How To Use My Passport For Mac
When I bought the WD My Passport Ultra drive, I was surprised to see that it didn’t support OS X out of the box. Yes, it had some software specifically made for OS X on it, but even that didn’t help. Turns out, it just wasn’t in the right format. These hard drives are customized to run well on Windows (as you’d expect), and they don’t run well with OS X.
Jun 18, 2017 Helpful answers. To use Time Machine, open System Preferences Time Machine Select Disk, and choose your external drive. The initial backup will start, and it may take several hours, depending on the amount of data Time Machine has to copy to your external drive. Since then, Time Machine will make automatic, hourly backups. I have the WD Passport Studio which has USB2 and FW800 and on my old PBG4 it could not deliver enough power to the drive on USB and it would click once every 1-2 seconds forever. That's why I bought the FW800 drive because I connect it on FW and have no power problems. Please try one of the following 3 methods: Select your passport drive device, then click on File menu at the top, then click on option Eject. Open Finder (which is the smiley face icon on the Dock), then click the Eject button (the up arrow icon) right next to the passport device. On the Desktop screen, drag the passport device to the Trash. Jun 26, 2009 Look, I have already formated my passport for mac using HFS+, NTFS and FAT32 but when I connect it on a Windows Vista notebook, it detects the drive, but the icon doesnt appear. For Mac computers, go to the Apple menu and select Software Update. For Windows computers, go to the Start menu and select Windows Update. Disk Drive Format. Your My Passport for Mac drive is formatted as a single HSF+J partition for compatibility with Mac OS X operating systems.
So to get it running, what we’ll need to do is format it in Journaled format, which is OS X only format or MS-DOS (FAT), which means it will run with both OS X and Windows. If you’re only going to be using the hard drive on a Mac, I recommend you stick with Journaled.
- Sep 04, 2014 Question: Q: Clear space (old backups) WD My Passport for Mac HD Hi, I have purchased an external hard disk WD My Passport for Mac in order to backup my MacBook Air regularly (with time machine) and store films and pictures to save space from my mac.
- MY PASSPORT ESSENTIAL PORTABLE HARD DRIVE USER MANUAL CONNECTING THE DEVICE – 4 Connecting the Device 1. Turn on your computer. Connect the USB cable as shown. Drive utilities are installed automatically. If a security alert is displayed during this installation, click Accept or Continue.
Why You Need to Re-Format the External Hard Drive
When I first got the hard drive, I wasn’t able to copy anything over to it (but I was able to copy from it). Disk Utility showed that it was formatted to MS-DOS (FAT) but I’m pretty sure it would have been NTFS instead. If you experience the same issue, your only recourse is to reformat it in one of two formats.
If you’re only going to use the external hard drive with Macs or you want to use it for Time Machine backups, format it in Mac OS Extended (Journaled). If you’re like me who also needs to use at least a part of the hard drive from Windows PCs, you’ll need to choose MS-DOS (FAT) format. But here you won’t get great support for Time Machine. Plus you can’t make partitions bigger than 2 TB or move files larger than 4 GB around.
How to Re-Format the External Hard Drive
First, connect the external hard drive, bring up Spotlight Search by using the keyboard shortcut Cmd + Space and type in Disk Utility. Press Enter and Disk Utility will launch. You can also find it in Utilities folder in Applications.
Now, from the left column select 1 TB WD My Passport (or whatever your hard drive name is), and click on the Erase tab.
From here, in Format, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled), give it a name if you want, and click Erase.
You’ll get a warning. Again, click Erase.
In a couple of seconds, you’ll have an OS X ready hard drive to go.
Related: Check out our Ultimate Guide to OS X Yosemite.How to Create Partitions
I’m planning on using my hard drive for both Time Machine backups and to carry media files around. I might need to use the hard drive with Windows computers so I’m going to format one of the partitions as MS-DOS (FAT), fully aware of its limitations. The other one, for Time Machine backups, will be in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format.
To create a partition, select the hard drive from the left column and click the Partition tab.
From the drop-down below Partition Layout, select the number of partitions you want. Don’t go overboard here.
Now, just below, you’ll see a visual representation of the partitions. You can use the breakpoint to change the size of the partitions by moving it up or down. You can also click on a partition, give it a name and select the format.
Once you’ve decided all the details, simply click the Apply button. From the pop-up, select Partition.
Disk Utility: Check out the two tips for using Disk Utility and 8 ways to free up space on your Mac.What Do You Use It For?
What are you planning on doing with the external hard drive? Time Machine backups perhaps? Or just storing media? Share with us in our forums section.
How To Install Wd Passport For Mac
Also See#backup #hard diskDid You Know
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