WD Elements / WD easystore. Downloads WD Software; Product Firmware; Product Downloads; Warranty & Returns Warranty Services; Warranty Policy; Data Recovery; Shipping Addresses; Warranty Status; Product Replacement; RMA Status. WD Sync for Mac. WD My Cloud GPL Source Code - Supports 2.xx.xx. WD Access for Mac. WD Access for Windows. How to format WD external drive for Mac. That should do it. You should then a) see it mount on the desktop, and b) automatically get a prompt to use the drive for Time Machine - if not, you can go into the Time Machine menu (top right of the screen), go to TM Preferences, and select it.
- Format Wd Elements 2tb For Mac
- Format Wd Elements 1tb For Mac
- Format My Wd Elements For Mac
- Format Wd Elements Drive For Mac
You’ve justbought yourself a new WD Elements hard drive for your MacBook Pro. You’vehooked it up to your MacBook ok.
Jun 17, 2010 The drive is optimized for Mac. The drive was not recognized by my Dell laptop running Windows XP. After some searching I found the latest disk utility from Western Digital, Acronis True Image WD Edition. The software immediately recognized the drive and I was able to run a NTFS format that completed in less than a minute. Method 1: format WD Elements for Mac via Command Prompt 1. Hit Windows Key + X on your keyboard, and select Command Prompt (Admin) from the menu. Type diskpart and press Enter. Type list disk and press Enter. Type select disk # (ex: disk 2) to select the WD Elements drive to be formatted.
But darn. Tryas hard as you can you can’t drag any files onto it. It’s why you bought the thing. But your WDElements drive seems blocked.
Your Macwon’t put anything on it. So what use is it to you now?
Why is thishappening?
Or
Is ityou’ve heard that your WD Elements drive can work fine on a Mac. And you’rehere to find out how.
Can I use aWD Elements External Hard Drive on my Mac?
The answeris Yes!
It doesn’tmatter whether you have an iMac, MacBook Pro or MacBook Air you can.
You onlyneed to get it ready for your Mac to use first.
Do I needto Format WD Elements for Mac
Yes and No.
Yes.
If you wantto use your WD Elements drive without any special software on your Mac. Thenyes you need to put the WD Elements drive in a format your Mac can read andwrite to.
And yes ifyou want to use your WD Elements drive for a Time Machine backup.
And No. Youcan skip the formatting.
And insteadget some software so that you can use on your Mac. The software is useful ifyou have files already on the Elements drive. And you don’t want to loose themby reformatting.
I have a document on the site that tells you all about this option here.
Want toformat your WD Elements drive?
Yes? Good.Then read on.
Format WD Elementsfor the Mac OS you Have
Whether youhave Mac OS Sierra, High Sierra or Mojave the way you format your WD Elementsdrive for Mac is the same.
For earlierversions of the Mac operating system, screens may be slightly different.
And you canbe confident that Apple hasn’t changed the way you format an external drive ona Mac.
Preparingto Format WD Elements for Mac?
Turn onyour Mac and log in.
Put the USB Micro B cable end into your WD Elements drive.
Put your WD Elements drive on a firm steady surface.
Then plugyour WD Elements drive into your Mac.
Havingtrouble at this point because you don’t have a port on your Mac that fits theUSB cable end?
Then you’llneed to get yourself an adaptor cable.
Go take a look at my document all about it here.
Allconnected up? Good.
Once you’ve plugged in. Your Mac will see the Western Digital Elements hard drive connected. The drive will show up on your desktop as an icon.
WD ElementsDrive not Showing Up?
You mayneed to set a couple of things in your finder window preferences.
Open up afinder window and select preferences.
You’ll needto make sure you choose ‘Hard Drive’ and ‘External Drive’ in the preferenceswindow.
If yourElements external drive is still not showing then:
- Try another port on your Mac or.
- Reboot your Mac to reset the software on all your Mac’s ports.
Format Wd Elements 2tb For Mac
Now you’reready to format.
How to FormatWD Elements for Mac?
You have inyour Mac’s operating system a piece of software called
Disk Utility. It’s freely available for you to use.
It’s thesoftware you use to format your WD Elements drive. And should you want toreformat the drive again later, you use Disk Utility.
Warning: Formatting the WD Elements drive will wipe anything on there. If you’ve files you want to use then copy them off first. Save them somewhere else before you format your WD Elements drive.
1. Open up DiskUtility.
Your DiskUtility program lives within a folder called Utilities.
And theUtilities folder lives in your Application’s folder on your Mac.
If yourApplication’s folder is in your dock, double click on it. Double Click onUtilities. And then double click to start up Disk Utility.
Or
Click onyour Spotlight search. It’s the magnifying glass icon at the top of yourdesktop.
Type inDisk Utility.
Then Doubleclick to start up your Disk Utility software.
2. In YourDisk Utility Window.
Once yourDisk Utility pop up window appears, look to the left of the window.
You’ll seea list. Your Mac’s internal drive is listed first. Underneath, under theheading ‘External’ is where you’ll find your WD Elements drive.
If the listisn’t expanded in your pop up window, you can click on the small arrow to theleft of the drive icon.
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Is there nosmall arrow?
Are youthinking help! I have no expanding list.
Apple addeda setting from Mac OS 10.13.
Look to thetop left of your Disk Utility popup window. Do you see the ‘View’ drop downmenu?
Pick thereto see the drive and the volume – show all devices.
3. Click onyour WD Elements Drive
Choose yourWD Elements external hard drive on your Mac’s external drives list.
Be sure tochoose your WD Elements drive at the top level. You can have problems with yourMac refusing to format your Elements drive if its not picked at the rightlevel.
The yellow arrow in the Internal/External picture above shows you where to click.
4. Look atthe Top of your Disk Utility Pop Up Window.
Click onthe Erase button.
Don’tworry. You’re not erasing yet. There are a couple more settings you need tofill in first.
5. Fillingin your WD Elements Formatting Options
On thisnext popup window is where you set up how you want your formatting.
Under nameyou’ll give your WD Elements external hard drive a name.
Pick a namethat makes it easy to find on your desktop. Perhaps one that reminds you of whatyou’re using your WD Elements for.
The nextthing to choose is the Format.
The up downarrows at the end expand to allow you to choose different options. The redarrow in the picture above shows you where.
Pick:
Mac OSExtended (Journaled) if you want to use your WD Elements drive to drag and dropfiles too.
This is also the option you choose if you want to use your WD Elements drive for a Time Machine backup.
Next make sure you pick GUID Partition Map for the Scheme.
Check yoursettings.
6. Clickthe Erase Button.
When youclick the Erase button at the bottom right of the popup window you start theformatting.
Your formattingonly takes only a few minutes.
You candismiss the Disk Utility popup window when it’s done.
Your WDElements drive will show up on your desktop as a drive Icon. You’ll find it hasthe name you gave it on the format screen.
And now youcan use the WD Elements External hard drive as you use your internal harddrive.
7. DoubleClick on Your WD Elements Drive Icon on Your Desktop.
That will openup a finder window for you.
You’ll see your WD Elements drive is lovely and empty. Ready for you to use.
You’re freeto create new folders. Drag and drop files to it as you would on your internalhard drive.
You can go on to hook it up to Time Machine for a Time Machine backup.
And should you want to go on and partition your Elements drive you can find out how. You can read an article site all about it at this link.
When You’reFinished using your WD Elements Drive
Once you’vefinished with the drive don’t forget to right click on the drive icon. Thenpick Eject from the menu. This ejects the drive. Do this before pulling outyour USB cable.
If youdon’t do that you risk corrupting the files on your disk.
WD ElementsFor Mac Frequently Asked Questions
Why doesn’tMy WD Elements drive work on My Mac out of the Box?
Your WD Elements drive comes in something called NTFS. NTFS is plug and play on a Windows PC but not quite on a Mac.
You canconnect up an NTFS Elements drive onto your Mac. And your Mac will see it fine.But you can’t put files on there.
Your Macwill read any file on the Elements drive but not write to it.
WD ElementsMac not Recognized
If you’veplugging in your WD Elements drive and your Mac seems to do nothing. It doesn’tseem to recognize it.
1. Tryanother port on your Mac.
2. Shutdownand restart your Mac to see if that clears the problem.
3. Checkyour USB cable. A bad USB cable can cause your WD Elements drive not to showup.
4. Makesure you’ve picked show ‘Hard Drive’ and ‘External Drive’ in your finderpreferences window. (See how in the WDElements not Showing Up section above)
WD ElementsFormat for Mac Error
Getting anError when formatting with Disk Utility?
Be sureyou’ve selected your WD Elements drive at the right level in the Disk Utilityscreen. See Step 3 and picture above.
If you’restill having a problem with the erase on your Mac then watch this video. Thetext is a little small but the video is incredibly useful. The instructions youtype into your Mac’s Terminal window are:
diskutillist
Followed by:
diskutilunmountdisk force (paste in the copied item here)
Erase Process has failed. Click Done to Continue
VideoCredit: Tech & Design
How toformat WD Elements for Mac 2017?
On a 2017 Mac you’ll have USB C (Thunderbolt) ports. You’ll need a USB C to USB An adaptor as your first step to plugging in your WD Elements drive. Controllers for mac.
Plugged in?
Then allthe steps I have described above will work for you. Pay particular attention tostep 2. Be sure your Disk Utility view is set to show drives and volumes. Asthis is a specific issue you might have.
Last Words
Found my ‘FormatWD Elements for Mac. How? In 7 quick Steps’ article useful?
Whileyou’re here do feel free to take a look at the other WD Elements documents Ihave on the site.
So, you just bought an external hard drive or a portable SSD and wanted to use it on your Mac. But somehow, macOS doesn’t allow you to write data to the drive.
That’s all because it’s been initialized with Windows NT File System (NTFS), which is primarily for PCs. Apple Mac machines support a different file system.
In this post, I’m going to show you how to format your external drive for a Mac compatible file system i.e. Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Just follow this easy step-by-step guide and you’re all set.
Important note: If you have useful files stored on the external drive, be sure to copy or transfer them to another safe place prior to formatting. The operation will erase all data and your files will be gone for good. You could use a recovery program like Data Rescue to retrieve them, but the odds of recovery vary.
Pro tip: If your external drive has a large volume, like mine – a 2TB Seagate Expansion. I highly recommend you also create multiple partitions. I’ll also show you how to do that below.
Most External Hard Drives Are Initiated with NTFS
During the last several years, I’ve used several removable drives, including a 500GB WD My Passport, 32GB Lexar flash drive, and a few others.
Three weeks ago, I bought a brand new 2TB Seagate Expansion to backup my MacBook Pro before I updated to the latest macOS, 10.13 High Sierra (also see those High Sierra issues I encountered).
When I connected the Seagate to my Mac, the drive icon showed up like this.
When I opened it, the default content was all there. Since I wanted to use it on Mac, I clicked the blue logo with the text “Start_Here-Mac”.
It brought me to a webpage on Seagate’s site, where it clearly indicated the drive was initially set up to work with a Windows PC. If I wanted to use it with Mac OS or Time Machine backup (which is my intent), I’ll need to format the drive for my Mac.
I then right-clicked the external drive icon on Mac desktop > Get Info. It showed this format:
Format: Windows NT File System (NTFS)
What is NTFS? I’m not going to explain here; you can read more on Wikipedia. The problem is that on macOS, you can’t work with files saved on an NTFS drive unless you use a paid app Paragon NTFS for Mac.
How to Format an External Drive to Work with Mac (from NTFS to Mac OS Extended)?
Note: The tutorial and screenshots below are based on macOS Sierra 10.12.5. They might be different if your Mac has a different version.
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Step 1: Open Disk Utility.
The quickest way to do this is a simple Spotlight search (click the search icon on the upper right corner), or go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
Step 2: Highlight your external drive and click “Erase”.
![Format Format](https://www.disk-partition.com/articles/images/format-wd-elements-for-mac-8523/format-partition.png)
Make sure your drive is connected. It should show up on the left panel under “External”. https://btsemc.weebly.com/blog/free-vm-for-mac. Select that disk and click the “Erase” button, the one highlighted in red in the screenshot below.
Step 3: Select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” in Format.
A new window will pop up asking which file system you’d like to format the external drive to. By default, it’s the Windows NT File System (NTFS). Select the one shown below.
Pro tip: If you want to use the external drive for both Mac and PC, you can also select “ExFAT”. Learn more about the differences between these file systems from this thread.
By the way, you can also rename your external drive.
Step 4: Wait until the erasing process is complete.
For me, it took less than a minute to format my 2TB Seagate Expansion.
You can also check to see if the format was successful. Right-click on the icon for your external drive on Mac desktop, then select “Get Info”. Under “Format”, you should see text like this:
Congratulations! Now your external drive has been formatted to be fully compatible with Apple MacOS, and you can edit, read, and write files to it as you want.
Format Wd Elements 1tb For Mac
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.
Open the Disk Utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Make sure you select the disk icon right under “External”. If you select the one below it, the Partition option will be greyed out and become unclickable.
Step 2: Add partitions and allocate volume for each one.
After clicking “Partition”, you’ll see this window. Located on the left is a big blue circle with the name of your external drive together with its volume size. What you need to do next is click the add “+” button to increase the number of partitions on your external disk. Then allocate the desired volume to each partition. You can do that by clicking the small white circle and dragging it around.
After that, you can rename each partition and define a file system for it.
Step 3: Confirm your operation.
Once you hit “Apply”, a new window pops up asking for your confirmation. Take a few seconds to read the text description to make sure it reflects what you intend to do, then click the “Partition” button to continue.
Step 4: Wait until it says “Operation successful.”
Format My Wd Elements For Mac
To check whether the operation is really successful, go to your Mac desktop. You should see multiple disk icons show up. I chose to create two partitions on my Seagate Expansion — one for backup, the other for personal use. You can find more info in this post: How to Backup Mac to an External Hard Drive.
Format Wd Elements Drive For Mac
That wraps up this tutorial article. I hope you find it helpful. As always, let me know if you have any issues during the formatting or partitioning process.