How can i reformat my wd 2 tb external hd from ntfs to fat32. Hardware all howtos win 10 win 8 win 7 win xp win vista win 9598 win nt win me win 2000 win 2012 win 2008 win 2003 win 3. So i opened windows disk management to take a look, and disk management showed two drives in the wd box. Converting my book essential fat32 to ntfs wd community. External drive failure wd my book essential 2tb my workaround duration. How to use wd quick formatter to format external drive in. Reformat and repartition the external drive are also available. Jan 12, 2011 i have a wd passport that my tv formatted to udf now i would need to reformat it back to ntfs. For a hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a pc and mac computer, it must be formatted to exfat or fat32 file format. There is widespread support for fat32 across different operating systems and devices. The software immediately recognized the drive and i was able to run a ntfs format that completed in less than a minute. Aug 31, 2012 so this is how i managed it finally to format my wd my book essential 3 tb to fat32 format at a cluster size of 512 b. Western digital has taken a more is better approach with its latest iteration of the wd my book essential hdd.
Western digital wdbabt0010hbk my book av dvr expander user manual. Select the file system from the dropdown list, which is available in the format expansion and choose either exfat or fat32. The secret to reformatting a western digital wd 1tb my. Its a strong midtier drive to keep your files safe, and sometimes thats all you need. Ntfs partitions have a file size limit only limited by the partition size. It is debatable how quick and reliable especially when disconnected without ejecting are logic would say refs wins but in my experience ntfs wins. After full reformat of external drive wd mybook to ntfs.
On the pc, use the western digital disk management utility to format the drive as raid1. Reformatting the drive installing the drive on windows computers. The top model features a single 4tb drive and a usb3. After some searching i found the latest disk utility from western digital, acronis true image wd edition. Oct 15, 2015 is there any possibility to reformat wd my book live exact model. Overwrite exfat format of 8tb external drive with ntfs. Or is there another process i could do that doesnt involve partitioning it out. It has already got some media files on it but plenty of free space about 75% free. Is there any possibility to reformat wd my book live exact model.
Many of you may use this piece of software to back up important files automatically and regularly into wd external hard drive to ensure data security. If your product is not listed above, please visit the product page. View and download western digital wdbabt0010hbk my book av dvr expander user manual online. Here are the steps be prepared to wipe the drive clean. This is a file system limitation that affects both macs and. Full solutions to no writable partition found in wd smartware. Formatting external drive wd my book 8tb from exfat to ntfs. You could save the file to an ntfs partition or a dvd.
Try wd advanced format utility alternative easeus external hard drive formatter to format disk while wd external drive format failed with wd quick formatter tool. How to convert a udf external drive to a fat32 or ntfs fmt. Formatting nfts to fat32 external drives for pc wd. The only downside to ntfs on an external drive is that on some external drives, converting to ntfs makes the drive read only, so check the drives documentation either print or online to see what will or wont happen by converting.
My understanding is that exfat was designed specifically for usb drives, but that windows ntfs offers greater reliability. Meanwhile, when i tried using the xp computer to reformat it, the drop down menus, that. How to reformat western digital element 1 tb solved ccm. In the popup window, you can find the installation path next to start in, and then paste the path to cmd. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. In this case, we are unable to create, copy, transfer, edit or delete files on our wd external hard drive. Then i realized that xp cant read exfat, so i wanted to reformat it to ntfs.
Jun 28, 2019 besides, it supports most types of wd hard drives except for new my passport, new my book, and 8tb my book drives with 8 character serial numbers these devices should use wd backup software. Ntfs is less supported in nonwindows devices like android phones, routers, maybe some nases, etc. Go the disk management and attempt to format the partition from there. I had to reformat the drive to ntfsthe wd my book 8tb external usb 3. In the file system drop down you should now see the option. Download wd quick formatter to reformat wd external hard drive to ntfs, fat32, etc in windows 1087. Now click ok, go to my computer, right click on the usb drive and choose format. Transferring files between the two operating systems is less of a hassle, since you dont have to constantly back up and reformat each time. Locate the icon assigned to western digital my passport drive and rightclick the connected drive icon and click format in the popup menu. Can i format the hdd from my wd passport wireless without. If thats what you want to use the drive for then by all means convert it to ntfs.
Unable to set wd my book 3tb external drive as backup disk. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system answer id 291 a western digital external hard drive can be used on both windows and mac osx. It should delete an internal operating system on the drive as well. My book 8tb exfat formatting question wd community.
This enables writing caching in windows and therefore allows you to format it as ntfs. I was also unable to format the drive on my vista computer. You just have to format it, and youll explore the numerous ways you can do that right here. I have a 1tb my book essential that used fat32 file system and then i tried to convert it to ntfs and not sure if its converting or if i messed it up. This is useful if a drive is being used under both operating system os to move files between the two environments. When you buy a western digital wd 1 tb my book external hard drive, they usually come formatted for windows using fat32. The exfat file system is not specific for wd but is used so that the drive can be used for readwrite processes on both os windows and os x, with large files. I tried reformatting it through the command prompt on a computer that had winxp but it didnt reformat because of the size. I have a question about formatting drives for maximum compatibility between a macbook pro and 2 pcs one running vista 64 bit and the other running windows 7. Download wd quick formatter to format external drive in. How to fix wd external hard drive is readonly on a mac. The wd mybook, 8 tb, should it better be formated in exfat or ntfs. But sometimes, our wd external hard drive like wd my passport becomes readonly when we plug it into mac.
Switch to raid1 configuration for redundancy and to mirror data on the wd red drives inside. Unfortunately, win7 nor xp will no longer recognize it after formatting when it is attached to a usb. Sep 29, 2010 i recently bought a wd my book essential 2 tb external hd but its formatted in ntfs and i need it in fat32 so it can be recognized by the ps3. Oct 17, 2010 i have a wd mybookworld 2tb network drive that was purchased and installed on my network as a backup drive for windows computers. Using the xp disk management utility under computer management, select the disk, initialize the drive, but dont format. Dec 25, 2016 macs can only read but not write to a ntfs file system. To be perfectly honest, my decision was precisely because of the circumstances you describe, knowing the differences between fat32 and ntfs. Wd external hard drive is favored by large number of customers due to its good performance, reliability and durability. By default, wd quick formatter will format the drive to fat32 or ntfs and after formatting, a partition used to optimize the performance of the drive will be left. So this is how i managed it finally to format my wd my book essential 3 tb to fat32 format at a cluster size of 512 b. If so, should i use windows 10 disk management or the wd quick formatter.
The wd drive utility lets you reformat, diagnose the drive condition, and manage the drives power use. I had to reformat the drive to ntfs the wd my book 8tb external usb 3. To get around this problem or prevent it from being a problem later you could format the drive as an ntfs partition. Western digital my book live 3tb wdbacg0030hcheesn 3. Be sure you selected the correct drive icon for the my passport external drive. If windows doesnt recognize the partition type then simply delete the partition and recreate it. There is a video after that you can watch as extra help. Format new external drive as an ntfs partition it services. Select ntfs for the file system type and check the quick format checkbox.
I recently bought a wd my book essential 2 tb external hd but its formatted in ntfs and i need it in fat32 so it can be recognized by the ps3. Jan 31, 2019 to learn installation path, right click the desktop shortcut of aomei partition assistant and select properties. All data on the external hard drive will be erased by this procedure. Whether you need to know how to format wd my passport for your mac. How to format and use wd my passport for mac just like on windows, your wd passport can be used on your mac too. Windows users dont need to do much other than plug in the wd passport to use it, but for mac, its not as straightforward as that. The western digital my book studio gives you a capacious 4tb drive to match your aluminum imac or mac mini. To use the drive on computers with a windows operating system, you must first reformat it to a single ntsf partition. Right click on the drive icon for the external drive and choose format from the menu. Should i use fat32 when formatting an external hdd wd. 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. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. I want to reformat my 1tb ntfs drive to a format that can be read by linux and windows but wont cause freezing issues when copying files to and from it on ubuntu.
The wd quick formatter is only for external drives, like wd my passport ultra. Jan 23, 2009 ntfs will give you one big advantage for backups over fat32, it will allow you to create files over 4gb in size which you will likely encounter when trying to do the backup. Fat32 has several limitations, including a 4 gb perfile limit. Aug 14, 2017 i just purchased the new model my book 4 tb usb 3. The light is runningblinking and i can hear it working but not sure if its actually doing anything its ben doing this for a few hours now and im starting to get worried. Ntfs will allow you to save individual files larger than 4 gb and does offer better file checking to avoid damaged files. Wdbabt0010hbk my book av dvr expander enclosure pdf manual download.
Even in my internal mount, the wd green still exhibits the 5second spinup routine if left idle for too long. Number 1 format it as ntfs, number 2 format as exfat. I want to use time machine software to backup my macs. Dec 08, 2011 i have a wd mybook home external drive that is not detected by windows 7or xp. Mar 09, 2008 ntfs will allow you to save individual files larger than 4 gb and does offer better file checking to avoid damaged files. And what program should i use to repair the file system, there seems to be anything wrong, also the same drive is shown twice, as f.
I have a wd passport that my tv formatted to udf now i would need to reformat it back to ntfs. At this point, i can only conclude that this characteristic is the default for the wd green and by extension, the my book. The conversion command works, most of the time, but most of the time bit me on the rear end once when i corrupted a drive doing it. Macs can only read but not write to a ntfs file system. The drive was not recognized by my dell laptop running windows xp.
This is at least in part because the secure digital memory. If you ever encounter a situation that you need to recover your data from a dead with power hard drive, use data rescue 3 external drive recovery. Youll find below the ten quick steps, using words and pictures. I currently have a corrupted ntfs external drive that i want to reformat in a format that can be read by linux and windows suggestions. Ntfs will give you one big advantage for backups over fat32, it will allow you to create files over 4gb in size which you will likely encounter when trying to do the backup. But now, even that computer with vista keeps saying that its not formatted when i click on that drive under my computer. Raid0 mode provides superfast performance with up to 360mbs2 sequential read speeds using the usb typec port. Before you start the format, you will need to eject the usb drive and then plug it back in. How can i reformat my wd 2 tb external hd from ntfs to. I have a wd mybook home external drive that is not detected by windows 7or xp. And should i rather repair it or quick format it or better full format. A usb typec port with all cables included makes it universally compatible supports.
So i reformated it under windows to try again, and after the reformat ntfs, it now showed only 2tb. So if you want your external hard drive to be backward compatible with both oss then you need to reformat it with fat32 or exfat. In fact, installing an ntfs for mac driver is a much easier way. To learn installation path, right click the desktop shortcut of aomei partition assistant and select properties. My book external hard drive western digital wd it is formated in exfat. Jul 26, 2017 the wd quick formatter is only for external drives, like wd my passport ultra.
1560 368 190 155 921 19 885 671 822 1519 1213 761 1605 784 1207 393 915 1055 140 698 1326 897 783 595 1163 1170 66 198 321 402 1412 258 610 182 394 722 494 279