You’ll see your WD Elements drive is lovely and empty. Here are two free ways that you use to assign a drive letter for your WD My Passport Ultra. Connect your hard disk with the computer. This answer explains how to format a WD drive for use on Windows and macOS. Installing WD Backup was easy, and of course, all the software and user manuals are on the drive itself. You can follow the question or vote as helpful, but you cannot reply to this thread. Enter a volume label (drive name) too — we used “Windows 10,” though you can label this partition with anything. 7. My WD elemnts 1TB drive will not show up on my advent (windows vista) laptop. Available in Windows 10/8/7, Disk Management allows you to manage your disks and partitions with a simple, graphical interface. Use WD Drive Utilities to check the unrecognized WD hard drives; 7. And then you can connect the USB cable into your Windows PC and view and use the files there. To use it to protect your files, you need to download WD Backup, unzip the file into a folder and double click the .exe file to install. Another way is to try using a third-party WD My Passport Ultra partition manager – MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition. Windows built-in backup software like File History (Windows 8.1, 10), Windows Backup and Restore (Windows 7, 8.1, 10), and the free WD backup software - AOMEI Backupper Standard will do you a big favor. It makes the noise of something being plugged in and gives me a safely remove hardware option but won't give me autoplay or show up in my computer. New computer will have Windows 10. There are several backup solutions that you might pick to backup WD Elements drives. NTFS formatted and works just as fast on Mac using third party app for reading and writing to and from it. for information, i have tried disk management, used data lifeguard diagnostic tests and all passed, but the figure still remains the same. To disable the Virtual CD - If you are not running WD SmartWare and wish to disable the Virtual CD, click here for instructions. The computer sees the hard drive because it appears in devices. That will open up a finder window for you. due to reasons unknown it is presently showing 149Gb. Sync Center allows you to sync files between PCs and manage offline files which are saved in the folders of the network servers. Similar to WD Elements, WD Easystore is also currently shipping with white-labeled HDDs inside. WD portable hard drive reformatting software for Windows/Mac. Partition WD hard drive with Disk Management. How frustrating it is! WD external hard drive is a good location for automatic backup, and free AOMEI Backupper will help you to easily achieve files, system, disk, or partition auto backup to Western Digital external hard drive within Windows 7/8/10. There is a common need to make WD Elements drives usable on both Windows and Mac so that you can transfer data between the two environments. Performance . I am now trying to retrieve the files from the back up, but I am struggling to locate my photos within the back up. Can use Windows Easy Transfer … It is currently NTFS and I am not sure if formatting it to exFAT may cause it to function incorrectly. You can read my document here all about it. Download this WD portable hard drive reformatting software here: Download for PC Download for Mac. Benefits of WD my Passport. This guide demonstrates shucking a WD Elements 12TB external hard drive from Western Digital, model WDBWLG0120HBK-NESN, but the procedure can apply to any WD Elements 3.5” external drive. The following section tells you how. USB 3.0 is backward compatible with USB 2.0. Double Click On Your WD Elements Drive Icon On Your Desktop. Any advice of where to find them? Updating the firmware on your My Cloud PR4100. Can I transfer using nothing but the WD drive or do I need a transfer cable? In order to reformat WD portable hard drive and permanently erase the data on the WD portable hard drive, we strongly recommend you to use this tool – Super Eraser to help you reformat the WD portable hard drive. Now, let’s go to learn more from the following part. Most WD Drives come formatted in the NTFS (Windows) or HFS+ (Mac) format. Reason I settled with WD is that i have a similar one and no issues. Generally, it includes Windows 10 desktop, MacBook Pro, SD card, DSLR and external drives, for instance, WD My Passport. I connect my WD Elements 1042 portable hard drive to my PC running Windows 10. To use a WD my passport on Mac, you need to know how to reformat it. Although reformatting is required for Mac, you can expect better compatibility with WD Easystore. Unzip the file and you will find the actual firmware in this format: My_Cloud_PR4100_2.xx.xx.bin One is using Windows built-in Disk Management. Here are two ways offered and you can choose based on your own situation. Rest assured this is really easy to do. However, the hard drive does not appear in the files menu and I cannot access it. WD Backup can be used in Windows 10, 8.1, 7 and Vista. The same goes for using any kind of WD drive on Mac. Specifically, when you plug a WD hard drive into a Mac computer, macOS would be notified. Physical Description As shown in figure 2, the My Passport drive has: A USB 3.0 interface port A power/activity LED indicator USB 3.0 Interface The USB 3.0 interface supports data transfer rates up to 5 Gb/s. How to format WD elements SE for Mac on the Windows Operating system? Click the Next button to proceed. I am trying to discover how to reset it so as to clear out all the old back up's and make space for new one's. And sometimes you use your Elements drive on your Mac. If you want to use the drive with a Mac computer, see Reformatting the Drive and Troubleshooting. Unexpected power off. If you have the WD My Passport Ultra not detected Windows 10/8/7 issue, you might as well try this simple fix, especially for … Connect the hard disk to the computer using a USB cable and wait for a bit so that the device can be recognized. After realizing that you can reformat WD hard drive to FAT32 or exFAT to make it compatible with Mac OS X and still can be used under Windows, it is time to check out how to reformat WD hard drive for Mac and PC in Windows successfully. The process of Mac recognizing an external hard drive is a little complicated even though you can't see it. And now you can use the WD Elements External hard drive as you use your internal hard drive. File system crashed on WD Elements portable hard drive. Ready for you to use. A WD My Passport formatted with Mac file system will be a dud on the Windows and vice-versa. Hi there I am wondering if formatting my WD Elements External Hard Drive to exFAT requires the hardrive to be relatvely new (it is quite old) or would need some sort of compatibility label to be used with exFAT. Many external hard drives use server-grade hard drives that cost nearly twice as much if you were to purchase them standalone without the external enclosure. Windows release 1.2.1.26 (3/11/10) This update includes the following changes to WD … My WD elements drive won't show up on my computer. All of my files are backed-up to a WD external drive, Currently using Windows 7 on old computer. The WD Elements portable hard drive is infected by virus. Answer this question Send. However, some of you have reported that WD Backup cannot work well. WD Sync Alternative for Windows – Sync Center. Windows also provides you an alternative to the WD Sync. all updated Windows operating systems. Want to use a partition and allocate it to Time Machine for backup? Format WD Elements failed on Mac. WD Elements / WD easystore; Embedded & Removable Flash; WD ReadyView; Legacy & Other Products; Downloads WD Software; Product Firmware; Product Downloads; Warranty & Returns Warranty Services; Warranty Policy; Data Recovery; Shipping Addresses; Warranty Status; Product Replacement; RMA Status Download the firmware to your desktop. Click on the format option. WD Elements … To achieve this goal, you are supposed to format WD Elements for Mac to FAT32 or exFAT which is compatible on both Windows and Mac. Answer this question Send. Drag and drop files to it as you would on your internal hard drive. Hi all, I'm new here. Way 5: Use Your WD My Passport Drive With Time Machine. How to erase WD My Passport external hard drive in Windows easily? Unfortunately I have lost the user manual. This thread is locked. You’re free to create new folders. The WD My Passport drive is imperative because the individual will use the portable media to store their collection of videos, photos, docs, and audio safely. Step 2. Yes I tried all the ports, I used the hard drive cable to connect my phone to the laptop and windows explorer detected my phone immediately. I have a WD Elements external drive which I use for back ups. It also comes preformatted with NTFS, so you can quickly use it with your Windows device. I have wireless network; is that a factor in the transfer? :mad: Any help will be very much... Windows 10 not compatible with Photoshop Elements 13 in Software and Apps. After the transfer, I will connect the external drive to the new computer with Windows 10. i have a wd 250Gb external drive using with 32bit win7 laptop. Thankfully, MS-DOS FAT32 and ex-FAT formats have survived to date, and these are the file system to make your WD My Passport work with a Mac and a Windows PC simultaneously. Hi Captain_WD. I have a WD Elements SE which I used to back up my MacBook. Apart from WD Passport, you can also format WD Elements for Mac. However, when trying to format WD Elements for Mac, some … Yes you can use your WD Elements drive for both a Mac and a PC if you want. Backing up Windows or Mac to WD Network Attached Storage (NAS) This article explains how to perform a backup to a My Cloud, WD Sentinel or My Book ... What Is and How To Access a WD Product Dashboard Using Your WD Elements Drive On Your Mac And A PC. The simple fact is, you'll be very happy with the shape, weight, look, and even feel of the WD My Passport drive. You can use Windows built in utility Disk Management or third party partition software to partition WD hard drive. Thanks for your reply. If you are using the manual update method, do not rename the firmware file. A Western Digital external hard drive can be used on both Windows and Mac OSX. It is the Sync Center. Step 7: Click the Finish button to complete Doing so will cause the manual update to fail and can corrupt the system. If the WD elements DO need to be reformated to be used on Windows xp – I wonder if someone could write a full description of the entire process for Re-formatting a new (never been used) WD Elements so that it is compatible with Windows xp – (and I am hoping, that this Re-format - will ALSO make to WD elements ALSO STILL compatible with Windows 7 and above. I then plugged the hard drive in my work laptop which I normally do to exchange work docs and same thing, my laptop couldn't detect it. Then, how to erase WD My Passport external hard drive easily? Patricia Howell, 16-10-2019 19:04:35 No comments 6 how do I transfer from WD elements to my pc. Now, we will show you how to use the WD Sync alternative for Windows – Sync Center. It’s the option to choose when you mainly use your WD Elements drive on your Windows PC. Reformatting the WD hard drives when it's not working ; First, See How Mac Recognizes a WD External Hard Drive. Here I’m going to show you two effective solutions to erase WD external hard drives in Windows: Solution 1: erase WD My Passport with WD Drive Utilities. WD External Hard Drive Automatic Backup in Windows7/8/10; WD External Hard Drive Automatic Backup in Windows7/8/10. Lose data due to improper operations like pulling out WD Elements portable hard drive when it is transfer data with computer. Once that is done, click on the "This PC" option and find the icon that represents the Hard disk. This is useful if a drive is being used under both Operating System (OS)to move files between the two environments. Step 1.