Wd My Passport For Mac Not Working

1. Wd My Passport For Mac Not Working Without
2. Wd My Passport For Mac Not Showing Up On Mac Sierra

Summary: This guide introduces three common scenarios in which you might find your WD My Passport external hard drive read-only on Mac. If the WD My Passport read-only on Mac problem is caused by the NTFS file system, installing iBoysoft NTFS for Mac to edit, rename, delete the saved files and transfer files to the read-only WD My passport hard drive.

You have a WD My Passport drive? And want to know if it will work on your Mac. Don't worry in 10 quick steps You'll know how to format WD My Passport for Mac.

Western Digital is one of the most popular hard drive manufacturers. Its product line covers WD My Passport, WD My Passport Ultra, WD My Book, WD My Passport for Mac and more. Among those external hard drive categories, WD My Passport external hard drives are the most widely used ones. However, many users complain their WD My Passport is read-only on Mac like the user below in WD community.

'I have a WD My Passport 320GB external hard drive that I am trying to hook up to my iMac for the first time. I'm running macOS 10.13. I'm extremely frustrated because this drive is in a read-only mode, and I can't figure out how to change it! Any suggestion to fix this?'

--A user from WD Community

I have a 2tb passport which I use on my mac. I have been able to use it but for some reason it’s not working. I know its not because its corrupted cause it does show up on my mac and allow me view it but it now no longer allows me to copy stuff on it. I know my father downloaded a program year ago to allow wd to work on my mac. Hi i have a WD my passport ultra 1 TB hard drive. It was working completely fine, until one day it stopped getting detected 1) i tried putting other cables, NOT HELPED 2) also tried in other laptops, NOT HELPED 3) recently tried with a Macbook Pro 13', it showed for a second, but hanged my laptop. I have a WD My Home connected to my system and I couldn't see the volume through the entire Mojave beta trials and even after the official release. For some reason when I logged in this morning my WD volume is there to be used; I'm guessing that WD FINALLY pushed an update. Some WD hardware requires WD drivers.

Which lead to me trying my 2TB My Passport directly to the Mac Mini - and it worked too! So my issue has turned into a “USB 3 devices aren’t recognised through my D-Link powered USB 4 port adapter on Mavericks” issue - not a problem (apprently) with the WD My Passport at all. Hope this helps, Simon. I have a MAC Book Pro and also have the WD Passport, it was working just the other day and now it wasn't. I could hear it working and see the white light on but it was NOT showing up in devices but WAS showing up in disc utility. Here's what I did; With my WD Passport plugged in I went to; FINDER. DISC UTILITY. WD My Passport elements are not readable on Mac? This tutorial shows how to fix WD My Passport not readable or corrupted on macOS Catalina/Mojave/High Sierra and how to recover data from unreadable WD external hard drives with free Mac data recovery software.

If you are looking for solutions for solving read-only WD My Passport on Mac problem, you have come to the right place. This post will explain three common reasons why your WD My Passport is not writable and corresponding fixes.

Why is the WD My Passport read-only?

Sometimes, the WD external hard drive is read-only on Mac when you just got a brand new WD external hard drive. In other times, it suddenly became read-only after you have been using it for a while. The most common reasons for a read-only WD external hard drive, like WD My Passport, are listed below:

• Your WD My Passport hard drive is NTFS-formatted.
• You have read-only permission to access the WD My Passport hard drive.
• Your WD My Passport hard drive is corrupted.

If you are not sure which reason has caused your WD My Passport external hard drive read-only on Mac, check the scenarios one by one. If you know the reason already, you can jump to the scenario that best describes your situation.

Scenario 1: Your WD My Passport hard drive is NTFS-formatted

By default, macOS can mount a Windows NTFS volume or drive in read-only mode. You can view the files saved on the NTFS-formatted partition or drive but can't make any changes to them. In addition, the WD My Passport hard drive won't let you add any files to it. To check if your WD My Passport is NTFS formatted, follow the steps:

1. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utilities.
2. Click the WD My Passport (you may have changed its name) at the left sidebar. The file system information will be displayed on the right.

Note: You can also right-click the disk icon at the desktop and choose 'Get Info' to check the file system information.

After having confirmed that the WD My Passport is formatted with NTFS, many people will choose to convert NTFS to APFS (for macOS Catalina, Mojave and High Sierra) or reformat the WD My Passport hard drive to make the WD external hard drive compatible with Mac. In fact, installing an NTFS for Mac driver is a much easier way.

Solution: Install an NTFS for Mac driver to make WD My Passport writable

We will introduce an NTFS for macOS drivers - iBoysoft NTFS for Mac. It can help read and write to NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drives on Mac.

iBoysoft NTFS for Mac: NTFS for Mac driver and more

iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is an NTFS disk management tool. It can manage NTFS drives with NTFS write support. It can easily and effectively mount NTFS drive on Mac automatically in read-write mode. It works with macOS 10.15/10.14/10.13/10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8.

Three simple steps to read and write to NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drive easily.

Step 1: Download, install and launch iBoysoft NTFS for Mac on your Mac.

Step 2: Connect the NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drive to Mac.

Step 3: Write to NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drive after the drive has been mounted successfully.

Besides an NTFS mounter, iBoysoft NTFS for Mac can also open, unmount, eject, erase and repair NTFS volumes. It can list all attached external disks including USB flash drives, SD cards, memory sticks, external hard drives and so on. You can open them with one click. Moreover, you can reformat them to NTFS with iBoysoft NTFS for Mac if you need.

Scenario 2: You have read-only permission to access the WD My Passport hard drive

If your WD My Passport external hard drive is not formatted with NTFS but you have no write permission to it, it is probably because you have read-only permission to access the WD My Passport. Since your WD external hard drive is write-protected, all your write access is denied.

To know your permission to the WD My Passport, follow the steps below:

1. Right-click the WD My Passport disk icon at the desktop and choose 'Get Info'.
2. Check the information at the bottom under the Sharing & Permissions tab.

If you can see the message 'You can only read', then you will understand why you can't write to your WD My Passport drive.

Solution: Change read-only permission on the WD My Passport drive

Follow the instruction below to change permission on the WD My Passport on Mac:

Step 1: Click on the lock icon at the right corner in the Get Info window.

Step 2: Enter password if asked.

Step 3: Check the 'Ignore ownership on this volume'.

Step 4: Click on the gear button and choose 'Apply to enclosed items…'.

Step 5: Click 'OK' when you are asked to confirm the operation.

By now, you have regained the read and write access to the WD My Passport.

Scenario 3: Your WD My Passport hard drive is corrupted

If you are sure that the read-only WD My Passport is not caused by NTFS file system nor read-only permission, another possible cause might be the disk corruption. When an external drive is corrupted, people suddenly have trouble reading or/and writing to the disk. Then you will have to fix the corrupted WD My Passport external hard drive to make it writable again. We will introduce two solutions here:

• Fix the read-only WD My Passport in Disk Utility on Mac
• Reformat the WD My Passport on Mac

Solution 1: Fix the read-only WD My Passport in Disk Utility on Mac

This solution might help you solve the read-only external hard drive problem without formatting. You will utilize a built-in tool on Mac called Disk Utility. It is used to manage internal and external disks on Mac. There is a function called First Aid in Disk Utility that can be used to check for and repair errors on the selected disk or volume.

Here is how to fix the read-only WD My Passport in Disk Utility:

Step 1: Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.

Step 2: Select the WD My Passport drive at the left sidebar.

Step 3: Click on First Aid and click on 'Run' to repair the WD My Passport drive.

Step 4: Click 'Done' after the operation completes.

If First Aid fails to repair the WD external hard drive, your disk might be seriously corrupted. You will have to reformat the WD My passport to make it not read-only.

Solution 2: Reformat the WD My Passport on Mac

Reformatting the corrupted disk is the ultimate solution for fixing the read-only WD My Passport drive. Follow the steps below to know how to make the WD My Passport compatible with Mac and PC.

Step 1: Make sure you have a copy of your important files on WD My Passport hard drive, or recover data from the external hard drive with iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery.

Step 2: Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.

Step 3: Click on the WD My Passport drive at the left sidebar.

Step 4: Check Click 'Erase' on the top of the Disk Utility window.

Step 5: Input a name.

Step 6: Choose FAT or exFAT as format for convenience because either of them is compatible with both Windows and macOS. Of course, you can choose another file system that best meets your needs.

Step 7: Choose 'GUID Partition Map' as Scheme.

Step 8: Click on 'Erase' button.

You can reconnect the WD external hard drive to Mac again to see if it is writable now.

Conclusion

The external hard drive read-only on Mac problem doesn't happen to WD external hard drives only. It is quite common to see other notable external hard drive brand get the same complaint like Seagate, Samsung, Toshiba, etc. When you come across the read-only disk problem on Mac, the post is always helpful.

'I have a WD My Passport external which is not recognized on Mac, but I have stored many files on this external HDD. So can anybody tell me how to recover data from an unreadable external hard drive for Mac? I have some important excel files on this external, so I would appreciate it very much if anybody can recommend useful excel recovery software.'

WD My Passport external hard drive is able to work on Mac and Windows PC for data transferring or backup. If a WD My Passport external hard drive is not recognized by Mac OS, you had better make it clear if the problem is caused by external HDD error or Mac OS crash. You can connect the WD My Passport to another computer to see if it can work normally. Once you are sure that the WD My Passport is corrupted and becomes inaccessible, you had better stop performing any further operation to this external and then you can use data recovery software to get back lost data.

Data Recovery When WD My Passport Is Not Readable on Mac

Wd My Passport For Mac Not Working Without

For an unreadable external hard drive data recovery, you need to rely on a professional data recovery program. iCare Data Recovery is a good solution for data recovery from any storage media including WD My Passport when it is not detected by Mac OS or other PC. You just need to plug the external to a PC, and this data recovery software will deep scan the external even if it cannot work normally. iCare Data Recovery is a read-only program which is compatible with Windows OS, so you should plug your external to a Windows PC in order to retrieve all lost data when the WD My Passport is not recognized on Mac. Now, you can follow the steps below to recover unreadable data:

Step1. Download and install iCare Data Recovery on Windows PC. Run the software and choose a proper scan mode.

Step2. Select the WD My Passport external and then wait the software to scan it.

Step3. When scanning is completed, you can preview found files and then save the lost data to another drive.

Possible Reasons Why WD My Passport Does Not Work on Mac

Everybody knows that the most important thing is to restore all lost data when a WD My Passport drive is not recognized on Mac, but many people still like to know the reasons why an external hard drive stops working on Mac. Here are some possible reasons:

• WD My Passport external contains too many bad sectors
• The WD My Passport is infected with virus or Trojan
• WD My Passport portable HDD file system is corrupted
• WD my passport external hard disk is formatted wrong or needs updated drivers
• More other reasons

Solution When WD My Passport Is Not Recognized due to Incompatibility issue

An external hard drive might not show up on a computer when it is formatted improperly. As you know, when you buy a new external hard drive, it usually has FAT32 or NTFS file system. Both of file systems are able to be recognized by Windows OS, but it might become unreadable when you plug an external hard drive that has FAT32 or NTFS file system to a Mac computer. Therefore, if a WD my passport external hard drive is not recognized by Mac OS, but it is able to be compatible with Windows OS, you only need to format it to HFS+ file system which is able to be recognized by Mac OS.

WD My Passport Does Not Show up due to Virus Attack

As mentioned above, an external hard drive must be formatted properly so that it can be detected by Windows or Mac OS. However, sometimes, virus infection might corrupt the file system of WD my passport external hard drive and make it not show up when you connect the external to your computer. In this situation, you can recover all inaccessible data at first and then you can run antivirus software to scan the external hard drive and finally format the external into proper format.

WD My Passport External Is Recognized on Mac but becomes Inaccessible

Another situation is that the WD my passport portable hard drive can show up on Mac OS when you plug it to your computer, but the problem is that you are unable to access any data stored on this disk. In this situation, you can also check whether the external hard drive file system is compatible with Mac OS. If WD my passport external HDD has unknown file system, you can use iCare Data Recovery to recover files from inaccessible drive and then try to format the WD my passport external hard drive to HFS+ file system. If you want to use your external hard drive in Windows PC, you can connect it to a Windows PC and format RAW to NTFS file system.

It does not matter why a WD My Passport external HDD is not recognized, you have chance to recover files from WD portable hard drive which is not detecting as long as it is not physically damaged or overwritten.

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