then uninstall the Western DigitalUtilities.

You can dothat by using the WD Uninstaller in your Application’s folder.

And your onand off issues with your WD Elements drive should go away.

Why won’t MyWD Elements Drive Backup?

Having problemswith your Time Machine backups failing to your WD elements drive? This seems another type of conflict with theWD Disk Utilities software.

Check thesoftware version your using. Is it for your version of Mac OS?

Tryuninstalling the WD Disk Utilities. Then see if your Time Machine Backup issuesdisappear.

Last Words

Yes, WDElements is basic storage for your Mac. And it usually works great on Mac. Butif you have problems use my tips here. And have your WD Elements for Mac andlose your issues.

You candiscover other articles on the site all about your WD Elements drive.

Why notcheck them out.

Summary: The WD My Passport for Mac is not showing up in Finder nor in Disk Utility? Follow the tutorial in this article to fix the issue and recover lost data from not showing up/not working WD HDD without data loss.

West Digital hard drives, such as WD My Passport for Mac, WD Elements, or WD Easystore, are trusted by a large number of users to store the massive amounts of photos, videos, and music files, etc. What's more, they are widely known thanks to their auto backup, password protection, and high reliability compared with other hard drives.

However, everything has flaws. At times, the WD My Passport hard drive won't show up when you connect it to your Mac computer, the WD My Passport is greyed out in Disk Utility, or WD hard drive's light is on but not working. Even worse, it may become unreadable on Mac computer. In either way, your important data on this drive will become inaccessible.

If the WD My Passport hard drive is not showing up in Finder, Disk Utility or on the desktop after connecting to your Mac, how to find it and make it work? If you can't see files on the hard drive on Mac, how to access data? You'll get answers here.

Why isn't My Passport drive showing up on Mac?

Sometimes, an external hard drive not showing up on Mac just because the USB cable or the USB port on your Mac is bad. In addition, the following reasons may also lead to WD My Passport for Mac hard drive not showing up or not working.

• Recent macOS update issue
• System failure
• Virus infection
• Motherboard issue
• WD My Passport drive damage or corruption

Troubleshoot WD My Passport hard drive not showing up on Mac issue

As mentioned above, malfunctioned USB port or Mac computer, the broken USB cable and some hardware problems can also make WD My Passport hard drive not showing up. You can do some basic checks to troubleshoot whether this issue is resulted from those factors.

1. Safely remove the WD My Passport hard drive and reconnect it to the USB port. Try quickly plug and slowly plug, sometimes it just works for no reason.

2. Check whether the USB cable or USB port is bad by connecting other hard drives to this USB port or cable and see if that makes a difference.

3. Reboot your Mac computer to see if your WD My Passport drive is not showing up in Disk Utility/Finder or not.

4. Connect the WD My Passport hard drive to another Mac computer or Windows PC, which will find out if it is the incompatible file system of the drive that makes this WD My Passport hard drive undetectable.

How to fix WD My Passport for Mac not showing up on Mac issue?

If the WD My Passport for Mac still does not work or not show up in Finder/Disk Utility after the basic checks, go ahead to try out the solutions as below to make it show up on Mac.

Solution 1: Check Finder Preferences

If your WD My Passport hard drive is not showing up in Finder and desktop, it's possible that the configuration of the Finder Preferences is stopping your WD My Passport drive showing up. In other words, you didn't allow the connected hard drives showing up in the Finder or on the desktop.

Now, follow the guide below to set Finder Preferences and make the WD My Passport for Mac hard drive show up in Finder or on the desktop.

Step 1: Go to Finder > Preferences > General tab.

Step 2: Tick the 'External disks' option to show the WD My Passport hard drive for Mac on the desktop.

Step 3: Go to Sidebar tab, tick 'External disks' under 'Devices' to show your WD My Passport hard drive for Mac in Finder.

Solution 2: Check My Passport for Mac in Disk Utility

If the WD My Passport for Mac drive is still not showing up in Finder or on the desktop, you can see whether it is showing up in Disk Utility or not.

When checking WD My Passport in Disk Utility, you could have two results:

Case 1: Your WD My Passport drive is detected and showing up in Disk Utility, but it is greyed out or not mounting.

Case 2: Your WD hard drive is not recognized, so it's not showing up in Disk Utility at all.

Here, we'll show you solutions to case 1.

Method 1: Mount WD My Passport for Mac in Disk Utility manually

Sometimes, hard drives cannot be automatically mounted in Disk Utility, even though Mac has detected the hard drive. So it's possible that you'll see the WD My Passport for Mac drive not mounting in Disk Utility. In this situation, you can manually mount the hard drive.

Step 1: Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.

Step 2: Click 'Show All Devices' in View option at the left corner of Disk Utility.

Step 3: Select your WD My Passport for Mac drive from the left sidebar and click the Mount button on the top of Disk Utility window.

Instead, you can also click on the mount icon beside the drive to mount it immediately.

Method 2: Repair WD My Passport for Mac drive with First Aid

If you can't mount the WD My Passport hard drive for Mac manually, there should be some file system problems in this drive. But don't worry. There is a native repair tool called First Aid in your Mac computer's Disk Utility, which is able to analyze and repair basic hard drive problems especially with file systems and catalogs, extends, volume bit maps. You can follow the instructions to fix this problem.

Step 1: Go to Disk Utility.

Step 2: Select the WD My Passport for Mac hard drive.

Step 3: Click First Aid on the top of the Disk Utility window.

Step 4: Click Done when the reparation finishes.

Solution 3: Erase/Reformat My Passport for Mac

If First Aid was unable to fix the errors in the WD My Passport, which is quite common, the file system of this drive could be seriously corrupted and you have to fix the WD My Passport for Mac not showing up on Mac problem by reformatting.

The situation is, reformatting will assign a new file system but will erase your data on this drive as well. To avoid the loss of important data, please make sure you have a backup copy of data. Without a backup? It's not necessarily the end of the world. You can at first recover lost data from the WD My Passport hard drive for Mac with professional Mac data recovery software, like iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery.

iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery is free hard drive data recovery software for Mac that is able to recover deleted files on Mac, recover lost data from formatted, inaccessible, corrupted, unmountable, unreadable hard drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, memory cards, etc. It's compatible with macOS Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra/Sierra 10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.

Recover lost data from My Passport for Mac with iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery

Step 1: Download and install iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery on Mac.

Step 2: Launch iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery.

Step 3: Select My Passport for Mac and click 'Next' button to scan all data on this drive.

Step 4: Preview the searching results, choose files you need, and click 'Recover' to get them back.

Reformat My Passport for Mac in Disk Utility

After recovering data from this drive, you can now courageously proceed to erase your WD My Passport hard drive with no fuss.

Step 1: Go to Disk Utility.

Step 2: Select the WD My Passport for Mac drive in the left sidebar.

Step 3: Click Erase on the top of the Disk Utility window.

Step 4: Complete the information for your drive (such as new format, partition scheme, and so on) and click Erase.

What to do if the WD My Passport drive is not recognized/detected?

If My Passport for Mac external hard drive is not showing up in Disk Utility at all, it means the WD hard drive is not recognized. Very probably, your My Passport for Mac may have some physical problems. It's better to send it to a local reparation center.

Bonus Maintenance Tips for WD My Passport drives for Mac

Apparently, most hard drive not showing up issues are caused by unsafe ejection and sudden power outrage. In order to maintain your WD My Passport for Mac hard drive in good condition, you should pay attention to:

• Make sure that your WD My Passport hard drive doesn't become physically damaged.
• Always safely and properly unmount the WD My Passport for Mac drive after using it.
• Don't just unplug the USB cable, on the contrary, unmount your drive by right-clicking (control-click) on the icon on the Desktop or in the Finder and choose Eject.
• Properly use WD software like WD Drive Utilities, WD Backup software ( to back up important files to your My Passport drive), and WD Discovery ( to organize and share your files to the My Passport drive to backup your online social life).