If you buy an external drive—such as one of our recommended desktop hard drives, portable hard drives, or USB 3.0 flash drives—you may need to reformat it to work with your operating system of choice, since different operating systems use different file systems to process data.
Although it’s true that any drive is compatible with both Windows and macOS, most drives come preformatted for Windows out of the box. If you use Windows, chances are good that you won’t need to reformat your external hard drive—unless you buy it secondhand, or you plan on switching between operating systems, your drive should come ready to use. If you use a Mac, the likelihood that you’ll have to reformat the drive is higher. But fear not: The process is simple.
View the manual for the Western Digital WD Elements here, for free. This manual comes under the category External Hard Drives and has been rated by 2 people with an average of a 8.8. This manual is available in the following languages: English, German.
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Jan 14, 2020 1. Connect up your WD Elements drive to your Mac. You use Disk Utility. First to format your WD Elements external drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. Then you quickly follow up by formatting to ExFAT. Then your Western Digital external hard drive is ready to use on your Mac and on your Windows PC. Jan 25, 2019 WD - easystore® External Portable Hard Drive Manual for MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac mini, Mac Pro, MacBook Air, and others. Setup time machine and setup to work.
Choosing the right format for your drive
Non-Linux computers can use four main file systems: NTFS, HFS+, FAT32, and exFAT. So what do those four file systems mean, and which one is right for you?
If you plan to use your drive for File History backups on a Windows computer, and you use only Windows, stick to NTFS (New Technology File System). NTFS is native to Windows, and most hard drives are preformatted for this file system. macOS and Linux, however, can only read files stored on such a drive; they cannot write to an NTFS-formatted drive. NTFS has huge file and partition size limits that you won’t hit; that makes it a better choice than FAT32, which has a 4 GB size limit per file. Many backup archives and video files are larger than 4 GB.
If you plan to use your drive for Time Machine backups on a Mac, and you use only macOS, use HFS+ (Hierarchical File System Plus, or macOS Extended). A drive formatted this way will not mount on a Windows computer without additional software. Like NTFS, the HFS+ file system has file and partition size limits that are much bigger and more suitable for modern use than those of FAT32.
FAT32 (File Allocation Table 32) is an older file system that both Windows machines and Macs still support. FAT32 was introduced in Windows 95 in 1997, but it remains useful because nearly every system can use it. Unfortunately, it isn’t any good for storing movies and other large files: FAT32 has a size limit of 4 GB per file, so your files have to be small.
If you need to transfer files larger than 4 GB between Mac and Windows computers, exFAT (extended File Allocation Table) is the best option, although it doesn’t work with File History or Time Machine. exFAT works on both macOS and Windows, and it doesn’t have the file size limit that FAT32 does, so you’ll be able to back up movies and other large files.
If you want to use a single external hard drive to back up both File History and Time Machine, you can partition it so that some of the drive is NTFS and some is HFS+. First, partition the drive using Disk Utility with macOS, and (using our walkthrough below) format one part as HFS+ and the other as FAT32; then, plug the drive into Windows and reformat the FAT32 portion as NTFS. Now your computer will see your single drive as multiple, smaller drives. Make sure to leave plenty of room for future backups on both partitions. It’s possible, but tricky, to change the size of a partition later on in Windows and macOS; we recommend backing up the data on your drive before attempting the task, since it’s possible to wipe your drive doing this.
Now that you’ve figured out those differences, it’s time to reformat your hard drive. Reformatting will delete all the data stored on the drive, so if you need to reformat, do so as soon as you buy the drive. If you already have data stored on the drive, back that data up elsewhere, reformat the drive, and then put your data back on the drive.
Reformatting your drive in Windows
How to reformat your drive in Windows.
To reformat a drive on Windows:
Plug in the drive and open Windows Explorer.
Right-click the drive and choose Format from the drop-down menu.
Select the file system you want, give your drive a name under Volume label, and make sure the Quick Format box is checked.
Click Start, and the computer will reformat your drive.
Honda accord hybrid mechanic manual. When you’ve completed the process, you can open the external drive in Windows Explorer.
Reformatting your drive in macOS
How to reformat your drive in macOS.
To reformat your drive for macOS:
Plug in the drive and open the Finder.
Click the Go menu, select Utilities from the drop-down menu, and open Disk Utility.
Choose your external drive from the left sidebar, and click Erase.
Give your drive a name and select the file system you want from the Format drop-down.
Click Erase, and the system will reformat your drive.
When you’ve completed the process, you can open the external drive by clicking on the drive’s icon on the desktop of your Mac.
Note: Using the formatting options above on a drive that has data on it may not be enough to prevent some of that data from being recoverable. If you're formatting a drive in order to give it away, sell it, or recycle it, make sure to securely erase the drive to prevent data recovery.
Further reading
How to Back Up Your Computer
by Thorin Klosowski
After hundreds of hours researching the best local storage and online backup services, we’ve put together a guide to backing up your Mac or Windows computer.
'My 1TB WD external hard drive is not working on my Windows 10 PC and I can do nothing to the drive since it fails to show up in This PC. I've changed the USB port but it still not working. I don't know what reasons have made the drive not responding, and neither I know any solutions. I've saved quite a lot of important files inside the drive. If you have any methods to fix my issue and make the WD external hard drive work again, please help me. Thank you.'
How To Set Up Wd Elements External Hard Drive For Mac 2020
Though it's no longer a new problem that external hard drive fails to work or suddenly fail to show up in PC. But it's still a tough issue for ordinary users when their external hard drive, USB or SD card etc devices suddenly become unrecognized, not working or responding in PC. Here below, you'll find 1 quick fix and 4 methods to fix WD external hard drive not working issue. If your external hard drive or storage devices are having this issue, relax and just follow to get your problem fixed right here now.
Quick fix WD external hard drive not showing up/unrecognized/responding error
1. Click Start > Type: devmgmt.msc in the Search box and hit Enter. 2. Open Device Manager > Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers. 3. Right-click on the USB Root Hub > Select Properties. 4. Go to Power Management and uncheck Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.
After this, reboot PC and reconnect WD external hard drive to your PC, then you'll be able to use the drive again. If this quick fix doesn't work, relax and just follow below-offered methods to repair not working WD external hard drive or devices now.
Fix WD external hard drive not recognized error
Here you have two methods to follow and fix WD external hard drive not recognized or undetectable error in Windows 10/8/7:
Method 1. Reboot PC into Safe Mode to make WD external hard drive recognizable
Go to Setting > Update & security.
Tab on Recovery > Advanced Startup > Restart now.
PC will automatically boot into another Startup Settings screen.
Press F4 to initiate PC reboot into Safe Mode.
Then check whether the WD external hard disk can be detected or not.
Method 2. Change drive letter to make unrecognized WD external hard drive detectable
The other way is to change the drive letter with Disk Management tool so to make unrecognized or undetectable WD external hard drive to show up in PC:
How To Set Up Wd Elements External Hard Drive For Mac Backup
Right-click on This PC/My Computer > Select Manage.
Go Disk Management > Find your external hard drive and right click it by choosing Change Drive Letter and Path..
Assign the drive with a new letter that doesn't exist in your PC and mark the Partition as Active.
Click OK.
Restart PC and your External hard drive will show up and work again.
Fix WD external hard drive not working/responding issue
When WD external hard drive, USB or other brands of storage devices are not working or not responding to any operations in your PC, don't worry. You can follow below-offered methods to get problems fixed right now:
Method 1. Update WD external hard drive driver to make it work
1. Click on Start > Type: devmgmt.msc in Search to open Device Manager by hitting Enter. 2. Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers > Right-click every USB device found there and select Uninstall. 3. Then check out whether any devices show up as unrecognized or not:
If WD external hard drive shows unrecognized, go to drivers tab and delete/uninstall the driver; Then check out whether the external hard drive shows up in My Computer/My PC or not.
If it doesn't show up, reboot or restart PC;
If it shows up but disappears later, repeat above steps and go to Disk Management, change the drive letter of your WD external hard drive and reconnect it to PC to let PC detect it again.
Method 2. Repair corrupted system files/bad sectors on not working WD external hard drive
Corrupted system files or bad sectors on WD external hard drive or other storage devices would block your device from working or responding in Windows PC.
Professional partition manager software from EaseUS will repair bad sectors and fix corrupted system files to make your WD external hard drive work again. Free download, install it and follow below guide steps to fix bad sectors and corrupted system files on your drive now: Utorrent 2.2.1 portable.
Step 1: Open EaseUS Partition Master on your computer. Then locate the disk, right-click the partition you want to check, and choose 'Check File System'.
Step 2: In the Check File System window, keep the 'Try to fix errors if found' option selected and click 'Start'.
Step 3: The software will begin checking your partition file system on your disk. When it has completed, click 'Finish'.
How To Set Up Wd Elements External Hard Drive For Mac And Windows
Extra Tip: WD external hard drive recovery
After fixing not working external hard drive on your Windows PC, you may continue using it for storing fancy data again. But if you lost files or valuable data on the drive, don't worry. Professional WD external hard drive recovery solution offered by EaseUS hard drive recovery software is what you exactly need. It will simply restore lost files from WD external hard drive within 3 simple steps on Windows 10/8/7 etc PC. If you lost files after fixing WD external hard drive not working issue or cannot access saved data in your storage devices, just free download EaseUS hard drive recovery software and let it help now.