However when in disk utilities its does not give me the option too partition this button is. For a hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a pc and mac computer, it must be formatted to exfat or fat32 file format. The reason is because i am planning on using my ps3 to watch all my video off of, and a ps3 only recognizes fat32 drives, not ntfs which is currently what my hdd is. How to convert my portable hard drive to ntfs i have a western digital my passport essential 500gb portable hard drive from 2 years ago that came preformatted in the fat32 file system. By formatting the passport as an exfat or fat32 drive, you can use it with. So i went to the instruction page on wd as and its give instruction on how to format tp exfat or fat32. Formatting would erase data completely, make sure that you have a data backup. Format wd my passport for mac and pc with ms dos fat 32 or exfat. Want to format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. Linux will format fat 32 on a 1 tb or larger drive, and do it without hesitation.
How to format a 4tb hard drive to a fat32 format wd hard drives only. Recently, i have got a 1tb wd external hard drive, previously formatted with ntfs. How to format a external hard disk exfat, ntfs, fat32 101. Which is fine but i have absolutely no idea how to do it and every time i try to download fat32 it says it is not a. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. Format western digital passport to fat32 with wd quick formatter 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. Hi there, i use a macbook pro and have a wd passport for mac. Lg said it needs to be formatted to fat32 or ntfs for the tv to reco. You should use ntfs because exfat, fat or fat32 are old school and new sata drives better support ntfs. I just read this and maybe windows cant format drives larger than 32gb into fat32. This is a file system limitation that affects both mac s and. How to format usb flash drive to fat32 in mac os x. No worry, actually it is not impossible to realize it no matter you use an external or internal drive of your windows system.
The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. You can then rightclick in the empty space and select new simple volume to create a partition and format it with the windows ntfs or fat32 file systems. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. On this popup screen, choose ntfs, fat32 or exfat among listed file systems and click ok. External drive like wd elements, my book and my passport can be formatted to fat32 via this tool. We here will show you the full guides on how to format fat32 and ntfs drives on mac as an example. How do i format my external hard drive to exfat on mac.
Lg said it needs to be formatted to fat32 or ntfs for. Free download western digital fat32 formatting tool for windows. But you cant update any of the documents on the drive. Or copy new documents onto the drive using your mac. How to format a 4tb hard drive to a fat32 format wd hard. How to format and use wd my passport for mac just like on windows, your wd passport can be used on your mac too. Its product line covers wd my passport, wd my passport ultra, wd my book, wd my passport for mac and more. The successive major versions of the fat format are. Your mac can read a wd my passport drive in ntfs format. I want to format it to fat32 file system, so that i can use it as an extended storage device for my ps3.
Youll need to format the drive to be able to drag and drop files. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive. In the main console, locate the partition on the wd passport external hard drive, right click it and choose format partition. Try wd advanced format utility alternative easeus external hard drive formatter to format disk while wd external drive format failed with wd quick formatter tool. How to convert a udf external drive to a fat32 or ntfs fmt.
How to convert my portable hard drive to ntfs microsoft. I want to download files on the passport to then watch on my lg tv using the usb port. You can only write to ntfs drives in macos catalina by acquiring a. Digital my passport external hard drive in exfat or fat32 format, you. Bonjour, je voudrais savoir comment formater mon disque dur externe wertern digital my passport essentail 500gbgo qui est actuellement en ntfs en fat32. Discussion in hardware started by sbmulqueen, jan 22, 2009. Wd quick formatter tool allows you to reformat wd external hard drive to ntfs, fat32. Do i use disc utilities fat32 or is there some other format. However, many users complain their wd my passport is readonly on mac like the user below in wd community. Can i format the wd hard drive via windows 7 builtin tools like file explorer, disk management or diskpart utility. To get around this problem or prevent it from being a problem later you could format the drive as an ntfs partition. I dont need the entire hdd reformatted, but about 500gb would be fine.
This was not the first time that we had heard of wd my passport readonly on mac. In this video i show how to format a 4tb hard drive to a fat32 format so you dont have to spilt partitions anymore too allow both wii and gamecube games to be stored on the same partition. Now it shows that the whole disk is full blue and the file system has changed to udf. Also is it ok to erase all the present files on the disc. What is the best software free to reformat a 2 tb western digital external hard drive from ntfs to fat32. Ntfs is the default window disk format, and apples macos devices can read ntfs, allowing you to transfer content from the drives to another destination. To format hard drive for mac and windows without data loss, we suggest using minitool partition wizard and its convert ntfs to. It would not give me permission to back up files on it, so i formatted it using windows 7 format tool. I want to create a system image and save it onto the drive but to do so, it needs to be formatted in ntfs. Therefore, some user needs western digital fat32 formatting utility because he wants to connect his ntfsformatted my passport ultra to mac os.
For a hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a pc and mac. To format western digital my passport for mac or windows, you can rely on inbuilt applications of your system to format your wd my passport in exfat or fat32 format. Most of time, when our wd hard drive is ntfs formatted, it turns to be readonly on macos. If you want to transfer files from a mac to windows pc and vice versa. How to format an external hard drive with wd quick.
Which format for an external drive solved windows 10 forums. This article will illustrate to the differences between the three, analyzing their pros and cons, compatibility and usage in an allrounded way. I want to format my wd my passport essential 500gb into fat32 but i only see the options ntfs or exfat. For a hard drive to be able to be read from and written to on both a windows and macos computer, it must be formatted to exfat or fat32 file format. Im pretty sure the guy i got if off plugged it into his mac laptop and tried tosuccessfully formatted to use with a mac. Fat32 has several limitations, including a 4 gb perfile limit. If you want to write to ntfs formatted hard drives in mac os x, youre going to need the. The easiest solution would be to purchase another wd passport drive for use with your mac and format it accordingly. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. All the time, macos can only read from windowsformatted ntfs drives, but cant write to them out of the box. Every time youll try to copy itll say not much space on the disk. Formatting nfts to fat32 external drives for pc wd.
How to convert ntfs to fat32 or exfat without data loss. However, macos cannot write ntfs formatted disks, which makes it challenging to link or work through both operating systems. Fat32, ntfs, and exfat are the three file systems users commonly use for windows system. Wd my passport essential ntfs on mac apple community. Among those external hard drive categories, wd my passport external hard drives are the most widely used ones. Another thing is that on any other format than ntfs you wouldnt be able to keep any single file above 4gb. Wd passport for mac to fat32 or ntfs other software. I had 2 exfat partitions partitions 6 and 7 which i have deleted and created 2 new ones using diskpart which i want to format ntfs. This post will show specific methods to make external hard drive compatible with mac and pc.
Not sure what extended format is and if its suitable. Wd passport not able to make exfat or fat32 external. To format a western digital my passport external hard drive in exfat or fat32 format, you. This is a file system limitation that affects both macs and. When youre reformatting a hard drive, windows will ask you what format to use. A file system uses a set of rules to control how data is stored and retrieved on a storage device. Your choice is msdos aka fat32 or exfat and i go over the difference in the video. Format new external drive as an ntfs partition it services. Wd quick formatter is short for western digital quick formatter, a format tool developed by western digital technologies, inc. A new western digital external drive is configured by default out of the box as a fat32 partition.
You can replace ntfs with exfat or fat32, if you want to use it both in windows and mac computer. You can find effective ways here to format wd my passport for mac and pc to fat32 or exfat file system with the help of the professional format tool easeus partition master or other solutions. I recommend ntfs over fat32, but fat32 can be great because it will work anywhere and is great if you have legacy equipment. To format a usb flash drive to fat32 in mac os x follow these steps. Free download western digital fat32 formatting tool for. My passport usb not working on my ipad apple community. A friend formatted the wd passport external hard drive and removed my files from it. I want to know what i should do to make the hard disk compatible with bot mac os and pc. I plug in my wd passport and it welcomes me to wd smartware, i click on set up drive and it tells me no readable partition found on your my passport essential drive. Formatting the drive from ntfs to fat32 is complicated especially with the smartware drives. Either buy a copy of paragon ntfs for mac or reformat the drive to msdos fat32 or if you have single files larger than 4gb exfat. Use full scan to recover data from how to format my wd my passport for mac on to windows 10 which can not be found with undelete and unformat and recover partition,after showing an error,display as raw file system,unformatted,unknown partition,unpartitioned,needs to be formatted,or the file system is not exfat,not fat32,not ntfs. Many people think it is hard to format the windows drive on macintosh.
Before proceeding further, it is recommended to take a backup of your important files. Hello i bought a my passport a few years ago to remove data from my pc. Download wd quick formatter to format external drive in. Whats more, you can share digital files between mac and windows system easily. For apple mac users, the easier way to format usb flash drive to fat32 is using the disk utility. I have a wd passport which i have set up to work with my mac, now i need to use it on a normal pc and have been advised to put fat32 onto it. So i got a wd my passport ultra which seems to be in ntfs format and i can only read it on my mac. Ntfs will give you one big advantage for backups over fat32, it will allow you to create files over 4gb in size which you will likely encounter when trying to do the backup.
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