This guide introduces three common scenarios in which you might find your wd my passport external hard drive readonly on mac. Macs can boot into a target disk mode that causes them to function like an external hard drive. Western digital my passport 4tb external hard drive. Take a look at my article here on the site on formatting an external hard drive for your mac. However, you may encounter a not initialized error when connecting the device to your. Do you have any questions about how to clone your mac so you can use it as a backup. How to boot your mac in target disk mode for easy file transfers. In this article connect external hard drive to mac. Most of the time, when you connect an external hard drive to your macs usb port, you soon.
Im having this problem that my seagate external hard drive suddenly turned to readonly this morning when i connected it to mac. Usually, when you plug the external device into your mac, it appears as an icon on the desktop or can be found on the sidebar in finder. Or you know your external hard drive is not formatted to mac os extended journaled file system and need a little help. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. If you read my previous post about how to format an external drive for mac, you know that i bought a 2tb seagate expansion external hard drive and managed to create two partitions on the disk one for mac backup purposes, and the other for personal use. Connect your external drive into the appropriate port on your mac. Wd external hard drive set up guide how to use on mac youtube. Resize it so that it only takes up a portion of your screen.
Drive speed is measured in revolutions per minute rpm, based on how fast the drive can spin. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. How to set up external hard drive for mac and pc, time machine backup and file. How to use your seagate external drive seagate support asean.
Usually, when you want to connect an external hard drive to your computer, you just plug it in and thats it. Select encrypt backup disk recommended, then click use as backup disk. Thisll be the first external hd ive owned that has been mac plug and play. How to make external hard drive work with mac and pc youtube. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Through the use of thirdparty software, microsoft windows can be configured to read a.
You cannot insert an additional hard disk to the mac but, you can replace your existing hard disk with a higher capacity hard disk. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. If that doesnt work, we have a couple of simple troubleshooting tips to fix an external hard drive not showing up on mac. You will see that the contents of your mac screen are shown on the external display. The instructions are for windows users and may be different if you are using a mac os x or using a newerdifferent version of the. External hard drive not showing up on mac what to do.
However, the drawbacks are that it is very expensive the system performance may also decrease considerably by inser. In my opinion, the industry jacked hard drive prices some years ago complaining their manufacturing infrastructure in thailand was compromised. Select the external drive with the clone backup on it from the list of systems to start up your computer. Before entering target disk mode, youll need a few things. Through the use of thirdparty software, microsoft windows can be configured to read a mac hard drive. My book hard drives use a usb connection, which means that you can connect the hard. The best external desktop drive is the wd 4tb my book desktop external hard drive usb 3.
How to make external hard drive work with mac and pc set up. My microsoft surface does not recognize the external hard drive. In most circumstances, macos detects the external display automatically, and you do not need to set it up. What is the maximum altitude at which a seagate hard drive will function. I disconnect it several times, restart the pc, remove the hard drive power and usb cable and nothing. Tips for getting started with the wd my book backup drive. Jul 12, 2017 chromebooks include only a small amount of internal storage. Youll find out the 12 things you must know to hook up an external hard drive. Desktop external hard drives usually run at 7200 rpm to offer all the speed they can. Dec 11, 2018 commonly when you want to connect an external hard drive to laptop or computer all you need to do is just plug and play thats it. Lacie rugged mini 4tb external hard drive portable hdd usb 3. This drive connects directly to your mac through usb. And once it is connected, how do i find it to see what is on my external hard drive.
Take control customize your backup, set drive security, run diagnostics, manage the power settings, and more from the wd smartware control center. If you buy a new external hard drive, you may notice that working between mac and pc is an often difficult but it doesnt need to be. The best external hard drives should be able to withstand an occasional drop or two. Learn how to move files between your chromebook and an external hard drive, thumbdrive or sd card. How an external hard drive can help make your mac fast. To do this, put one mac into target disk mode and connect it to a second mac.
How do i connect an external hard drive to my macbook air. Learn how to move files between your chromebook and an. Wd elements, wd my book western digital, my passport wd, we my cloud,wd my passport ultra, how to installuse 100gb. If you want to make use of your macs thunderbolt port, then this is the best external hard drive for macs. This article will provide you with additional information will hopefully answer some of your questions regarding the my book drive. Once time machine is set up, your data is backed up automatically. How to backup mac to an external hard drive 5 steps. Dec 12, 2018 drive fixer how to troubleshoot and fix external drive not detected issues on windows 10 if your pc isnt detecting an external hard drive, use this guide to resolve the issue. There isnt a lot of documentation that comes in the box with the wd my book drive. Commonly when you want to connect an external hard drive to laptop or computer all you need to do is just plug and play thats it. Find out which hard drive can help increase your storage or safely back up your mac. My book for mac is time machine ready, so you can safely and quickly back up all your data. The wd smartware is included on the hard drive itself. Interestingly, ive just unboxed my new 6tb my book, installed the wd discovery app on my mac, and the drive is already formatted to exfat.
Password protection the my book drives builtin 256bit aes hardware encryption with wd security tools helps keep your content private and safe. Plug in the hdmivga cable into the usbc to hdmivga adapter, and unlock your macbook pro. This actually lets you boot the os x system from one mac on another mac. With target disk mode, you can treat a macs internal drive as an external drive and boot from it, just as youd boot from a typical external drive. Use external storage devices with mac apple support. How to format so its compatible with windows y mac osx, format external hard drive journaled or exfat. Oct 18, 2019 when you connect an external drive directly to your mac, you might be asked if you want to use the drive to back up with time machine. With a my book external hard drive, produced by western digital, you can store large amounts of digital data, including music, videos and photos. How to connect an external display to your macbook pro.
Target disk mode works with macs, so youll need two macs for this. A workhorse external drive for the mac with a long history of performance and reliability. Get a free addition to setapp the ultimate mac user book. Jan 09, 20 problem with external hard drive and surface so i have a wd my passport external hard drive with a password set on it, when i go under my computer on the surface and try to unlock it, im told that i cant do so on my pc and to look at the app store. While drives are sold as plugandplay, formatting prior to use will give you optimal performance and. Mar 07, 2017 how to use an external drive with a chromebook. How to fix an external disk drive that wont show up on a mac. There are many ways to move files to the external drive. Next day when i turn the pc on, does not recognize any more the hard drive. To prevent the loss of all your data if your macs hard drive should suddenly bite the dust, you can connect an external hard drive to your macs usb or thunderbolt port with a cable thats typically included with the hard drive. However, many users complain their wd my passport is readonly on mac like the user below in wd community. How to install windows 10 on a mac how to back up your mac. The drive lights up but is never recognized on the new mac. Wd smartware backsup your files in a folder on the my book drive.
How to find an external drive that is not showing up on mac. You want to know how to connect an external hard drive to your apple mac. The best external drives for mac computers are undoubtably gdrive ones. Its product line covers wd my passport, wd my passport ultra, wd my book, wd my passport for mac and more. Compare portable, usb and external hard drive models for office and home and shop online. How an external hard drive can help make your mac fast again. Apple likes to ensure these are easy to find, so they also appear in the finder in the lefthand column under devices, since macs treat them the same way as. If there are any files you want to keep, copy them from you mac hard drive to another storage device, then see the following page.
Our latest edition features visual, easytouse, automatic, continuous backup software and drive lock security protection. Chromebooks include only a small amount of internal storage. Now, you can use the clone to restore files to your partitioned drive. In this article, im going to show you how to back up your mac data to an external drive. Backup plus slim portable for mac seagate support us. How do i set up a hard drive and partition in windows. Typically, external drives are formatted out of the box. Jan 17, 2020 if you are not sure how to get your hard drive connected to your macbook pro. Connect an external hard drive to mac, 12 things you need.
Just activate password protection and set your own personalized password. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Most people who upgrade their macbook s existing hard drive do so because they need extra space. I purchased an adapter so that i could plug in my external hard drive. How to open an external drive thats not showing on mac.
Alter finder preferences to show the icon of external device. If the wd my passport readonly 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 readonly wd my passport hard drive. Back up your mac with external hard drives dummies. Equipped with wd backup software for windows and apple time machine compatibility for mac, the my book desktop hard drive can back up your photos, videos, music, and documents. How to use an external drive with a chromebook cnet. Wd 3tb my book for mac desktop external hard drive usb 3. The best external hard drives for mac are simply the best and most affordable. How to clone your mac so you can use it as a backup imore. Apple likes to ensure these are easy to find, so they also appear in the finder in the lefthand column under devices, since mac s treat them the same way as. May 23, 2016 you cannot insert an additional hard disk to the mac but, you can replace your existing hard disk with a higher capacity hard disk. No one wants to box up an expensive external hard drive or even a usb flash drive to transport 4gb worth of photos to aunt martha. How to set up time machine on an external hard drive for macbook. There are many options you can choose between, such as hard drive, usb flash drive and many others.
External hard drives, thumb drives, usb drives, flash memory cards, and devices like ipod are examples of storage devices that you can connect to your mac using thunderbolt, usb, or firewire cables, or connect wirelessly using bluetooth. I cant find external drive on mac even though it used to appear on my desktop when plugged in. Most of the time, when you connect an external hard drive to your mac s usb port, you soon see it mount on the desktop. Taking advantage of this, we can move all of our hefty apps and support files over to an external drive to free up space on the builtin drive, and in short, speed up your system. In addition, you can use a my book hard drive to back up your computers internal hard drive in case of data loss. My book essential user manual about your wd drive 1 about your wd drive welcome to your my book essential external hard drive, an elegant, highcapacity storage solution for all the chapters of your di gital life. However, they support external storage devices like usb flash drives, external hard drives, and microsd cards. Learn how to connect and use external hard drives, thumb drives, and other storage devices with your mac. Discover the world of external hard drives for mac. Tips for getting started with the wd my book backup drive mikes. My microsoft surface does not recognize the external hard. My last macbook with relevant ports had no issues recognizing this hard drive last week. Western digital my book for mac 3tb external hard drive unboxing and setup on. Lacie rugged mini 5tb external hard drive portable hdd usb 3.
Whether youre using a my passport, my book or even my cloud, wd. With external hard drives, they dont need to go for the kill price to succeed, but these consolidated hard drive manufacturers and wd owns quite a few recognized hard drive brands under its umbrella. External hard drives, thumb drives, usb drives, flash memory cards, and devices like ipod are examples of storage devices that you can connect to your mac. Plug the usb cable between the computer and the drive. Most of the time, when you connect an external hard drive to your macs usb port, you soon see it mount on the desktop. Look for the seagate external drive in my computerthis pc. If you are going to use an external hard drive or an external ssd to back up your mac data, then you should start by formatting it for the macos extended file system besides a few exceptions.
If the hard drive is not showing up then go back and take another look at my connecting up an external hard drive article as there will be some tips there for you on how to find it to use your external hard drive as a backup device you will need to connect it up to the time machine software on your mac, which is really easy to do. External drives are perfect tools to store information and protect from various cyber threats. Nov 14, 2019 get a free addition to setapp the ultimate mac user book. Connecting an external hard drive to my macbook air. How to backup macbook pro to external hard drive, pro magic. Overall storage space will typically play the main role in the. Mar 18, 2020 how to prepare your external drive to use for your clone. But, if you are using macbook air then hard drive must be formatted with a file system your mac can support. How to troubleshoot and fix external drive not detected. When you connect an external drive directly to your mac, you might be asked if you want to use the drive to back up with time machine. Connect one mac to another mac and you can access its files in the finder. Why does my hard drive report less capacity than indicated on the drives label. Use an external storage device to expand your chromebooks storage or transfer files between chromebooks and other computers, including windows pcs and macs. This reduced power draw helps preserve the battery life of the mac you plug the drive into.
I took a brandspanking new wd my book 4 tb usb 3 and connected it to the my cloud drive. Here are the best mac hard drives and external storage options in 2020. An encrypted backup is accessible only to users with the password. How to manually move your data to the drive on a mac.
Symptomsthe external hard drive shows up as read only on mac, help. I could only read and view saved data on the drive. In addition to simplifying the backup process for both windows and mac computers, this hard drive features 256bit aes hardware encryption to. How to use a my book external hard drive techwalla. Problem with external hard drive and surface microsoft. Usb and thunderbolt ports connect peripherals to a computer. First we will check the basics, and from there we make sure that macos is set up to display external drives, can mount the drive, and that the drive has no errors on either the disk itself or its file structure. Mar 31, 2020 if you buy a new external hard drive, you may notice that working between mac and pc is an often difficult but it doesnt need to be. The only option presented in wd quick view is to eject the drive. I was working in my surface with the external hard drive. Most modern mac laptops except for the macbook air have a dvdr drive, which makes it easy to send up to 8. Among those external hard drive categories, wd my passport external hard drives are the most widely used ones. While drives are sold as plugandplay, formatting prior to use will give you optimal performance and compatibility with your mac. Youll need to start with a clean external hard drive in order to make a bootable drive for your cloned backup.
Hi there, do you know how to make the external hard drive accessible again when it shows as read only on mac computer. I dont know what happened and hope you can help me. Aug 27, 20 using external drives to save space on your mac. Unlike an internal drive which resides hidden inside your macbook s case an external drive is a lean, mean. Western digital 2tb elements portable external hard drive usb 3. However, if you are using a macbook pro or any mac computer, the hard drive. Best external hard drives for macs in 2020 techradar. Get setapp and receive a free copy of the ultimate mac user book. Ive trouble shooted at a basic level and im not sure what else to do.
As anybody had any success connecting a usb 3 drive in this fashion. I can see the drive in the dashboard but i get the message unable to create share with a code 1122. The wd my book for mac is our favorite external hard drive. Purchasing the best hard drive is all about what you need out of it.
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