Make wd external drive writeable with imac

read only with WD passport external drive connected to imac

Posted on Apr 21, 2024 1:21 PM

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Dumb question: Can the WD “My Passport Ultra” USB 3 External HDD be reformatted to any Mac format? Hello, this might be a dumb question but Western Digital make two different versions of the “My Passport Ultra” USB 3 External HDD: My Passport Ultra: https://www.westerndigital.com/products/portable-drives/wd-my-passport-ultra-usb-c-hdd?sku=WDBC3C0020BSL-WESN My Passport Ultra for Mac: https://www.westerndigital.com/products/portable-drives/wd-my-passport-ultra-for-mac-usb-c-hdd?sku=WDBKYJ0020BSL-WESN The first one (My Passport Ultra) states that read/write capability can be provided for Mac by installing an NTFS driver to read⁄write on macOS 11+. My question is - why not just reformat the My Passport Ultra to any natively compatible Mac format? I’ve never encountered an external HDD yet which cannot be reformatted from the get-go. But the fact that WD make a different version “for Mac” makes me wonder… why does that even exist? I don’t want to use third-party NTFS drivers since future MacOS updates could break it temporarily (until the driver is updated) or permanently (if the driver is never updated). And I don’t want to buy this drive in case there is some bizarre reason you can’t reformat it using the Mac’s Disk Utility. So just checking with those who know or who have done it… thanks.
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2 replies

Kurt Lang

Level 9

71,827 points

Apr 21, 2024 1:23 PM in response to fkettering

It means the drive came pre-formatted as Windows NTFS. The Mac can only read such a drive, unless you add third party software.

If this is only for use with the Mac, reformat the drive with a GUID partition map, and APFS as the file system.

Tesserax

Level 10

160,740 points

Apr 21, 2024 1:22 PM in response to fkettering

Per chance was this drive formatted in Windows' NTFS? If so, Mac can read from drives with this format, but not write to it natively.

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Make wd external drive writeable with imac

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