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WD My Passport Portable Hard Drive and Auto Backup Software The My Passport portable hard drive is trusted to store the massive amounts of photos, videos and music you love. Available in an array of vibrant, fun colors, the sleek style fits comfortably in the palm of your hand, so you can easily take your treasured content everywhere you go. I am using a 2TB WD passport in my mac for the past 10 months. It was working fine till now, but all of the sudden the hard disk is not getting recognised in my mac. The LED in the hard disk is glowing, but the hard disk is not getting recognized. I have tried to connect with other cables too, its not working.
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With a GCX screenshot (or other proof), and we'll add flair proudly proclaiming your expertise! No rank is an indication that the person is always, or even mostly, correct. Apple Helper: These fine individuals are hand-picked by the moderators as a badge of their expertise, despite not having any formal Apple training. (Please do not request this title. It is granted solely at the moderator's discretion.). Apple Trained: Current or former Apple employees who do not possess a higher level of certification.
Apple Certified: Current or former Apple employees who have a certain level of certifications are given this title. Apple Expert: These folks have received the highest level of training Apple has to offer, whether as an Apple Genius, an independent contractor, or an authorized service professional. Related Reddits. Special thanks for the CSS from its creators at:,! A friend came to me today looking to wipe his computer clean and reinstall everything from a backup.
Being that he uses a Mac, I suggested to him to use Time Machine. He already backed up his computer to an external hard drive, specifically a 2 TB WD My Passport for my Mac. I helped him connect that external hard drive to Time Machine. I proceeded to restart the computer while holding cmd + R, as that is the way to reinstall.
I selected reinstall from a time machine back up, and pressed continue, but no back up could be recognized. It kept on searching. I checked to see if my external hard drive would be recognized on his computer and it did.
However, when I checked if his ext. Hard drive would work on my computer, nothing showed up. Obviously it is a problem with the external hard drive. Any ideas on how to make the Mac recognize it when reinstalling or a work around to reinstall his backup? Hello sohcatoah!
Your friend backed up his Mac using Time Machine onto a 2TB WD My Passport? How is the external formatted?
Does another system successfully detect it? I would suggest you changing the cable on the external with a new one and trying it on a different system, according to its file system. If the drive works, try again with restoring the back up. Did you do the steps like explained in this article from the Apple Support page? Mac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac: CKWD. By “external formatted” I was referring to the file system that is on the external WD drive, on which the back up was created.:) For Mac OS X the usual file system is HFS +, but it could also be exFAT in this case.
If the two Macs detect the drive correctly then the cable is definitely not the cause of the problem. These would also mean the drive itself is also probably not at fault. If you doubt6 the drive, you could create the backup onto another drive and try with it. Which would mean that there is a setting or a path of actions that needs to be taken in order for the system to first recognize the external WD drive as “bootable” with OS X, and/or for the back up software to create the correct back up. At this point, I would also advise contacting Apple Support.
Otherwise, I believe this article from the Support page on the Apple website should be able to help. CKWD.
As of 2018, Western Digital offers no shortage of external drives for Mac computers – from the My Book Essential to the My Book Pro and the My Book Studio, nearly 30 WD drives play nicely with Apple’s macOS operating system, as does the My Passport Studio model. But with more than 262.5 million PCs shipped in 2017, according to data from Statista, there’s a good chance your Passport Studio will need to play nicely with a Windows computer, too. When it comes to cross-platform flexibility, you’ve got a few options for crossing the Mac and PC streams. About eFAT and FAT32 Here’s something your My Passport for Mac Quick Install Guide might not tell you: Hard drives usually come formatted in two different ways, one catering to Windows and one catering to Mac. NTFS-formatted drives work with Windows computers, and HFS+ drives work with Mac.
However, by formatting your My Passport differently, you can ensure compatibility in a variety of different ways. Hard drives formatted to exFAT or FAT32 can read and write data on both Mac and PC operating systems, though FAT32 is limited to a 4-gigabyte-per-file size limit.
Formatting your drive will erase all its data, so be sure to back it up before making the change. External Drive for Mac to Windows 10 If you’ve got a WD external drive for Mac platforms and you want it to work on a Windows 10 PC, exFAT format is your best bet.
To start formatting, connect your WD Passport to your Mac; then open “Mac HD” and click “Applications,” “Utilities” and “Disk Utility.” From the Disk Utility window, select the Passport hard drive. Here, you’ll usually see two listings of partitions available on the drive – select the listing that is furthest left. Click the Disk Utility’s “Erase” button; assign the drive a name in the “Name” field; then hit “Erase,” and click “Done” when the erasing process is complete.
Now, click the “Partition” button at the top of the Disk Utility and click “Format.” Choose “exFAT” from the drop-down menu that appears and click “Apply” to format the drive, which will take a few minutes. Once the formatting is complete and you get a message that says “Operation successful,” click “Done.” To Windows 8 and Earlier The external drive for Mac to Windows 8 transition makes use of Window’s built-in Disk Management software rather than the macOS Disk Utility, but you’ll still want to format your WD Passport as an exFAT drive. To do so, connect the Passport to your PC, enter the Windows 8 Start menu and choose “Disk Management.” In the Disk Management app, right-click on the drive and select “New Simple Volume.” from the menu that appears. This brings up the New Simple Volume Wizard. Click the “Next” button until you get to the “Format Partition” window and choose “exFAT” under “File System” (you can also change the name of the drive under “Volume label” if you wish).
Make sure the “Perform a quick format” box is checked, and click “Next” when you’re ready. Click “Partition” and then “Finish” to format the drive to a cross-platform compatible exFAT mode.