Use an external storage device to expand your chromebooks storage or transfer files between chromebooks and other computers, including windows pcs and macs. However, you may have run into a problem trying to use your western digital hard drive with multiple operating systems. How to format an sd card or usb drive on a chromebook. However, it is frustrating that you have to sacrifice storage space because you spent the extra money to get a solidstate drive instead of the cheaper hard disk.
Looking for free western digital fat32 formatting tool to format wd my passport ultra or other external hard drives to fat32 so that you can use it in both windows 7 and mac. If you want to write to ntfs formatted hard drives in mac os x, youre going to need the help of a thirdparty driver. Good afternoon, i want to use the the quick format tool to clean my my book drive. While its convenient to purchase the hard drive that will work with your computer right out of the box, most external hard drives can also be reformatted so youre not limited to your initial choice. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. I can format the drives and reuse them but it slowly starts to happen again. Select the file system you want to use and give the drive a name. External drive like wd elements, my book and my passport can be formatted to fat32 via this tool.
You need to format a hard drive if you plan on using it in windows. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Replace hard drives so, it turns out that i underestimated the amount of space i needed, so now its time to upgrade the. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive. In the format partition section, select the file system. Jul 28, 2019 how to format a usb or sd card in chrome os. Follow the path applicationsutilities and click disk utility. Thank you, you will now be redirected to comparisons. A screenshot of a formatting dialog box in windows, showing capacity, file system, how to reformat your. Our comments box is a great way for you to view other peoples feedback about products on, and add your own. If your product is not listed above, please visit the product page. Starting clean how to format new hard drive on windows 10 formatting is an essential task before starting to use a new drive, and in this guide, well show you how to do it on windows 10. During the last several years, ive used a few external drives, including a 500gb wd my passport, 32gb lexar flash drive, and a few others. New western digital 2tb my passport portable external hard drive.
How to format an external hard drive the easy way in 2020. For windows computers, go to the start menu and select windows update. Store important business or personal information with this wd my book external hard drive 2. Best external hard drive wd 10tb my book external hd. I have a western digital 1tb elements portable external hard drive, which. Macs can only read ntfsformatted hard drives by default. This 30 day period starts on the date of your first telephone contact with wd technical support. Therfore, you can connect backup plus desktop to a windows pc without formatting the hard drive. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. We would like the chance to work with you to run diagnostics and document the environment the drive is operating to help determine the root. You are responsible for the contents of your comments and any consequences that may arise as a result of them. Insert the drives usb cable into one of the thin, rectangular slots in your computers casing. Seagate branded external drives come preformatted, some for pcs. This is the most hard drive failures i have had in my career, all within the time of using windows 10.
How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. 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. Essential edition, home edition, office edition, mirror edition, studio edition, premium edition, elite edition, pro edition, av dvr live edition, and the world edition. How to reformat a mybook external hard drive on mac osx. Here are the best external hard drives for microsoft surface.
May 09, 2019 the best external hard drives for mac in 2020. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. Open the disk utility app located in examplehddapplications utilitiesdisk utility. The best external desktop drive is the wd 4tb my book desktop external hard.
Replace hard drives so, it turns out that i underestimated the amount of space i needed, so now its time to upgrade the two 2gb hds that came with the mybook duo. We recover all models of western digital drives including laptop, notebook, desktop, external and portable usb hard drives. For mac computers, go to the apple menu and select software update. Automatic backup software and 6tb of storage space on this hard drive keep essential files safe and secure. Email support is free for the entire warranty period and our extensive knowledge base is. Your my book essential drive is preformatted as a single ntfs partition for compatibility with all updated windows operating systems.
Our apologies hearing about your apparent malfunction with the my book drive and thanks for bringing this to our attention. 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. Free download western digital fat32 formatting tool for. Wd my cloud 0tb expert series ex2 ultra manufacturer refurbished by western gtechnology gdrive usb 3. Make sure mac os extended journaled is selected in the format menu for. How to recover files from wd my book external hard drive. Jul 05, 2019 dont buy the wrong external hard drive. Wd 10tb my book desktop external hard drive, usb 3. They are very reliable for a few years but after that not so much. The best external hard drives for mac in 2020 pcmag.
New external hard drive that works with windows xp wd community. Our latest edition features visual, easytouse, automatic, continuous backup software and drive lock security protection. Heres what you need to know, along with our toprated applefriendly drives. The new my book duo models feature options with up to 20tb of storage, include. My book is a series of external hard drives produced by western digital. The wd quick formatter is the recommended way to format wd external drives that use advanced format drives afds. You store your vital data in the wd my book hard drive, if you encountered the data loss, you.
Please remember that all data will be deleted from the drive, so make sure you have made a backup. Western digital today has released its newest desktop external raid drives. Ive only used wd my book external drives for years. Main difference between exfat and ntfs is that exfat drives can be read on a mac as well. Check out this western digital 10tb my book external hd unboxing and setup. Reformatting a external western digital my book drive ask different.
If youre using an imac, you may find the usb ports on the side of your keyboard or on the back of the imacs screen. How to format new hard drive on windows 10 windows central. Password protection the my book drives builtin 256bit aes hardware encryption with wd security tools helps keep your content private and safe. Oct 25, 2018 wd quick formatter, also known as wd advanced format drivers afds, is an external hard drive format utility for windows and mac, developed by western digital technologies, inc. Armed with my thumbsized peripheral i booted up my chromebook, connected my dongle and expected to have to dive into the chrome shell a command line prompt to achieve what was needed. Your backup plus desktop is formatted as ntfs for compatibility with windows out of the box.
The usb drives listed below are only the drives that netgear has tested. All wd hard drives now use 4k 4096 byte sectors and gpt guid partition table which is not compatible with windows xp 32bit. Western digital wd 1 tb my book external hard drive, they usually come formatted. The my book desktop hard drive also works great with acronis true image wd edition software to schedule full system backups.
My book external hard drive western digital wd it is formated in exfat. If you have an older model, please visit this link. For instance, users want to write data to and read data from, to do a clean installation of the windows system, to get rid of a virus or malware, to erase the data before giving the drive to someone else or throwing it away, or some other reasons. How to format an sd card or usb drive on a chromebook omg. Formatting a my book external drives for pc wd community. In this guide, well show you how to format an external hard drive so you can not only get rid of the. Password protection with hardware encryption the my book devices builtin 256bit aes hardware encryption with wd security software helps keep your content private and safe. Overwrite exfat format of 8tb external drive with ntfs. A hard drive can be used on any type of computer pc or mac. For instructions on how to format your hard drive on a mac, please reference the following links.
Western digital my book is a sleek series of western digital wd external hard drives. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. I have a 4 tb my book hard drive attached to my router so all the pcs on my network will be able to access the files. Xbox will ask you to format the drive and then if you would like to make it. How to reformat a wd external hard drive it still works. Will my usb drive work with readyshare answer netgear support. There are also no recommended hard drives that will work on their sites that relate to the product which is not great.
Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. I sent it back for a refund and will be searching for a better alternative. Jan 17, 2019 starting clean how to format new hard drive on windows 10 formatting is an essential task before starting to use a new drive, and in this guide, well show you how to do it on windows 10. Find low everyday prices and buy online for delivery or instore pickup.
Wd elements desktop and wd elements my book essential my book for mac my book studio and my book studio ii my book live and my book live duo. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. Buying and using an external hd is one thing, getting the most out of it is quite another. Read speeds up to 2000mbs to decrease load times and get you into the game faster. Windows 10 is killing my western digital hard drives since i have been using windows 10 it has slowly been killing off my western digital hard drives. Chromebooks include only a small amount of internal storage. Although mybook hard drives are capable of working with both macs and pcs, they are initially formatted for use with only the windows operating.
If you dont plan on using the drive for time machine, skip steps 5 to 11 below and continue with step 12. If you own a windows computer, the hard drive in your system is probably running the ntfs format, which stands for new technology file system. Password protection the my book drive s builtin 256bit aes hardware encryption with wd security tools helps keep your content private and safe. Nov 19, 2019 good afternoon, i want to use the the quick format tool to clean my my book drive. If you will be using multiple external hard drives on a project, youll want to make sure to keep them organized.
If your usb device is not listed below it does not mean it will not work with readyshare it just means that the usb device has not been tested by netgear. I just received my western digital 8tb easystore external hdd wdbcka0080hbknesn that costs more and is rumored to use higher quality wd red nas drives. The secret to reformatting a western digital wd 1tb my book. One question is by doing this will i need to download the software again and my other question is, is there any danger that doing this will affect my computer hard drive in any way.
While the new is originally referring to the year 1993, it has since been improved and updated over the years. But in order for the computer and drive to talk to one another, the drive has to be formatted. The only way to have a 3tb or 4tb hard drive compatible with windows xp 32bit is to purchase an old hard drive made around 2009 that uses 512 byte emulation and supports mbr master boot record partitions. The western digital my book, for example, comes formatted to ntfs, but you. This video shows you how to initialize and format a new drive. Jul 12, 2017 chromebooks include only a small amount of internal storage. The instructions in the articles below are designed to help users reformat and repartition an external drive. Buy wd 4tb my book desktop external hard drive usb 3. My book 4tb desktop hard drive with password protection and. Give the drive a descriptive name and leave the default settings. Seagate expansion desktop 10tb external hard drive hdd usb 3. People might need to format a hard drive or an external hard drive in windows 10 for various reasons. You can employ this way if your wd hard drive previously formatted. Looking to add storage, or for a smart way to back up your mac.
Obviously there is a push for iclouds but i like to have backups of my work both physical as well at out there in the ether. 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. My book is a sturdy desktop external hard drive that is available in the following storage capacities. Does anyone knowrecommend what hard drives will work with surface book. How to initialize and format a new hard drive in windows 10. To format a hard drive means to erase any information on the drive and to set up a file system so your operating system can read data from, and write data to, the drive.
The 8tb version of the western digital my book is a deep well of affordable storage for your photos, music, videos, and more. Your product includes 30 days of free telephone support during the warranty period. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. However, they support external storage devices like usb flash drives, external hard drives, and microsd cards. Will my usb drive work with readyshare answer netgear. Apr 17, 2020 western digital my book is a sleek series of western digital wd external hard drives. Open the disk utility app located in examplehddapplicationsutilitiesdisk utility. Windows 10 is killing my western digital hard drives. Its recorded in windows 10, but will work more or less the same way in windows. Using the western digital my book hard drive facilitates our lifes, you can take your favourite media data or any important files to anywhere when you need them. Well show you how to format your hard drive on windows and. This process is data destructive and cannot be undone. Fully compatible with both windows and mac operating systems, the my book is ready to be passwordprotected alongside its builtin ultrasecure 256bit aes hardware encryption tool.