- #USING MAC DISC DRIVE WITH PC HOW TO#
- #USING MAC DISC DRIVE WITH PC MAC OS X#
- #USING MAC DISC DRIVE WITH PC SOFTWARE#
- #USING MAC DISC DRIVE WITH PC PC#
#USING MAC DISC DRIVE WITH PC MAC OS X#
Since Mac OS X and Windows use totally different file systems, the way a drive is formatted can determine what type of computer it will work with. Need to access or transfer files between Mac and PC? As simple as this task sounds, it’s not very straightforward for inexperienced users.
#USING MAC DISC DRIVE WITH PC PC#
Learn a few ways to make your drive Mac and PC friendly. If you want to use WD My Passport or any other hard drive on Mac and PC, you need to format a Western Digital My Passport external hard drive in exFAT or FAT32 format.If you have an external hard drive or USB flash drive that you’d like to use on both Macs and Windows PCs, choosing the right file system to format the drive can be confusing. However, it only works with all versions of Windows, but read-only with Mac by default. It is packed with modern features not available to FAT32 and exFAT. NTFS, NT File System, is the modern file system Windows likes to use by default. You can use it when you need a bigger file size and partition limits than FAT32 offers. This file system doesn't have the limitations of FAT32. It was added to older versions of Windows with updates to Windows XP and Windows Vista. A FAT32 partition must also be less than 8 TB, which admittedly is less of a limitation unless you’re using super-high-capacity drives.ĮxFAT, Extended File Allocation Table, is optimized for flash drives. Individual files on a FAT32 drive can’t be over 4 GB in size. FAT32 is the oldest of the three file systems available to Windows. The successive major versions of the FAT format are named after the number of table element bits: FAT12, FAT16, and FAT32. Don't stray from them and tamper with instructions you don't understand.ĭifference Between FAT32, exFAT, and NTFSįAT is known as the File Allocation Table.
#USING MAC DISC DRIVE WITH PC SOFTWARE#
If you lost data after formatting your WD HDD on Mac, you can run EaseUS Mac data recovery software to get data back. Then, you can use the drive in macOS or OS X as a regular hard drive.
Wait for the process to complete and let the macOS erase data on the drive and reformat it by FAT32 or ex-FAT format. Rename the drive, select the "Volume Format" drop-down list and choose "MS-DOS (FAT)" or "ex-FAT File System". Select your WD My Passport on the sidebar, choose "Erase". Once that's done, double left-click on the Mac HD, the internal Mac hard drive visible on the top-right corner of the desktop screen.Select "Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility". Once the process begins, all the data on the drive will be lost! Tips: The instructions below are designed to help repartition and format a hard drive. The easiest way to format the drive to FAT32 or exFAT is by using macOS's built-in Disk Utility for FAT32 or exFAT.
#USING MAC DISC DRIVE WITH PC HOW TO#
Click "Start" to begin the formatting.ģ - How to Format WD My Passport in macOS/OS X Platform Rename the drive, reset its file system to FAT32 or exFAT. Open Windows File Explorer, locate and right-click on WD My Passport that you need to format, select "Format". If it is larger than 32GB, you can only format it to exFAT. If you want to format your WD My Passport to FAT32, you must make sure that the size is smaller than 32GB. It does not offer the ability to format a drive larger than 32GB to FAT32, the only available choices are NTFS or exFAT.
Follow the details below to convert WD My Passport to format WD Passport for Mac.