Summary: Have you received the error: 'The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer' on Mac? Don't worry, this article will focus on how to fix WD My Passport is corrupted or unreadable on Mac. To avoid the loss of important data, you'd better recover lost data from the unreadable WD My Passport with iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery.
WD My Passport external hard drive is able to work on Mac and Windows for data transferring or backup. It is popular for its auto backup and passport protection features, keeping your files and folders safe. However, there are times that the WD My Passport becomes unreadable or corrupted on Mac. You may be greeted with errors like 'The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer', which prevents you from accessing all data stored on the drive.
It's so frustrating when you meet this issue. If you are struggling to solve this issue, you will find a collection of verified troubleshooting steps.
WD Passport data recovery software is helpful when files were accidentally deleted, or a WD HDD, external HDD or SSD becomes inaccessible, corrupted, not responding and virus infected. Download the software and follow the guide to recover data from WD Passport internal or external hard drive. It's simple and easy. The Steps: How to Format WD My Passport for Mac. Whether you need to know how to Format WD My Passport For your Mac. Or you need to reformat My Passport for Mac. You follow the same steps. You’ll find below the ten quick steps, using words and pictures. There is a video after that you can watch as extra help. First power up your Mac.
Note: If you received the disk not readable error with three options: Initialize, Ignore and Eject, please don't select 'Initialize'. Initializing the drive will erase all of the data that is currently sitting on the drive, which makes it difficult to recover lost data.
Causes of WD My Passport not readable on Mac error
Let's at first take a look at the complaint from community.wd.com:
'My WD My Passport 2TB Portable External Hard Drive has suddenly become unreadable on my laptop (MacBook Pro Server with macOS 10.12 Sierra) and I have tried on a MacBook Pro 2011 running 10.13 High Sierra with the same results. Any suggestions to fix my unreadable WD drive?'
The good news is, even though you have been prompted with an error message, at least your WD My Passport drive is recognized. There are many reasons that can lead to a drive not being readable, but essentially this is because the internal file system is damaged. Some of the possible reasons for this error are described as follow:
How to fix 'WD My Passport unreadable' on Mac error?
In most cases, the issue can be repaired with a simple initialize. But this operation will remove all data stored on this drive. Are there any other ways to fix WD My Passport unreadable issue on Mac? Of course, just try these solutions one by one:
Solution 1: Re-insert the WD My Passport
The first and foremost thing is to remove the WD My Passport safely from Mac and then re-plug it into the USB port properly. If the external hard drive mounts and appears on the left sidebar of Finder, then you can access the drive. However, if the WD drive still won't mount or the error persists, continue with the next method below.
Solution 2: Check the Mac computer
The next step is to check whether your Mac machine has a problem or not. Just connect a different storage device to your Mac. If this error still pops up, the problem may refer to your Mac machine, you can restart your Mac to see if everything works well. Otherwise, if you can see the other drive in Finder, the problem is associated with the previous WD My Passport.
Solution 3: Check if the WD My Passport is encrypted
The WD My Passport for Mac corrupted or readable issue can also happen if the drive is encrypted by BitLocker. By default, the Mac computers cannot recognize a BitLocker encrypted drive, which means you are unable to read or write BitLocker encrypted drive on Mac.
You can insert the drive in a PC and then turn off the BitLocker encryption so that it can be read on Mac. In addition, you can access a BitLocker encrypted drive with the help of a third party tool.
Solution 4: Update Mac drivers
Drivers enable one or more hardware devices to communicate with the computer's operating system. If drivers are out-of-date, a variety of issues will happen such as the disk not readable error. Apple handles all system and driver updates for your system. To check if any updates are available, please do the following:
Solution 5: Repair the WD My Passport in Disk utility
Disk Utility is a built-in used to erase, format or manage internal disks and external storage devices. The most important feature of Disk Utility is First Aid, which helps detect and repair any issue with your disk. Here is how to run First Aid on your Mac to repair the unreadable WD My Passport:
Solution 6: Recover lost data and erase the WD My Passport
If the error still exists, you have no choice but erase the WD My Passport. But keep in mind that you will lose all data store on this disk. If you didn't back up important data, you should get lost data back with free Online data recovery software at first.
Step 1: Recover lost data from the unreadable WD My Password on Mac
If you are not sure which data recovery tool you can trust, iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery is highly recommended to recover lost data from the unreadable or corrupted WD My Passport. This free Mac data recovery can scan and recover lost data from unreadable SD cards, internal Macintosh hard drives, external hard drives, USB flash drives, etc. iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery provides a complete Mac data recovery solution even if your Mac won't boot/turn on, your device is failing, inaccessible or has lost a partition.
Moreover, iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery can also recover recently or permanently deleted files, recover lost data from formatted hard drives, recover lost data from unmountable hard drives, and recover lost data from inaccessible drives, etc. This software supports recovering documents, photos, videos, emails, and music files. It's fully compatible with macOS Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra 10.13/Sierra 10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.
1. Download and install iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery on Mac.
2. Launch iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery.
3. Select the unreadable WD My Passport and click 'Next' to search for lost files.
4. Preview the searching results, choose those you want and click 'Recover' to get them back.
5. Go over to ensure all lost files have been successfully restored.
Step 2: Erase the unreadable WD My Password in Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from /Applications/Utilities folder.
2. Click on View > Show All Devices in the menu bar.
3. Select the WD My Passport from the list of devices on the left pane and click the'Erase' button on the top.
4. Name your drive, select a file system format and then click 'Erase'.
Now that you've formatted the WD My Passport, the disk unreadable error will be resolved and the drive can be ready to use. Then you can copy the recovered data back.
Solution 7: Ask data recovery service for help
However, if the solutions above don't fix the WD My Passport unreadable issue for you, or your WD My Passport even won't show up on Mac, it's probably the drive has been physically damaged. In that case, you should send it to a local data recovery service or replace it with a new one.
Conclusion
Hope these solutions have helped you fix the WD My Passport corrupted or unreadable issue. If you have any question about this article, stay in touch with us for further assistance. Specifically, we'd love to hear if you have other solutions for this issue.
You have a WD My Passport portable external drive and you want to make it work on both Mac and PC.Whether it’s because you’ve a Windows PC you use at work. And when you’re home it’s easier for you to continue your work on your Mac.OrYou need to work at home because then you can watch a sick child. Or be there when the kids come home from school.Or it could be that you have both types of computers in your home. Your work and home life would run so much easier if you could just get the dang thing to work on both.The question you’re asking yourself is: Can I use my WD Passport on both Mac and PC?The answer is Yes.And in this article I aim to inspire you to do just that.Learn the few steps it takes to set up your WD My Passport for Mac and Windows. Plugging in Your WD My Passport Into Your Mac and PCBefore you start you’ll need to connect your drive.You’ll either find this super easy and straight forward. Or you may need a cable or adaptor depending on the Mac and PC you have.Your WD My Passport drive uses an external hard drive standard called USB 3.0.
You don’t need to understand the ins and outs of this standard. It’s enough to know that the different define the speed the drive works at.And the plugs used to connect the hard drive to your Mac or your Windows PC.
The connection types are also known as ports.Your WD My Passport portable drive has a USB B micro port.Its cable comes with a connection for the USB B Micro port for the hard drive. And at the other end, the end that connects to a computer has a USB A connection.That end looks like this. USB C Cable EndCheck the USB port you have on your Mac and on your Windows PCYou may have a USB A port. Or on the newer Macs and Windows PCs you may have a USB C port.
And find you’ll need an adaptor cable or device.The USB standard is thankfully backwards compatible. So as long as you have the right cable or adaptor you’ll be fine.My favorite cable and adaptor are: (Commissions Earned)1.2.Click on the above links to view on Amazon.Got the right cable for your Mac and your Windows PC.
And you may find you’ll need two different cables. But that’s fine as long as you have the cable you need in the right place at the right time. How to Make WD Passport Compatible with Mac and WindowsThe method you’ll learn uses your Mac to format your WD passport for Mac and Windows.I recommend doing it this way, as Macs can be choosy about what formats their hard drives.And throw up issues when you format the external hard drive on a Windows PC and then you use on your Mac.Setting up your WD My Passport drive on your Mac moves any of these issues out of the picture. Side Note:If you have documents, and files already on your WD My Passport drive copy them off before you start doing this.If you can’t copy them off. Or you have no room either on the Mac or your Windows PC to put them there.Then you’ll want to take a look at my article. It covers the options available when you want an external hard drive working on a Mac and PC but you can’t reformat. Because you don’t want to loose the documents on there.
Turn on Your Mac and Log In.Plug in your WD My Passport’s USB cable into its Micro USB B port. Then plug the other end into a USB port on your Mac.The WD My Passport gets its power from the Mac and the drive’s LED light will start flashing as it powers up. Look for the External Hard Drive Icon on your Desktop.Or your Mac may give you a message asking whether you would like to format the WD My Passport drive.If your Mac has asked that question select Yes.If it hasn’t you’ll see an icon on your desktop like this. WD My Passport Selecting ExFAT on Disk UitilityLeave the partition map as GUID as before.Then Select the Erase button at the bottom right of the window.Several short moments later you’re done.The WD My Passport drive is now formatted to work on both Mac and PC. And when you plug your My Passport drive into either you will be able to see the drive, read and write files.
Copy and Paste files and create folders on both Mac and PC. Ejecting your WD My Passport DriveNever just pull out your USB cable either from your Mac or your Windows PC. You need to eject the drive first.By ejecting the drive your computer can write anything it is still holding in its memory to the hard drive. And you’ll keep the risk of corrupting your files to the smallest possible.To Properly Eject the WD My Passport Drive.1.
Put your cursor over the WD My Passport Icon on the desktop.Right click. Next click on the Eject option. Right Click to Eject WD My Passport Drive2. Wait until you can’t see the Icon on the desktop.3. Then check the LED lights on your WD My Passport drive. When they stop flickering and you have a steady constant light you know the drive is idle.Then you’re free to unplug the USB cable.An Alternative Way to Eject on your Mac or for Your PCGo to the Finder Window on your Mac or the Explorer window on Windows PC. Right click on the file icon of your WD My Passport drive there.Choose Eject.Wait till the icon disappears and the flickering on the drive stops.
Then you can pull out the USB cable. Frequently Asked Questions 1. Why Didn’t My WD Passport Work on My Mac and PC?WD My Passport is sold with a file system called.A file system is how the My Passport external drive stores your all your files. Whether they are documents, photos or music on the drive.Your Mac can read NTFS. So when you plug in the drive your Mac can see the documents. And you can copy them off onto your Mac.But you can’t write any files back, update any of the documents or delete them.
This is because all those actions mean the Mac has to write to the drive and it can’t.To write to the drive you either need third party software that allows you to do that.Or you reformat the drive as I have led you through in the article. Why Can’t ‘WD Passport For Mac’ work on Windows?The version of the Western Digital external drive sold in a ‘For Mac’ guise does not work on Windows.
Not without some third party software or without reformatting. Why?Because the file system on the WD Passport For Mac external hard drive is a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. This file system is also call HFS+.
A Windows PC cannot see, read, write to that file system.To share that drive between a Mac and Windows PC you need software. Software that translates HFS+ into something the PC can understand.Or follow the steps in this article to reformat the drive to ExFAT. How to Open WD My Passport for Mac on Windows?Because WD My Passport for Mac has a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system (HFS+) written on it.
Your Windows PC can’t see, or open the drive.Your options are to use a third party software solution that sits on your windows PC. This software would allow your PC to see, read and write to the drive.You can read all about it.Or you can reformat the drive to ExFAT and freely open the WD Passport without any special software on it. Why ExFAT when Formatting WD Passport for Mac and Windows?Because both your Mac and Windows PC can read and write to.What does this mean?Copy your documents onto an ExFAT formatted WD My Passport drive.
And plug into either computer.Whether it’s your Mac and or your PC it will see those documents.And use those documents on both computers. If it’s your music collection you want to enjoy and listen to on both your Mac and PC, then you can with ExFAT.Both a Mac and a Windows PC can also read and write to formatted drives.Why didn’t I suggest that?And you may see some sites suggesting you format to FAT32.But FAT32 has a file size restriction of 4GB. OK, so you’ll likely have file sizes smaller than that.But as the older file system standard FAT32 is slow.Much slower than ExFAT.
And ExFAT can store a file up to 16 in size.These days ExFAT is the file system to choose for your modern Mac and Windows PC. Last WordsI hope I inspired you to take the 7 steps to set up your WD My Passport for your Mac and for your Windows PC. You’ll find it so much easier when you can work on your documents from either computer. See the photos you’ve stored on both or hear your favorite tunes on your Mac or PC.Don’t just read – go ahead and give it a go. It is easy use your WD My Passport for Mac and Windows in 7 steps.You’ll find other documents on the site all about your WD My Passport portable external hard drive. Why not take a look.
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March 2023
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