When trying to copy files to the drive you may get prompted to do a disk clean up but this will not resolve the problem. A new western digital external drive is configured by default out of the box as a fat32 partition. If it does not, then use diskpart cleanclean all disk clean and clean all with diskpart command a third party partitioning tool like partition wizard. Jan 12, 2011 i have a wd passport that my tv formatted to udf now i would need to reformat it back to ntfs. Unfortunately, win7 nor xp will no longer recognize it after formatting when it is attached to a usb. Then type diskpart in the box and press to open command prompt. Find low everyday prices and buy online for delivery or instore pickup. How to erase wd my passport external hard drive in windows. Sounds like a massive amount but depending on what you do you would be surprised as to how much memory you can use. Choose the disk you are going to erase from the list and click next. I just bought a wd my book essential 3tb hard drive and want to use on both my mac book pro mac os x lion and my pc laptop windows 7. Thanks, i just bought a western digital my book essential 500gb about 10 minutes ago on. How to format wd my passport for mac and pc easeus. The western digital my book essential was quickly recognized by my computer running windows 7.
But unfortunately it bit the dust and i decided to get a pc. If you know someone with a mac, they can format the whole drive using the msdos partitioning scheme to format the drive in fat 32 for you. Wd elements, wd my book western digital, my passport wd, we my cloud,wd my. Format new external drive as an ntfs partition it services. I bought 2 of these 2 terrabyte western digital my book essential external drives. Western digital my book essential 2tb external usb 2.
You can do that by either connecting it to a pc or, preferably, another ps4. 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. The easiest way to format the drive to fat32 or exfat is by using macoss built. My book essential full how to reformat wd community. Rename the drive, reset its file system to fat32 or exfat. My book essential is almost full and is now not saving some of my files. What i advise you is to take the backup of the data and use the acronis wd. Format wd my passport for mac and pc with ms dos fat 32 or.
This may be a problem for larger files, such as video files, disk images, or large outlook pst files. Help in formatting external 4tb wd my book in fat32. This is unlike the reliability of the 1 terrabyte my book that i bought. Formatting nfts to fat32 external drives for pc wd. Jul 18, 2014 download wd fat32 formatter format western digital usb drives or wirefire hard disk drives to bring them to factory configurations as well as restore wd disk icon files. I know ntfs is for windows only and i know fat32 works on both windows and mac. Format an exfat external hard drive to fat32 with easeus. Ps4 external hard drive not recognized not working fixed. Aug 17, 2012 i just bought a wd my book essential 3tb hard drive and want to use on both my mac book pro mac os x lion and my pc laptop windows 7. Download wd fat32 formatter format western digital usb drives or wirefire hard disk drives to bring them to factory configurations as well as restore wd disk icon files. If the external hard drive was working flawlessly on ps4 before it stopped working, you need to confirm first it hasnt been defective. When you buy a western digital wd 1 tb my book external hard drive, they usually come formatted for windows using fat32. Aug, 20 external drive failure wd my book essential 2tb my workaround duration. If you already have an older version of wd fat32 formatter installed on your system.
Check the ssd identification information again in case of erasing. How to reformat my external hard drive for windows 10. Try formatting the drive with windows, instead of using the quick formatter. I want to use time machine software to backup my macs to the network drive.
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. 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. How to format wd external drive for mac apple community. I have a western digital my book world edition hard drive 1tb that has stopped working and i want to recover the data. Using windows disk management i get conflicting results.
If you ever need to reformat them you download a special utility from the wd website. Oct 26, 2007 fat32 formatting on mac osx i just formatted my wd my book essential 3tb external hard drive to fat32. How do i reformat my 3t wd external hard drive for windows. Now either because of time, corruption or because it may have been formatted for a mac when i plug it into my pc i cant access it. Help in formatting external 4tb wd my book in fat32 i am have a windows 10 machine and i am trying to format an external 4tb hd for ps3, ps2 and ps1 games. If it doesnt show up, or the pc recognizes it a defective device, youll need a replacement for it.
The secret to reformatting a western digital wd 1tb my. Number 1 format it as ntfs, number 2 format as exfat. Notice western digital my book essential edition 2. How can i reformat my wd 2 tb external hd from ntfs to fat32. How can i reformat my wd 2 tb external hd from ntfs to. Connect your western digital hard drive to your mac computer. This was partly due to it saving 5 backup copies of files by default. I disconnected the drive and changed the file format from fat32 to ntfs no dice. How to format an external hard drive to work with mac and pc.
I want to use time machine software to backup my macs. 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. How to format a hard drive fat32 in windows 7 1tb toshiba usb drive duration. If your product is not listed above, please visit the product page. You will need to use a 3rd party formatting software to convert the entire drive to fat 32. How to solve my wd hard drive not recognized in windows 10. Ok, try to format the whole 3tb with hp usb disk storage format tool download hp usb disk storage format tool 2. To format a western digital my passport external hard drive in exfat or fat32 format. In defense of my old pc, it rips 8gb dvd movie to internal hdd in 1520 minutes, which means 2432 gb in hour mind you, reading from dvd is slower than from hdd. The top panel shows the drive as having 32gb, the lower, where more detail is shown for each drive, shows 32. Oct 05, 2010 i have a wd mybookworld 2tb network drive that was purchased and installed on my network as a backup drive for windows computers. Ive tried toformat mywd essential hard drive in computer management and then going to format i only get ntfs and exfat. External drive failure wd my book essential 2tb my workaround duration.
Select the file system from the dropdown list, which is available in the format expansion and choose either exfat or fat32. Many thanks 5 mins searching the web after 2 hours of zero progress with disk. I run linux and reformatting my file servers drives wd g green powers only takes 2 minutes to format to my format of ext3 or one drive runs ntfs incase i ever go back to windows. Feb 26, 2012 how to format large external hard drive to fat32 i have a 500gb external hard drive that i need to use at home with my windows 7 pc and at school where i use a mac. Just plug it in, and youve got plenty of room to back up and save your valuable data, music, photos, and movies. I have a wd passport that my tv formatted to udf now i would need to reformat it back to ntfs. Help in formatting external 4tb wd my book in fat32 reddit. Because almost all of these drives are formatted with fat32, i invested the time to reformat the drive with ntfs in order to better manage the large file sizes.
You could save the file to an ntfs partition or a dvd. However i have been unable to format my external hard drvie to fat32. Formatting nfts to fat32 external drives for pc wd community. Want to format western digital portable external drive like my passport ultra to fat32 in windows. To make your western digital hard drive work on both mac and windows computers, you.
Its a strong midtier drive to keep your files safe, and sometimes thats all you need. My book duo, my book thunderbolt duo, wd blue 3d nand ssd, wd. My book essential edition user manual about your wd drive 3 about your wd drive drive format this wd device is preformatted as a single fat32 partition for compatibility with all updated windows and macintosh operating systems. How to partition and format a wd drive on windows 7, vista, xp and mac osx if you still cannot reformat, you may try writing zeroes to it, then reformat. The secret to reformatting a western digital wd 1tb my book. So long infact it might be beneficial to back up files on that drive wipe it and reformat at same time and reload. And then click on partition and select 1 partition and choose msdosfat as your format, click on apply, and thats it. I recently purchased a 4tb wd my passport external hard drive from costco. How to low level format or write zeros full erase to a wd hard drive or solid state drive. I have wd smartware installed and would like to re format my drive and continue using the smartware but be more selective as to what gets backed up.
Although both operating systems can format your drive with the fat32 system. I just read this and maybe windows cant format drives larger than 32gb into fat32. Since i use a mac, i need to reformat the hard drive in order for it to be used. How to format external hard drive to fat32 in windows. Shop western digital my book essential 2tb external usb 2. It lets you create, delete, and clone partitions in addition to formatting hard drives to chosen formats. I mainly want to use it to store pictures and music. The western digital my book studio gives you a capacious 4tb drive to match your aluminum imac or mac mini. What i advise you is to take the backup of the data and use the acronis wd edition software to format the drive to fat32.
I tried reformatting it through the command prompt on a computer that had winxp but it didnt reformat because of the size. 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. I bought it when i had windows 10 but did no like windows 10. You can format your external drives to ext4 and fat32 with synology nas. Due to the ps2 and ps1 games i am not using ntfs and webman. The first wd drive had a bad reset switch and had to go back. How do i format my wd essential hard drive to fat32.
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. Locate the icon assigned to western digital my passport drive and rightclick the connected drive icon and click format in the popup menu. This utility will format a western digital external usb or firewire hard drive back to. 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. I have not used any data recovery software other than trying. Western digital 1 tb my book essential desktop external. At the same time i purchased a 3tb wd mybook essential for use as backup for both pc and mac and generally as network storage primarily movies, music and photos. I am have a windows 10 machine and i am trying to format an external 4tb hd for ps3, ps2 and ps1 games. System utilities downloads wd fat32 formatter by western digital technologies and many more programs are available for instant and free download. I used the xp control panel to partition and reformat the disk into 2 ntfs partitions, eschewing the wd setup software. In theory, fat32 should allow for drive sizes of up to 8 tib with 32 kib clusters, however, the 3 tb hard disk drives inside your wd my book studio edition ii have 4k sectors, making a fat32 partition over 2 tib unlikely unless you can manually adjust the cluster size per disk on each drive at a time to keep the raid configuration. How do i reformat my 3t wd external hard drive for windows 10 to windows 7.
The select your wd storage device or cloud service dialog shows all of the hardware devices and cloud service accounts that you can use for a backup. Western digital external usb drives such as my passport essential, my book essential, and elements in sizes up to 1tb are all ready formatted in fat32 in such a way that the 32gb limit does not apply. How to reformat western digital element 1 tb solved ccm. Nov 14, 2017 i recently purchased a 4tb wd my passport external hard drive from costco. Wd series my book essential model wdh1u20000n performance interface usb 2. A western digital external hard drive can be used on both windows and mac. Youll be able to see the progress in the white box. Full solutions to no writable partition found in wd smartware. The fat32 file system has a maximum individual file size of 4 gb. I have a wd mybookworld 2tb network drive that was purchased and installed on my network as a backup drive for windows computers. Easeus partition master free is more than just a disk formatting tool. Make sure to back up your data before formatting the external drive. Click all tools and choose ssd secure erase wizard, or right click on the wd my passport and select ssd secure erase.
If you have switched between windows and mac, no writable wd smartware partition found problem will also happen. But before you reformat it, please recover important files in advance. Format western digital passport to fat32 with wd quick formatter. Miniaide fat 32 complains fat32 cannot be larger than 2tb. Free download western digital fat32 formatting tool for windows. I also got a 500 gigabyte my book with my computer system and although ive had problems with it, it seems to have settled down. Hini donjave this wd myboom essential 2tb and after i reformat this one, it turns into raw drive format, it doesnt open or show in the my computer section but it shows in disk management theres no size shown in my compuyter also i tried to change it to fat32 but still doesnt work. Converting my book essential fat32 to ntfs wd community. I have a wd mybook home external drive that is not detected by windows 7or xp. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. After full reformat of external drive wd mybook to ntfs. Formatting the drive from ntfs to fat32 is complicated especially with the smartware drives.