Nov 09,2019 • Filed to: Hard Drive Recovery • Proven solutions

Extend battery life or improve performance, lock the drive, view the current time, and reboot the drive. Enable or disable DLNA streaming, refresh. Connecting up the WD Passport Drive on Mac. Turn on and log into your Mac then you’ll be ready to connect up the My Passport drive. Understand what connections you have on your Mac. The WD My Passport hard drive is powered from your Macs USB port. One end of the cable is USB 3.0 (and USB 2.0) compatible and that is the end you connect to your Mac.

Professional videographers and photographers use several digital devices. Generally, it includes Windows 10 desktop, MacBook Pro, SD card, DSLR and external drives, for instance, WD My Passport. The WD My Passport drive is imperative because the individual will use the portable media to store their collection of videos, photos, docs, and audio safely. Even though the superlative device specifications, there is still one small hitch to rectify, which is the reason you need to format WD My Passport.

Most of us know that Windows and Macs have their own native file systems, for instance, NTFS and new APFS/HFS respectively. A WD My Passport formatted with the Windows file system will be useless on the Mac and vice-versa.

But, the good news is that MS-DOS exFAT and FAT32 formats come quite in handy in such cases. These file systems can help you to make your WD My Passport work with a Windows PC and Mac at the same time. In this post, we’re going to help you learn how to format WD Passport for Mac and Windows safely so that you can share your digital files between a Windows OS and macOS with ease.

Part 1: What is My Passport WD?

Before you learn how to format a WD My Passport, it’s good to know about what is My Passport WD. So, let’s start.

My Passport is a sequence of portable external hard drives by Western Digital. Currently, there are six series, which include

• Essential Edition


• Essential SE Edition


• Elite Edition


• Essential for Mac


• Studio Edition


• Essential SE for Mac

My Passport drives by WD are designed to give look and feel like a passport. There is no drive in the passport series that needed a power socket, even though the “elite editions” comes with a docking system.

At present, WD My Passport hard drives have become popular thanks to its portable feature. In fact, WD My Passport is the most trusted and well-known name on the market and all credit goes to a wide range of features, which include several memory variants, durable structure and many more. If you’re planning to add to your system’s storage or backup your important data without another costly hard drive in it, then the WD My Passport external hard drives are the best options.

To format Western Digital My Passport for Mac or Windows, you can rely on in-built applications of your system to format your WD My Passport in exFAT or FAT32 format.

Before proceeding further, it is recommended to take a backup of your important files. As formatting will going to erase everything on your drive and that’s why avoid formatting your drive without a backup.

Part 2: How to Format WD My Passport in Mac System

Mac systems feature Disk Utility that can help you format your WD My Passport easily and safely. So, follow the steps mentioned below on your system -

Step 1 To start the process, connect your WD My Passport drive to your Mac system. Once the system detects your connected drive and mounts it for use, you’ll see a new hard drive icon on the desktop.

Step 2 On Dock, choose “Finder” to open the Finder interface. Next, from the menu bar, select “Go”>” Utilities”. Thereafter, select the “Disk Utility” from the Utilities folder.

Step 3 Once the Disk Utility opens, select your Western Digital hard drive from the sidebar.

Step 4 After that, click on the “Erase” from the file menu of the Disk Utility. Now, you’ll see the Erase dialogue windows and here, choose the “Volume Format” drop-down list to select the exFAT or FAT file system.

Note: The exFAT file system is a better option when it comes to formatting WD My Passport on Mac.

Step 5 Thereafter, click on the “Erase” button and let the system erase everything on the drive and reformat WD elements for Mac by exFAT or FAT32 format.

Step 6 Once formatting completes, you can then use your drive in Mac as a usual hard drive.

Part 3: How to Format WD My Passport in Windows System

Just like Disk Utility on Mac, there is an in-built tool known as Disk Management in Windows. With Disk Management, you can easily erase your Western Digital My Passport drive without the need for any third-party application. So, let’s learn how to do so -

Step 1 To begin with, connect your WD My Passport hard drive to your Windows system through the digital cable. Wait for your system to detect your connected drive.

Step 2 After that, click the “Start” button and choose “This PC”. You’ll see a list of detected drives along with their drive letters on the left side.

Step 3 Next, right-click on the connected drive icon and click on the “Format” option in the pop-menu.

Step 4 Now, choose the “File System” from the list and select either “FAT32” or “exFAT”. Then, enter a name in the field named “Volume Label”.

Step 5 After that, choose a “Quick Format” option, and click on the “Start” option. Wait for your system to reformat the drive with the FAT32 format so that you can reuse it.

That’s how to format WD My Passport. As you can see that there is no need for any third-party software to get the job done, be it for Mac or Windows PC. Once the formatting process completes, you can read and write data on it as you do on any other external hard drive.

Part 4: How to Extend the lifespan of WD My Passport

A WD My Passport hard drive can be one of the great assets for your system in terms of storage space for your important files. If you want to use your Western Digital My Passport external hard drive for many next years to come, following the below tips can help you do so.

• Be Gentle - Being rough with your hard drive storage medium is a quick way to reduce its lifespan. Luckily, several damages can be prevented and all it takes is care. In other words, you should be careful while using it. For instance, you should place it a padded container or bag while carrying it around.
• Eject Properly - Don’t unplug your WD My Passport drive without performing the ejection operation. If you do so, then you can put yourself at the risk of losing files and even, damaging your drive. That’s why use the “eject” feature and let the drive take the time it requires to remove it in the right manner.
• Keep it Cool - Just like internal hard drive, WD My Passport drives will produce heat while you’re using then. The real trouble begins when your drive process excessive heat. So, keep it in a sport where there is airflow around it.

There are numerous factors that can reduce the lifespan of your Western Digital My Passport drive. But, keeping the things mentioned above can make a difference.

Tips:

Recover Data from Both Windows and Mac System

No one can specify the possibilities of human errors that result in the accidental formatting of the Western Digital My Passport drive. Your silly mistake can permanently delete all of the contained videos, photos, docs, etc from your WD My Passport. That’s why it is recommended to create a backup of your drive before you reformat WD My Passport for Windows or Mac.

But, what if you have already found yourself in the data loss situation? The best thing you can do is to use professional data recovery software like iSkysoft that can help you get back your important files from Windows and Mac. Using Recoverit (IS), you can rescue your data in no time.

Recoverit (IS)

Here are its key features -

• Recovers 1000+ file types, for instance, videos, audios, graphics, documents, photos, and a lot more.
• Recover files from any kind of storage device, such as external hard drive, internal hard drive, digital camera. SD card, etc.
• You can recover data due to accidental formatting, unintentional deletion, virus attack, sudden system shut down, etc.
• Supports to recover files on both Windows and Mac.
• Click-through process to recover data easily and quickly.

Conclusion:

That’s all on how to format WD hard drive for Mac and PC. As you can see that formatting or reformatting the Western Digital My Passport drive is easy, be it on Windows or Mac systems. All thanks go to their built-in formatting tool. If you lost your important files in the process, there is no need to panic as Recoverit (IS) can help recover them without much hassle.

Summary: Have you received the error: 'The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer' on Mac? Don't worry, this article will focus on how to fix WD My Passport is corrupted or unreadable on Mac. To avoid the loss of important data, you'd better recover lost data from the unreadable WD My Passport with iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery.

WD My Passport external hard drive is able to work on Mac and Windows for data transferring or backup. It is popular for its auto backup and passport protection features, keeping your files and folders safe. However, there are times that the WD My Passport becomes unreadable or corrupted on Mac. You may be greeted with errors like 'The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer', which prevents you from accessing all data stored on the drive.

It's so frustrating when you meet this issue. If you are struggling to solve this issue, you will find a collection of verified troubleshooting steps.

Note: If you received the disk not readable error with three options: Initialize, Ignore and Eject, please don't select 'Initialize'. Initializing the drive will erase all of the data that is currently sitting on the drive, which makes it difficult to recover lost data.

Causes of WD My Passport not readable on Mac error

Let's at first take a look at the complaint from community.wd.com:

'My WD My Passport 2TB Portable External Hard Drive has suddenly become unreadable on my laptop (MacBook Pro Server with macOS 10.12 Sierra) and I have tried on a MacBook Pro 2011 running 10.13 High Sierra with the same results. Any suggestions to fix my unreadable WD drive?'

The good news is, even though you have been prompted with an error message, at least your WD My Passport drive is recognized. There are many reasons that can lead to a drive not being readable, but essentially this is because the internal file system is damaged. Some of the possible reasons for this error are described as follow:

• Mac malfunctions
• Outdated drivers
• Faulty connections
• Write-protected drive
• The WD My Passport is not formatted
• An internal file system error or bad sectors
• Virus/malware infection to your WD My Passport
• Incompatibility issue between your WD My Passport and Mac machine
• Accidental interruption or removal of your WD My Passport during transferring data

How to fix 'WD My Passport unreadable' on Mac error?

In most cases, the issue can be repaired with a simple initialize. But this operation will remove all data stored on this drive. Are there any other ways to fix WD My Passport unreadable issue on Mac? Of course, just try these solutions one by one:

Solution 1: Re-insert the WD My Passport

The first and foremost thing is to remove the WD My Passport safely from Mac and then re-plug it into the USB port properly. If the external hard drive mounts and appears on the left sidebar of Finder, then you can access the drive. However, if the WD drive still won't mount or the error persists, continue with the next method below.

Solution 2: Check the Mac computer

The next step is to check whether your Mac machine has a problem or not. Just connect a different storage device to your Mac. If this error still pops up, the problem may refer to your Mac machine, you can restart your Mac to see if everything works well. Otherwise, if you can see the other drive in Finder, the problem is associated with the previous WD My Passport.

Solution 3: Check if the WD My Passport is encrypted

The WD My Passport for Mac corrupted or readable issue can also happen if the drive is encrypted by BitLocker. By default, the Mac computers cannot recognize a BitLocker encrypted drive, which means you are unable to read or write BitLocker encrypted drive on Mac.

You can insert the drive in a PC and then turn off the BitLocker encryption so that it can be read on Mac. In addition, you can access a BitLocker encrypted drive with the help of a third party tool.

Solution 4: Update Mac drivers

Drivers enable one or more hardware devices to communicate with the computer's operating system. If drivers are out-of-date, a variety of issues will happen such as the disk not readable error. Apple handles all system and driver updates for your system. To check if any updates are available, please do the following:

1. Step 1: Go to Apple menu and select 'App Store'.
2. Step 2: Click on the 'Updates' button located on the top pane.
3. Step 3: Check available updates for your system and applications.

Solution 5: Repair the WD My Passport in Disk utility

Disk Utility is a built-in used to erase, format or manage internal disks and external storage devices. The most important feature of Disk Utility is First Aid, which helps detect and repair any issue with your disk. Here is how to run First Aid on your Mac to repair the unreadable WD My Passport:

1. Step 1: Open Disk Utility from your /Applications/Utilities folder.
2. Step 2: Select the unreadable WD My Passport in the left side bar.
3. Step 3: Select the 'First Aid' tab.
4. If Disk Utility tells you the disk is about to fail, back up your data and replace the disk. You can't repair the disk. Otherwise, continue to step 4.
5. Step 4: Click Run.
6. If Disk Utility reports that the disk appears to be OK or has been repaired, you're done. Otherwise, you have to back up as much of your data as possible.

Solution 6: Recover lost data and erase the WD My Passport

If the error still exists, you have no choice but erase the WD My Passport. But keep in mind that you will lose all data store on this disk. If you didn't back up important data, you should get lost data back with free Online data recovery software at first.

Step 1: Recover lost data from the unreadable WD My Password on Mac

If you are not sure which data recovery tool you can trust, iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery is highly recommended to recover lost data from the unreadable or corrupted WD My Passport. This free Mac data recovery can scan and recover lost data from unreadable SD cards, internal Macintosh hard drives, external hard drives, USB flash drives, etc. iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery provides a complete Mac data recovery solution even if your Mac won't boot/turn on, your device is failing, inaccessible or has lost a partition.

Moreover, iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery can also recover recently or permanently deleted files, recover lost data from formatted hard drives, recover lost data from unmountable hard drives, and recover lost data from inaccessible drives, etc. This software supports recovering documents, photos, videos, emails, and music files. It's fully compatible with macOS Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra 10.13/Sierra 10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.

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

2. Launch iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery.

3.Iomega introduces external hard drives for mac torrent. Select the unreadable WD My Passport and click 'Next' to search for lost files.

4. Preview the searching results, choose those you want and click 'Recover' to get them back.

5. Go over to ensure all lost files have been successfully restored.

Step 2: Erase the unreadable WD My Password in Disk Utility

1. Open Disk Utility from /Applications/Utilities folder.

2. Click on View > Show All Devices in the menu bar.

3. Select the WD My Passport from the list of devices on the left pane and click the'Erase' button on the top.

4. Name your drive, select a file system format and then click 'Erase'.

Now that you've formatted the WD My Passport, the disk unreadable error will be resolved and the drive can be ready to use. Then you can copy the recovered data back.

Solution 7: Ask data recovery service for help

However, if the solutions above don't fix the WD My Passport unreadable issue for you, or your WD My Passport even won't show up on Mac, it's probably the drive has been physically damaged. In that case, you should send it to a local data recovery service or replace it with a new one.

Conclusion

Hope these solutions have helped you fix the WD My Passport corrupted or unreadable issue. If you have any question about this article, stay in touch with us for further assistance. Specifically, we'd love to hear if you have other solutions for this issue.