WD 2TB My Passport Ultra on mac pro not working

could not unmount disk

Usually caused by having something Open on the disk.

Try selecting the disk and dragging it to the trash or clicking the Eject Icon in a Finder window. It may tell you the name of a file that is in use.

Ok, now it is unmounted, can you see it in Disk Utility? Will it Erase now?

I had the same problem - going the usual Disk Utilty route didn't work for me. So, I opened the My Passport icon that pops up on your desktop and there were a number of folders, one being My Passport for Mac.

You open that and download the app in that folder. Save it to your Applications (or wherever) and find "WD Drive Utilities"

A window pops up with Diagnostics, Sleep Timer, Drive Erase and Registration.

You click Drive Erase, choose the format (exFAT) and hit "Erase Drive"

Done-zo.

Yeah Boyyy....

That's fine for a Mac <--> PC transfer drive.

ex-FAT won't work for a Time Machine backup drive.

This is true - but regarless of the format, I found the WD Ultiliy that came with the Passport worked and the computer's Disk Utlity didn't - for me anyway.

This worked for me. My new WD My Passport Ultra 2TB drive was giving me many problems. I originally tried to reformat it with two partitions using Apple's Disk Utility. I had all sorts of problems and the instructions that came with the drive seemed to suggest that the drive would not support multiple partitions. So I reformatted it with a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partition using Apple's Disk Utility. It seemed to work okay. I only use this drive for backups and only connect it to my MacBook Pro (early 2013) running OS 10.8.5 once every day or two. I decided to use this new external drive for Time Machine backups only. Then I discovered that every day I plugged it into the computer the backup would start but not complete. After trying many things I used Apple's disk utility to verify and repair the drive. It found various problems but was unable to correct them so I was required to reformat the drive and start from scratch with Time Machine. After the third time doing this Disk Utility couldn't even repair the disk anymore because it "Could not dismount the disk". I was ready to declare the disk defective when I found your post. I then used the WD Drive Utilities.app furnished with the drive. It was able to reformat the drive with HFS+J format. Since then the drive has been working great for several days now. The strange thing is that now when I use the WD disk utility to test/verify the disk it fails the tests but gives me no feedback as to why. When I use the Apple disk utility to "verify" the disk it passes all the tests.

Dear Grant and other geniuses! I have been using My Passport Ultra for 4 months, no problems (10.10.1). Today, I can open with the WD Unlock, but then the disk does not mount. I can see its icon in Disk Utility, though. When I clicked "Repair Disk," scary red lettering says, "Disk Utility cannot repair. Reformat the disk, and restore..." 😟 Is there a way around this? Is My Passport really "corrupt" and must I erase this passport? Thanks!

I have the WD My Passport Ultra 1TB and basically having the same problem, but now the disk icon won't even show on my desktop. It will only show in disk utility. In disk utility when verifying, in red it says "Incorrect number of thread records" and "The volume was found corrupt and needs to be repaired". When trying to repair it says "Error: Disk Utility can't repair this disk. Back up...format the disk and restore your backed-up files". I tried to reformat, eject, erase, restore using disk utility but says I need to make sure that all applications and files are closed on the disk. Closed and shutdown everything and still won't work. Have a feeling this is time machine related. Help!

Dan562, I am having EXACTLY the same issue as you! To the letter! Yes, help!

To TheWoman & Dan562,

I went through a variety of issues and symptoms as I noted above along with several other very strange problems. I started to believe the drive had platters that were failing in a way that just kept causing different symptoms. Then I stopped using Apples disk utility on this drive. I used the WD disk utility app that is included when you purchase the disk. I used the WD utility to reformat the drive to HFS+J format and so far, after several days and instances of using it to back up using Time Machine, I've had NO further problems or unusual behavior.

ronE321

Ron E321,

Do Dan562 and I need to erase our disks (via WD Utility) first? I've tried using try WD Utilities to do repairs and diagnostics, but it only will do 90% of the quick test drive, and only 10% of the longer diagnostic test. Then it just sort of freezes. Does that sound like my Passport is indeed damaged? Thanks!

TheWoman,

I'm not an expert on this but I'm just trying to relay my experience. What I did was completely erase/reformat my drive with the WD utility and then just start using it as a Time Machine backup drive. Since doing that it has worked perfectly.

I've been using Apples exclusively since 1984 and I've used Apple's disk utility on a variety of drives over the years but I've never encountered anything like this. My experience would indicate that there is something about this WD drive that is incompatible with the Apple disk utility. I have 3 other smaller WD passport drives that I still use and have no problem with and I DO use Apple's disk utility on those drives. There just seems to be something about this new 2TB drive that is very different. I also found that I was not able to partition this drive the way I have done with my other WD drives.

RonE321

Hi RonE321,

I used the WD Drive utility to erase the disk 😟 which it did very quickly, no "can't unmount it" message - and then did a new backup of my MacBook Pro (10.10.1) via WD Utility HFS+J. So far, so good!

I came across many comments and problems with using My Passport for mac, and lots of advice - but not all were for the 2TB. So I am keeping my fingers crossed this will work...until perhaps the next Yosemite upgrade?? Thanks again, Ron and Dan!