How To Format Wd Elements For Mac

• How To Format Wd Elements For Mac Os X
• How To Format Wd Elements For Mac Os

Using yourWD Elements drive for both your home Mac and work Windows PC means. A 1TB, 2TBor larger drive could make your life so much easier. Because both of your computerscan get to the same document.

After allhow else could you so easily move, look at and work on your docs on bothcomputers?

And it’squick and easy for you to do on your iMac or MacBook Pro or Air.

And you canfind out here.

Format WD External Hard Drive On A Mac. Plug the cable attached to the WD external hard drive to the appropriate port on the Mac, for example, the USB port. Double-click on the Mac's main hard drive to open its window on the desktop. Inside, enter the 'Applications' folder and then the 'Utilities' folder. Operating System (OS). External of the Year Western Digital Hard Drive Jumper Settings - PDF - 72DPI (96KB) or 300DPI (500KB) Formatting your Hard Drive or OWC SSD for PPC or Intel based Macs Migrating Your Data to a new Hard Drive in Mac OS X How Do You Format A Wd External Hard Drive For Mac CLICK HERE. I am in terrible need for help. I have a 2TB external drive called 'WD My Passport for Mac' It's been over a year since I last used it on my iMac. Now, I am trying to use it on my MacBook Pro, and it lights up, its also recognized by my mac, I can see it on Disk Utility, but I can't open it.

• How to Partition an External Hard Drive on Mac. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive (in fact, you should for better file organization), here’s a step-by-step guide: Step 1: Highlight your drive and click “Partition” in Disk Utility.
• When the Disk Utility opens, choose the Western Digital hard drive icon from the sidebar. Click ‘Erase’ on the Disk Utility file menu. Now, the Erase dialogue window appears, here select the ‘Volume Format’ drop-down list and choose ‘MS-DOS (FAT)’ or ex-FAT File System.’.

Top LevelView of Formatting WD Elements for a Mac and a PC

1. Connectup your WD Elements drive to your Mac

2. You useDisk Utility. First to format your WD Elements external drive to Mac OSExtended (Journaled) file system.

3. Then youquickly follow up by formatting to ExFAT.

4. Thenyour Western Digital external hard drive is ready to use on your Mac and onyour Windows PC.

Ahead ofStarting Your WD Elements Mac and PC Formatting

You’ll needyour Mac on and you logged in.

You maywant to think about connecting your MacBook Pro or Air to external power. Why?

Because youdon’t want your Mac’s battery to fail half way through formatting your WesternDigital Elements drive. And because theUSB cable powers your Elements drive. It’s taking its power from your Mac. You’llwant to make sure there’s enough power to drive the drive.

Your WD Elements drive comes with a USB cable that has a type A connector that plugs into your Mac.

How To Format Wd Elements For Mac Os X

Do you havea Macbook Pro 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018? Yes?

Your Mac will have a USB C port and you’ll need an adaptor cable.

They areeasy enough to get on Amazon.

Want to find out more about connection options for your Mac? Do take a look at this article on the site.

You mayalso need to use the adaptor cable on your Windows PC if it has USB C ports onit.

All pluggedin?

Great youcan start.

How toFormat WD Elements for Mac and PC?

The stepsbelow will format your WD Elements drive so that the whole drive is shareable.This means that both your Mac and PC can see all the drive.

Side Note:Erase will wipe any files you have on your WD Elements drive. If you have files on there and you want tokeep them, copy them off onto a Windows PC first.

1. Can yousee your WD Elements external drive on your desktop?

No?

Open up afinder window. You need to change your finder window preferences.

Check theoptions to show ‘Hard Disks’ and ‘External Disks’ on your desktop.

2. Start UpDisk Utility.

You’ll find Disk Utility inside your Utilities folder. And your Utilities folder is inside your Application folder.

Open up afinder window. Type Disk Utility intothe search bar.

Click tosearch your Applications folder.

Then doubleDisk Utility in the finder window.

The yellowarrows in the above picture shows you where.

How To Format Wd Elements For Mac Os

3. Pickyour Western Digital Elements Drive.

Once DiskUtility has started up you’ll see the Disk Utility pop up window.

On the lefthand side of your pop up window you’ll find the drives attached to yourMac. Your Mac’s internal disk drive is underthe heading ‘Internal’. And you’ll find your Elements drive under the‘External’ Heading. Click to select yourWD Elements drive.

Be sure topick it at the top level. The yellow arrow shows you where.

Can’t seethe different drive levels as shown in the picture?

Go to thetop left of the Disk Utility Window.

Click onView

And chooseto ‘Show all Devices’. This allows Disk Utility to show you the drive and thevolume.

Now pickyour WD Elements drive under the ‘External’ heading at the top level.

It’simportant you choose your WD Elements drive at the top level. If you don’t,you’ll have all sorts of problems formatting your Elements drive.

4. SelectErase.

At the topof your Disk Utility pop up window you’ll see a button for Erase. Click on that.

Worriedabout clicking Erase? Don’t. As the next windows shows you a bunch of thingsyou need to do first.

5. Giveyour WD Elements Hard Drive a Name.

You’ll begoing through this stage of the formatting twice. Giving the name Untitled at this point isfine.

This firsttime round you format your Elements drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) filesystem.

Choose thatoption for the drive format. The red arrow on the picture shows you where toclick. By clicking there you open up the up down arrows to expand the list ofavailable file formats.

Pick GUIDPartition Map for the scheme.

Then Clickon Erase on the bottom right of the pop up window.

DiskUtility now takes a few minutes to format your WD Elements drive.

Your drivewill change from NTFS to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system.

Once yourformatting is done. Defragger for mac.

6. NowFormat Your WD Elements Drive as ExFAT

Go though steps 3 and 4 again.

This timewhen naming your drive choose a name that is easy for you to remember. Onethat’ll help you know exactly what you’re using your WD Elements drivefor. Sharing between a Mac and a PC.

This timeyou select the file system format of ExFAT.

Choose theScheme as GUID Partition Map as you did before.

7. Click toErase.

You Clickon Erase on the bottom right hand corner of the pop up window.

And in afew minutes your WD Elements drive is ExFAT formatted ready for you to use onyour Mac and Windows PC.

Your WDElements drive will be on your Mac’s Desktop under the name you gave it.

Now yourentire WD Elements external hard drive is in a format both computers can use.

You cancreate folders. Copy files from your Mac onto your Elements drive.

Plug yourWestern Digital Elements drive into your PC. Work on documents on the drive and put docs from your PC onto the drive.

And whenyou plug back into your Mac your Mac can see and use those files.

What if youwant a separate area on Your WD Elements drive for Mac and PC?

You would dothis by creating partitions on the hard drive.

Think ofpartitions as slicing your WD Elements drive into different size pieces. And youuse each piece for different things.

Say you maywant two partitions.

One partition for your Time Machine back up of your Mac.

And anotherfor both Mac and your PC to share files.

Thepartition that you want your Mac to use for backup you format as Mac OS Extended(Journaled) file system.

YourWindows PC will not see that partition when you plug your Elements drive intoyour PC.

Thepartition you want to share with both Mac and Windows you partition as ExFAT.

To FormatYour WD Elements With a Partition for Mac and PC

1. Follow steps 1 through to 5 above.

Your whole drive is now formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system.

Once youhave formatted your Western Digital Elements drive …

2. In DiskUtility, Click on Partition.

At the topof your Disk Utility screen you’ll see the button to partition.

Click onit.

This timeDisk Utility shows you the partition pop up Window.

3. Createyour first Partition.

Give yourpartition a name. In this example our first partition is for a Time Machinebackup. You could call it Time Machine. Makes it easy to remember.

Just like whenyou formatted choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. And the Scheme asGUID Partition Map.

4. Click the+ button under the large circle.

The largecircle is a picture showing your whole disk. When you click + you’re tellingDisk Utility to create a second partition. Disk Utility splits your WD Elements drive into two equal parts.

5. Click onthe New Partition.

Click onthe picture of your WD Elements drive. Click on the side of the picture withyour unnamed partition.

Give thepartition you plan to share a name.

ChooseExFAT for the format. And GUID Partition Map for the scheme.

6. Don’twant Equal sizes?

If youdon’t want a 50/50 split. Then you can type in the size you want eitherpartition to be. Right there on the screen where it says size.

The picturewill move and adjust to show you the percentage each partition has.

7. ClickApply.

When you’rehappy press Apply.

Your Macwill create the partitions, and format them as you want. And after a shortwhile your partitioning is done.

And yourpartitions will appear on your Mac’s desktop as drive icons.

You candouble click on them to open up finder windows. Finder windows that you cancopy and paste to and drag and drop to.

Why Doesn’tYour WD Elements Drive Work Out of the Box on your Mac and PC?

Western Digital ships the Elements external hard drive formatted as NTFS.

This meansyour PC will be able to use the drive right away.

Your Mac can read the files on an NTFS formatted WD Elements drive but can’t update those files. Or put more files on the Elements Drive.

ExFATluckily is a file format that both your Windows PC and your Mac can use.

Plug yourWD Elements drive into either and they can see all the files on the drive. Notonly that, they can write files onto the drive.

This makesthe drive completely shareable.

Saving youmoney because you won’t have to use a more complicated way to share files.

Its package is based on MLT Framework, which means it strives to provide users with easy to use features and versatility. Macbook pro video editor.

And all thefiles you want to use are right there on the one drive.

Last Words

And now you can relax because you have your WD Elements drive formatted for your Mac and PC. Success. You’ve formatted your WD Elements for a Mac and PC. And now you can get on with sharing your files between them both.

You’ll find other documents here all about your WD Elements drive. Please take a look.