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.
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 Elements, 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?'
Please continue reading and look for solutions for solving read-only WD My Passport on Mac problem.
The data recovery tool in question supports all Western Digital hard disk drives, such as My Book Pro, My Book, WD Elements, My Book Studio, etc. Sometimes, there will be a need to learn how to reformat my passport for Mac, so once you're acquainted with formatting, you should enlighten yourself on how to reformat WD my passport for Mac. The new version contains additional command supports for both SATA and PCIe products as well as a new firmware update for Intel Solid-State Drive Data Center Family of products. Freeware Windows.
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:
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.
For WD My Passport Ultra and WD Elements, check if the hard drive is formatted with NTFS file system. 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:
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. But as you know, directly formatting WD Elements or My Passport on Mac causes data loss.
In fact, installing an NTFS for Mac driver is a much easier way.
The NTFS drivers for macOS - iBoysoft NTFS for Mac can help you 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 11/10.15/10.14/10.13.
Three simple steps to read and write to NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drive easily.
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.
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:
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.
Follow the instruction below to change permission on Mac so that you can access the WD My Passport again:
By now, you have regained the read and write access to the WD My Passport.
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:
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:
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.
Reformatting the corrupted WD My Passport drive is the ultimate solution for fixing the read only file system on Mac. Follow the steps below to know how to make the WD My Passport compatible with Mac and PC.
You can reconnect the WD external hard drive to Mac again to see if it is writable now.
The external hard drive read-only on Mac problem doesn't happen to WD external hard drives only. Any external hard drive could be write-protected on Mac. 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.
Dec 03, 2020 • Filed to: Solve Mac Problems • Proven solutions
This is a question often asked by Mac users only. Windows users don't need to do much other than plug in the WD Passport to use it, but for Mac, it's not as straightforward as that.
The difference in Mac and Windows' native format systems are to blame for this. But don't fret, because this article will show you simple ways to go about formatting your WD Passport so you can easily use it on both Mac and Windows.
Technology has reached a point where it pretty much seeps into every aspect of our daily life. We're always using our phones and computers to send messages, host meetings, shop online, etc.
Of course, there is much exchange of valuable data as these happen, and where you keep this data is extremely important; that's where WD's My Passport comes in.
My Passport is a hard drive that's trustworthy and portable enough to be given a 5-star rating on almost any website you check. Coupled with the WD Backup TM app and password protection feature, My Passport helps to keep your data safe. That being said, situations arise when you'll need to format or reformat the drive.
Western Digital (WD) hard drives are formatted with NTFS (Windows) or HFS+ (Mac) by default to make them more compatible with both operating systems.
Granted, FAT32 is less efficient than NTFS in Windows, but it has inherent benefits too, like its compatibility. And to connect your NTFS-formatted My Passport to macOS, you'll need to utilize a formatting tool.
This is especially true if you regularly use your WD drive on both Windows and macOS. So always remember to check if the drive is formatted or not.
A significant number of users trust West Digital hard drives. Their auto backup, password protection, and high reliability are second to none.
But nothing is perfect, right? Sometimes when you connect the WD My Passport drive to your Mac, it's grayed out in Disk Utility.
The drive's external light can be on too but it still doesn't work. Worse still, it could become unreadable on your Mac. You know what that means, right? Your data can't be accessible now.
More often than not, an external hard drive doesn't show up on Mac simply because your Mac's USB cable or USB port is bad. But the following factors may also contribute to WD not showing up.
What happens here is when you update your macOS to the latest build or release, issues of incompatibility could arise. So, you might have to update the WD My Passport's drivers to at least meet the minimum requirements of the newly-installed macOS.
The simple fact is, your Mac could malfunction due to one error or another, and that could tamper with how your macOS identifies your WD My Passport. Computers are susceptible to unexpected or unforeseen glitches and errors, so never rule this out as a possible cause.
Yes, an anti-virus is meant to protect your system, but it can also have 'side effects' that won't bode too well for it. For example, most anti-virus is notorious for identifying laptop games as a virus, even though they aren't. Sometimes, they prevent the games from launching.
They can also stop some software from starting. This applies to your hard drives too.
Likewise, the antivirus could stop your system from accessing your WD Passport, perhaps because there is already a virus in it. Thus, it's imperative you install the right anti-virus that will work well and won't tamper with your system's settings too much,
Not much needs to be said because everyone knows the kind of damage virus is capable of. There's a virus out there that can even hide your hard drive. So even if you plug it into your My Passport into your Mac, you won't see it.
Without a motherboard, a system is pretty much a screen and keyboard. So, if your Mac's motherboard suffers software or hardware damage, almost nothing will work properly, and that includes your USB ports. So, your drive, even if it's functioning properly, might not even be recognized.
This time, the problem stems from your WD My Passport. Maybe the drive fell or a malfunctioning system corrupted it. Either of these issues could lead to the drive malfunctioning or not showing up when you plug it into your Mac.
The simple step-by-step guide below will show you how to format your WD My Passport on your computer, so pay attention. The information you'll find here touches on formatting and reformatting WD's My Passport for your Mac.
Just turn on your Mac and when it boots up, plug in your My Passport drive to your WD. Your WD My Passport drive will appear as a rectangular, yellow icon on your desktop (it looks just like the image below).
If your My Passport drive doesn't turn up for some reason, click on 'Finder', then select 'Preferences'.
You can find disk utility by clicking on the spotlight search button, then type 'Disk Utility'.
You'll see your internal and external hard drives on the left-hand side of the Disk Utility window.
Find the 'View' button at the top left of your Disk Utility window and click it. A drop-down menu will open up.
Select 'Extended Mac OS (Journaled)'.
This is the file system you will need if you want to be able to easily transfer files back and forth between your Mac and you're My Passport drive. The format is also what makes the drive compatible with Time Machine for backup on your Mac
Oh, and always remember to safely eject your drive before unplugging its cable. Failure to do this could lead to the driver crashing or suffering some issues.
If you are unable to locate or access the data on your Western Digital (WD) external hard drive, it can be devastating, particularly when the lost data contains precious images and invaluable backups.
The tips and shortcuts below will give you the necessary info and tidbits you need to format WD elements for mac. The loss of data from your WD hard drive can be caused by numerous things: Accidental deletion, disk formatting, computer corruption or damage, etc.
But all that doesn't mean you can't get your data back. There are some great solutions you can utilize to recover deleted, corrupted, or lost files and you'll learn of them before the end of this post.
It makes perfect sense for you to worry if you lose your data, but sometimes, formatting becomes necessary too, doesn't it?
Sometimes when you reinstall the operating system, the drive or partition gets deleted, even if you don't intend for it to happen.
Due to carelessness or haste, some people can unknowingly format or delete the wrong partition. It takes little more than a few clicks for the damage to be done, so you must exercise caution here.
Then, of course, you can't rule out other possible causes like a virus, power failure, or hardware damage to your drive. They are all likely causes of data loss.
When it comes to Western Digital disk recovery, the first option that comes to mind is using third party data recovery applications. This is considerably better than the complicated and time-consuming manual data recovery options out there.
Restoring lost WD data takes only minutes, depending on the size of the drive and the amount of data to be recovered. The data recovery tool in question supports all Western Digital hard disk drives, such as My Book Pro, My Book, WD Elements, My Book Studio, etc.
Sometimes, there will be a need to learn how to reformat my passport for Mac, so once you're acquainted with formatting, you should enlighten yourself on how to reformat WD my passport for Mac.
If you know anything about data recovery, then it's very likely you're familiar with Recoverit Data Recovery. If you aren't, you've been missing out a lot!
Recoverit Data Recovery is a data recovery tool that's extremely capable of recovering data or any kind of file you lost from your drive. So, if you lost your data via formatting, accidental deletion, virus attacks, and more, Recoverit will get them all back.
Recoverit's data recovery steps are often very similar irrespective of which type of system you own; Windows or Mac. But since you're dealing with Mac today, that will be the focus here. So, go on and follow the 3 steps below to get back data on a Mac.
Step 1: Select the WD Drive
Start Recoverit and look under the 'External Devices' section. You'll see some drives connected to your Mac. Select the WD drive and click on 'Start'.
Step 2: Scan Your WD Drive
Recoverit will start scanning the drive. Look to the left of the software and you'll see checkboxes that detail the types of files the software is finding. You can tick the checkboxes if you're only looking for particular files; that will actually make the scan process faster, but it's just an option.
Step 3: Preview and Recover Pen Drive Data
Once the scan ends, you'll see the list of files Recoverit found. You can even preview them if you want. Recovering the files is pretty easy too.
Just tick the ones you want to recover or tick one checkbox that highlights everything. For the last step, click 'Recover'.
All you have to do is wait for all your files to be recovered. See? Easy as pie. But here's an important tip: Don't save the files to the same WD drive they are being recovered from.
Files and getting bigger and bigger, so you'll need the best drive out there to capable of storing these files, right? There are countless hard drives you can choose from but the keyword here is the 'best', and WD is exactly that.
If you need a new backup solution for your photos or videos, the Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1 TB drive can more than handle the job. It's a compact external hard drive with 1 TB capacity coupled with high transmission speeds.
To use a WD my passport on Mac, you need to know how to reformat it. The same goes for using any kind of WD drive on Mac.
The simple fact is, you'll be very happy with the shape, weight, look, and even feel of the WD My Passport drive. This 1 TB size is wonderful and can comfortably store even the large Digital SLR data files for many years to come.
For those who really love music, all their favorite songs can be stored on this drive too. These large and powerful drives even find use in hospitals and educational facilities, among other places.
The WD Passport is also patronized by computer programmers, innovative artists, and several other professionals in various business fields.
What makes this external hard drive so reliable and easily the best portable drive is the fact it was manufactured by the popular Western Digital Company. It's a trusted company that has filled homes, offices, and institutions with hard drives for over 20 years; that's over 20 years of experience and satisfied customers!
Because of how compact the drive is, it easily fits into your shirt or purse's pocket. And the fact it weighs just about 0.44 pounds means it won't feel uncomfortable or be obtrusive in any way.
This new device is excellent and doesn't need external power, eliminating the need for an extra power cord. It also works almost soundlessly, so no annoying grinding noises to distract you while you work.
If your WD drive is plugged into a USB 3.0 port, you can easily access and save files 3 times faster than what USB 2.0 port is capable of. To elaborate, you can upload a 2-hour HD video in just 5 minutes! But if it was USB 2.0, it will take at least 13 minutes or more. The difference is clear, isn't it?
So, there you have it. A simple yet effective tutorial on making your WD drive work on Mac. Remember that the most important thing here is the safety of your files, so it is highly recommended you use a WD My Passport because it's a drive that promises nothing but the highest quality.
And if anything does happen to your WD drive and you lose your files, there's never a need to worry because Recoverit is ready and willing to get all those files back. https://Hollywood-Movie-Hindi-Dubbed-Hd-Download.peatix.com/.