Western Digital 1TB caviar drive not readable by Mac Pro

Question

Level 1

0 points

Western Digital 1TB caviar drive not readable by Mac Pro

I had a Western Digital 1TB My Book World edition Ethernet drive, which at the time I bought it, I didnt know it was incompatible with mac via software, so I used it for my windows system.

Well, I am now running a completely mac network and all mac computers, so I took the worldbook apart and found it had a Western Digital caviar SaTa drive in it. I installed it into my Dual Duo core mac pro and immediately got the error that the drive was unreadable.

I went into disk utility, and first aid failed, I tried to erase it, that failed. I tried to partition it as MAC OS Extended Journaled, that failed. The ONLY thing it would let me do to it was to partition it as a Fat 32.

Any ideas why and should it make a difference for storage?

Macbook Pro 2.66GHz Dual Duo Core and G4 MDD dual 1.42, Mac OS X (10.5.6), Also a Macbook 2.16 core 2 Duo and Macbook Pro Core Duo 15.4" Both on Leopard

Posted on Jan 23, 2009 8:53 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Jan 23, 2009 9:57 AM in response to NetWrk 219

Formatting Western Digital network drives isn't officially supported with Macs. They come preformatted with a Linux file system which the Mac can read/write to. To reformat the drive, you use the Shared Storage Manager software that came with the drive (Windows only), which is why their system requirements state "Windows® 2000/XP/Vista" only. Hope that helps.

Reply

Answer 2

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Jan 23, 2009 11:53 AM in response to nullandvoid

Why not use WD Diagnostic in Windows?

Also, in Disk Utility, click on drive, click on Partition tab, change volume list from "current" to "untitled" then click on "Options..." below and change from MBR to GUID. Click Apply. Setup your HFS+.

With MacFUSE you can take MBR partitioning and create NTFS volumes.

Reply

Answer 3

NetWrk 219 Author

Level 1

0 points

Jan 27, 2009 4:15 PM in response to The hatter

Hey, Thanks for the replys. I actually do not have anymore windows systems in my home. We are totally Mac.

But, your reply, having me change from MBR to GUID worked great! I just didnt know how to do it.

Thanks so much!!!

Reply

Answer 4

NetWrk 219 Author

Level 1

0 points

Jan 27, 2009 4:19 PM in response to nullandvoid

Yeah, I cracked the case on it and wanted it installed on my mac internally. I know that natively the software doesn't support mac. When I had a windows PC at home, it wasn't so much of an issue, but since demolishing (on purpose..in a moment of cathartic release...) I no longer have any access to the software. But the answer below deals with the issue very effectively. Thanks for the assist and the response.

Reply