Available in various editions from essential, to premium to world edition. By default, wd quick formatter will format the drive to fat32 or ntfs and after formatting, a partition used to optimize the performance of the drive will be left. In fact, installing an ntfs for mac driver is a much easier way. The wd elements desktop hard drive and the wd my book desktop hard drive and plug and play for windows, so this means it is ready to use as soon as you take it out of the box. Mar 06, 2020 wd smartware is another great tool for recuperating access to your hard drive.
Yes, you will need to download the software again make sure you can still download it before formatting. I installed the wd software bundled with the drive but i chose to not have it start with windows. Reformatting a drive on windows is a pretty straightforward process. The 2tb drive that i thought was done is now connected to my laptop and amazingly still working just fine. Wd smartware for windows supports the following operating. Wd discovery can also be used to manage your drive with wd drive utilities. Wd discovery can download data from cloud storage and social media accounts. R9000 readyshare does not recognize wd mybook netgear. But with the new windows 10 i get a black window in the lowerright that says the drive does not work. I would like to use the mbl as a backup to the computes but not with the categories as in the wd software. How to unlock a wd external drive without a password ccm. Click the wd smartware icon to display a list of drives and select the my book drive.
Nov 14, 2017 i recently purchased a 4tb wd my passport external hard drive from costco. Western digital mybook drive lock encryption failure and. Wd my book essential not being recognized in windows 10. My book essential full how to reformat wd community. This article explains reformatting is required for macos compatibility. Feb 28, 2009 i recently downloaded something with a virus in it onto my 80gb my book and now its messing everything up on my computer. Yes, you will need to download the software again make sure you can still download it before formatting if you cant, then back it up first. This is a partition on the my book drive that contains the software that will allow you to unlock the drive. When i upgraded the software mbl would not recognise the partitions previously created.
I cannot format it as a writable drive because the passport is not even recognized on an external drive. Formatting a my book external drives for pc wd community. Reformat and repartition the external drive are also available. Here, you will find more information on how to erase the drive and unlock it. Raid0 mode provides superfast performance with up to 360mbs2 sequential read speeds using the usb typec port. With the limited information you have presented, formatting drives with mac os 10. Switch to raid1 configuration for redundancy and to mirror data on the wd red drives inside.
External drive failure wd my book essential 2tb my workaround duration. Or can i scan and fix without losing any of my documents all my research for a book and about 10,000 pictures help. Then, click on the erase drive button below to begin erasing the drive. The drive comes with mionet driveaccess software that allows you to access the drives content from anywhere. The wd quick formatter is only for external drives, like wd my passport ultra. Using win 10 on new ssd, wd my book backup sw does not work. How to format my my book live home network drive my.
It will not shorten the service life of the wd portable hard drive even the wd portable hard drive is erased 35 times by this software. So, if you dont want to lose any of it back it up on another hard drive. If the drive gets recognized properly do run a diagnostic check and see the condition of the drive and see if its the one causing the problem or there are other issues. Our latest edition features visual, easytouse, automatic, continuous backup software and drive lock security protection. The plastic casing is certainly not as nice as the aluminum finish on the wd my book drives that i have for my macs, but it is similar to the black of the synology unit and overall looks good. The program to restore is password protectected and we have no way of getting that information. Western digital produces a line of external hard drives called the mybook. I need to use it for iphoto and it has the wrong format. It also has a lot of additional features, such as security permissions to files and folders, hard links, a change journal, and more. I have wd smartware installed and would like to re format my drive and continue using the smartware but be more selective as to what gets backed up. Formatting a wd external hard drive does not require any additional software. Nov 19, 2012 mac users who want to take advantage of the usb3. I want to reformat my external hard drive but have no idea how to.
I want to use time machine software to backup my macs. However, anytime that i try to format the drive im told by the computer that there is no media on that drive. Restore the software on a mybook world edition hard drive. The wd drive utility lets you reformat, diagnose the drive condition, and manage the drives power use. How to recover files from wd my book external hard drive. Nov 19, 2019 formatting a hard drive will wipe all software and all data you have stored on the hard drive. The power adapter is reasonably sized not a brick, and the unit comes with a usb 3. If you set the security password on the drive, you will be prompted for it if you connect the drive to a different computer. When you buy a western digital wd 1 tb my book external hard drive, they usually come formatted for windows using fat32.
My dvr reformatted the drive, only to tell me that i couldnt use it. We would like to show you a description here but the site wont allow us. When you buy a western digital wd 1 tb my book external hard drive, they usually. Feb 04, 2020 the wd drive utility lets you reformat, diagnose the drive condition, and manage the drive s power use. The data recovery tool in question supports all western digital hard disk drives, such as my book pro, my book, wd elements, my book studio, etc. This drive connects directly to your mac through usb. Western digital my book troubleshooting, repair, and service manuals. After having confirmed that the wd my passport is formatted with ntfs, many people will choose to convert ntfs to apfs for macos catalina, mojave and high sierra or reformat the wd my passport hard drive to make the wd external hard drive compatible with mac. Anyone know how to reformat it i know i will lose everything i already have. I am wondering if there is a way to manual reformat it or something of. The presence of the additional partion not removeable as per wdc optionally mounted as a virtual cd, holding optional software like the wd sds permitting some other wdc software tp establish a special communications channel scsi between the pc and the hard drive to enable certain features such as password protection, led control, and access to the drives label if applicable. For a hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a pc and mac. If you are running on mac, you will have to reformat the hard drives.
To use a wd my passport on mac, you need to know how to reformat it. How to reformat a wd external hard drive it still works. A quick format only deletes the organizational structure of the files on the drive, without removing the actual files. A western digital wd external hard drive can be used with any computer once it has been formatted by the computers operating system.
Since i use a mac, i need to reformat the hard drive in order for it. Formatting a hard drive will wipe all software and all data you have stored on the hard drive. A notification will be displayed when the process has finished. The best external desktop drive is the wd 4tb my book desktop external hard drive usb 3.
That just goes to show that wd my book external drives are truly workhorses that give you years of use. Learn how to format your external hard drive, and what file systems are best for windows file history and macos time machine. Western digital has taken a more is better approach with its latest iteration of the wd my book essential hdd. Western digital my book connection to windows 10 microsoft. User manual restoring the wd smartware software and disk image in addition to deleting all of the data on your my book drive, erasing or reformatting the drive also removes the wd smartware software and all of the support files, utilities, online help and user manual files. I think it is necessary to reformat the wd portable hard drive and permanently erase my private data. Since i use a mac, i need to reformat the hard drive in order for it to be used. My book drive, with the wd backup, wd drive utilities, and wd security. However, you need to make doubly sure that you complete a quick format. A usb typec port with all cables included makes it universally compatible supports. Sometimes, there will be a need to learn how to reformat my passport for mac, so once youre acquainted with formatting, you should enlighten yourself on how to reformat wd my passport for mac. Aug 16, 2014 there was nothing on the passport which was formatted with the wd smartware, but was reformatted with the dish formatting needed to save the dvr media recordings.
I have a wd mybookworld 2tb network drive that was purchased and installed on my network as a backup drive for windows computers. Wd my book hw recognized by cpu, could manually copy files, but unable to do full backup. Tips for getting started with the wd my book backup drive. How to use wd quick formatter to format external drive in. It does offer a scan to fix it but wd does not recommend it without backing everything up on the laptop hard drive first. Select the file system from the dropdown list, which is available in the format expansion and choose either exfat or fat32. Reformatting a external western digital my book drive ask different.
If you arent, open my computer and look for a cd drive called wd unlocker. Using the western digital my book hard drive facilitates our lifes, you can take your favourite media data or any important files to anywhere when you need them. This answer explains how to format a wd drive for use on windows and macos. How to format external drives using wd quick formatter in windows. Once wd drive utilities is running, click on the drive erase option. There was nothing on the passport which was formatted with the wd smartware, but was reformatted with the dish formatting needed to save the dvr media recordings. How to reformat western digital portable hard drive. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. Oct 05, 2010 i have a wd mybookworld 2tb network drive that was purchased and installed on my network as a backup drive for windows computers. However, it has twonky preinstalled on it and i cant find 99% of my stuff when trying to watch movies from my ps3. Im having a hard time transferring my movies to it because after a certain amount it tells me that its either protected or in use, but if i turn the drive off than back on it lets me start up where i left off, only problem is this takes forever, and i heard that if i reformat it. Super eraser will reformat the wd portable hard drive and permanently erase all data on the wd portable hard drive. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. Purchasing the best hard drive is all about what you need out of it.
The my book duo drive has massive capacity for storing photos, videos, documents and music. The secret to reformatting a western digital wd 1tb my. A line of external hard drives by western digital, styled after hardbound books. Wd backup sw could not find device repeatedly, even w tech support. However, you may have run into a problem trying to use your western digital hard drive with multiple operating systems. Aug 28, 2015 it does offer a scan to fix it but wd does not recommend it without backing everything up on the laptop hard drive first. The twonky seems fine and i can put files into it and acces them form my other computers. How to reformat an external hard drive without losing your. I would suggest to use wd data lifeguard diagnostic and see if the drive passes both the quick and the extended tests. Like its predecessors in the essentials line, the my book is marketed primarily as a backup storage device. This answer explains how to setup and use wd security and wd drive uti. Locate the icon assigned to western digital my passport drive and rightclick the connected drive icon and click format in the popup menu.
This was partly due to it saving 5 backup copies of files by default. Is there any fast way to reformat the wd portable hard drive and erase all the data on the hard drive. By this time i had purchased a 3 tb drive to expand my storage area, but since i have been burned by 2 my books i want to just reformat the 3 tb drive and use it without the encryption board. How can i reformat my external drive with the pc after it. The same goes for using any kind of wd drive on mac. My book for mac user manual checking drive status use the wd smartware icon to determine whether the drive is encrypted locked, how full the drive is, the drives serial number, and the temperature condition of the drive. It is possible to reformat the drive and keep your files by formatting your drive and then using a data recovery tool to restore your information. This, without access to the wd external drive, is impossible. I recently purchased a 4tb wd my passport external hard drive from costco. Wd smartware is another great tool for recuperating access to your hard drive. How to partition and format a wd drive on windows and macos. This answer explain starting macos time machine backups to my passport. I recently downloaded something with a virus in it onto my 80gb my book and now its messing everything up on my computer.
How to reformat a mybook external hard drive on mac osx. Western digitals my book office is the latest evolution in their long history of back up devices. The top model features a single 4tb drive and a usb3. Western digital my book is a sleek series of western digital wd external hard drives. Sep 17, 2008 i want to reformat my external hard drive but have no idea how to.
Now when i try to backup my laptop with the passport, it is not recognized at all. How can i reformat the drive to fat32 so i can see it as a standard windows file system and folder structure rather than twonkys predetermined categories. Although mybook hard drives are capable of working with both macs. Benefits of wd my passport the simple fact is, youll be very happy with the shape, weight, look and even feel of the wd my passport drive. My book essential edition user manual about your wd drive 3 about your wd drive drive format this wd device is preformatted as a single fat32 partition for compatibility with all updated windows and macintosh operating systems. How can i reformat my external drive with the pc after it had. How to erase wd my passport external hard drive in windows. My book essential user manual about your wd drive 1 about your wd drive welcome to your my book essential external hard drive, an elegant, highcapacity storage solution for all the chapters of your di gital life.