IsWD Elements Compatible with Mac?
However, if First Aid is unable to fix WD My Passport for Mac hard drive not mounting error, the last solutions is to reformat the hard drive. But reformatting will delete all data stored on the hard drive, and most of the time, many important files are stored on the WD My Passport for Mac hard drive. Western Digital SSD Dashboard. Software for Mac Install WD Discovery for Mac. WD Drive Utilities for Mac. WD Security for Mac. WD Sync for Mac. WD Universal Firmware.
Sep 27, 2019 With the distribution of Mac OS Catalina, 32-bit applications are no longer supported. Is there a 64-bit version of the WD My Cloud app for Mac? The latest Mac update looks like it came in 2018.
And therelated question can you use your WD Elements on a Mac?
The answeris yes. Your WD Elements drive can work great on your Mac.
But thereare a couple of things you need to know and do to get it set up just fine.
You’lllearn here the things you need to know about using your WD Elements for Mac.
And some ofthe potential pitfalls.
Plugging in your WD Elements USB Cable into your Mac
Your WD Elements portable hard drive has a USB 3.0 type A connection to your Mac.
Why is thatimportant?
Is your Macan iMac 2017 or later? Or MacBook Pro 2016 or newer?
Or MacBookAir 2018?
If youranswer is yes then your Mac will have a USB C (Thunderbolt) port on it.
You’ll beable to use your WD Elements drive. But you will need an adaptor to plug theUSB cable from your Elements drive into your Mac.
Theseadaptor cables are easy to get from Amazon.
And shouldyour Mac be an older Mac with USB 2.0.
Yourfine.
The USBcable provided will fit. And your WD elements drive will work at USB 2.0 speedto match your Mac.
You’ve Plugged in and WD Elements not Showing up on Mac?
You’ve loggedin and connected up your WD Elements external hard drive on your Mac. You wereexpecting to see the drive icon on the desktop.
But it’snot there?
The firstthing to check is your Finder Window Preferences.
Open up afinder window. Go to preferences.
In thefinder preferences pop up window be sure you’ve checked the ‘Hard Drive’ and ‘ExternalDrive’ boxes.
Then yourWD Elements external drive’s icon should appear.
What if your WD Elements is Still not Showing up on Mac?
Using Your WD Elements On Mac?
Your WDElements drive is bus powered.
What doesthat mean?
It meansthat your Elements drive takes its power from your Mac. Your USB cable bothpowers your Elements drive. And transfers your documents backwards andforwards.
Great. Becauseyou don’t have to worry about carrying another power plug and its cable aroundwith you. Particularly when you take your Elements drive out and about withyour Mac.
But becauseyour WD Elements drive gets its power from your Mac check your Mac is chargedenough. Or plug in your Mac so that your Mac doesn’t run out of power part waythrough a large transfer of files.
Is Your WDElements Drive Read Only on your Mac?
When shipped to you your Western Digital Elements drive is in a format called NTFS. NTFS is a PC format that a Windows PC uses. Your Mac can see and read your NTFS Elements drive.
But whenyou want to put documents on the drive, or update any files on the drive yourMac says no. You can only read your Elements external hard drive.
Don’t fretyou can change the formatting. Byreformatting your WD Elements for your Mac.
How do IFormat WD Elements for Mac?
To use yourWD Elements drive on your Mac you need your Elements drive in HFS+ format. Thisformatting is also known as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. Don’t worry about the name.
Reformatting Wd Easystore For Mac
Just know that this is a file system that your Mac uses for a Time Machine backup.
And if youwant to copy and paste files.
Or drag anddrop files from your Mac onto your WD Elements drive.
It’s theformat you use when you want to use your WD Elements drive just for yourMac. Because a Windows PC can’t see aHFS+ drive when it’s plugged in.
To set upyour WD Elements drive to work on your Mac you’ll need to format it for Mac.
You’ll find my article on how you format the WD Elements hard drive here.
Click overand in a few minutes you’ll have the formatting all done.
How Can YouUse Your WD Elements Drive without Reformatting?
Formattingwill erase any documents you have on your WD Elements drive. So if you’ve put files on there from yourWindows PC. And really what you want to do is use the drive without changinganything on there.
There issoftware you can use that leaves your Elements drive in NTFS formatting. Butmakes it read and writeable from your Mac.
It’s theoption to choose when you mainly use your WD Elements drive on your Windows PC.And sometimes you use your Elements drive on your Mac.
Using YourWD Elements Drive on Your Mac and a PC
Yes you canuse your WD Elements drive for both a Mac and a PC if you want.
And particularlyif you want to use for both without using special software. And its easy to do.
You justconnect up your WD Elements drive to your Mac and format it to ExFAT.
There aresome articles around on the web suggesting FAT32. And yes you can set your Mac to format yourElements drive to FAT32. FAT32 is compatible with Mac and Windows. But thesedays the FAT32 file system is outdated, not as sturdy and has file sizerestrictions.
ExFAT is freelyread and writable by both your Mac and Windows PC. Both operating systems cansee an ExFAT file system. And use the files, photos, movies, music, in fact anyfiles that are on there.
You can find out how to Format your WD Elements external hard drive for Mac and PC using my article here.
Your WDElements Drive Not Working on Mac?
Havingproblems with your Western Digital Elements drive working. And then not workingon your Mac?
1. When you formatted your WD Elements did you check that the format scheme was ‘GUID Partition Map’? You’ll have problems with formatting the drive without setting the scheme right. Because NTFS is set up differently. And a set up hang over from NTFS will mean odd problems with your Elements drive.
2. You should try repairing your Elements drive in Disk Utility using the First Aid option. That may solve your problem.
If thedrive is in a poor state First Aid may well tell you to erase the drive.
Which meansstarting from scratch and loosing the files on there.
3. Did you download Drive Utilities from the Western Digital site onto your Mac?
Yes, DriveUtilities allows you to run a check on your WD Elements drive. And you can seeif the software reports any errors on the drive.
But didyour problems with the drive show up after you downloaded this software?
Check thatyour version of the Western Digital software is compatible with your Mac’soperating system.
You could haveproblems with your Mac OS clashing with the WD Drive Utilities software.
If you’reone of those having problems with your WD Elements drive working and then not.And for no real reason you can see. Then uninstall the Western DigitalUtilities.
You can dothat by using the WD Uninstaller in your Application’s folder.
And your onand off issues with your WD Elements drive should go away.
Why won’t MyWD Elements Drive Backup?
Having problemswith your Time Machine backups failing to your WD elements drive? This seems another type of conflict with theWD Disk Utilities software.
Check thesoftware version your using. Is it for your version of Mac OS?
Tryuninstalling the WD Disk Utilities. Then see if your Time Machine Backup issuesdisappear.
Last Words
Yes, WDElements is basic storage for your Mac. And it usually works great on Mac. Butif you have problems use my tips here. And have your WD Elements for Mac andlose your issues.
You candiscover other articles on the site all about your WD Elements drive.
Why notcheck them out.
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 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.
- Table of contents
- 1. Causes of WD My Passport not readable on Mac error
- 2. How to fix 'WD My Passport unreadable' on Mac error?
- 3. Conclusion
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 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:
- Step 1: Go to Apple menu and select 'App Store'.
- Step 2: Click on the 'Updates' button located on the top pane.
- 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:
- Step 1: Open Disk Utility from your /Applications/Utilities folder.
- Step 2: Select the unreadable WD My Passport in the left side bar.
- Step 3: Select the 'First Aid' tab.
- 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.
- Step 4: Click Run.
- 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 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 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 data from the unreadable or corrupted WD My Passport. This free Mac data recovery can scan and recover 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 data from formatted hard drives, recover data from unmountable hard drives, and recover 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. 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
Wd For Mac
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.