My Passport Ultra for Mac is formatted for Time Machine and ready to deliver plug-and-play storage out of the box. With WD Discovery™ software, you can also work across both Mac and PC. We provide a downloadable HFS+ driver for Windows® 10, 8.1 or 7 to enable you to read and write to your My Passport Ultra for Mac drive without reformatting. May 28, 2020 Hi Gang Im trying to Transfer Time Machine from my 1TB my passport for Mac to a new Passport ultra 4TB iMac (27-inch, Late 2012)10.14 Mojave Is there a thread you can direct me to Thanks Bob, 03:27 PM #2. WD 4TB My Passport Ultra Portable Hard Drive USB 3.0 Model WDBFTM0040BSL-WESN Silver. Dimensions: 0.83' x 3.21' x 4.33' Weight: 0.51 lb. Package Contents: My Passport Ultra Portable Storage USB-C cable with USB 3.0 adapter WD Discovery software. for WD Backup, WD Security and WD Drive Utilities Quick install guide.Internet activation required.
Summary: This guide introduces three common scenarios in which you might find your WD My Passport external hard drive read-only on Mac. If the WD My Passport read-only 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 read-only WD My passport hard drive.
Western Digital is one of the most popular hard drive manufacturers. Its product line covers WD My Passport, WD My Passport Ultra, WD My Book, WD Elements, WD My Passport for Mac and more. Among those external hard drive categories, WD My Passport external hard drives are the most widely used ones. However, many users complain their WD My Passport is read-only on Mac like the user below in WD community.
How to Setup WD My Passport Ultra 1TB on Mac? Switch on your Mac system and connect the WD My Password 1 TB drive to the system using a cable.; Make sure you have given permission for external devices to be recognized on your system. 'If yes', then the WD icon will be available in the menu bar. The next step of the setup procedure is to double-click on the.dmg file to begin the installation. WD 4TB Black My Passport for Mac Portable Hard Drive – Time Machine Ready - USB3.0 - USB Type C - WDBP6A0040BBK-WESN 4.5 out of 5 stars 7,287 1 offer from $346.99.
'I have a WD My Passport 320GB external hard drive that I am trying to hook up to my iMac for the first time. I'm running macOS 10.13. I'm extremely frustrated because this drive is in a read-only mode, and I can't figure out how to change it! Any suggestion to fix this?'
--A user from WD Community
If you are looking for solutions for solving read-only WD My Passport on Mac problem, you have come to the right place. This post will explain three common reasons why your WD My Passport is not writable and corresponding fixes.
Why is the WD My Passport read-only?
Sometimes, the WD external hard drive is read-only on Mac when you just got a brand new WD external hard drive. In other times, it suddenly became read-only after you have been using it for a while. The most common reasons for a read-only WD external hard drive, like WD My Passport, are listed below:
If you are not sure which reason has caused your WD My Passport external hard drive read-only on Mac, check the scenarios one by one. If you know the reason already, you can jump to the scenario that best describes your situation.
Scenario 1: Your WD My Passport hard drive is NTFS-formatted
For WD My Passport Ultra and WD Elements, check if the hard drive is formatted with NTFS file system. By default, macOS can mount a Windows NTFS volume or drive in read-only mode. You can view the files saved on the NTFS-formatted partition or drive but can't make any changes to them. In addition, the WD My Passport hard drive won't let you add any files to it. To check if your WD My Passport is NTFS formatted, follow the steps:
Note: You can also right-click the disk icon at the desktop and choose 'Get Info' to check the file system information.
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. But as you know, directly formatting WD Elements or My Passport on Mac causes data loss.
In fact, installing an NTFS for Mac driver is a much easier way.
Solution: Install an NTFS for Mac driver to make WD My Passport writable
The NTFS drivers for macOS - iBoysoft NTFS for Mac can help you read and write to NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drives on Mac.
iBoysoft NTFS for Mac: NTFS for Mac driver and more
iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is an NTFS disk management tool. It can manage NTFS drives with NTFS write support. It can easily and effectively mount NTFS drive on Mac automatically in read-write mode. It works with macOS 10.15/10.14/10.13/10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8.
Three simple steps to read and write to NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drive easily.
Step 1: Download, install and launch iBoysoft NTFS for Mac on your Mac.
Step 2: Connect the NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drive to Mac.
Step 3: Write to NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drive after the drive has been mounted successfully.
Besides an NTFS mounter, iBoysoft NTFS for Mac can also open, unmount, eject, erase and repair NTFS volumes. It can list all attached external disks including USB flash drives, SD cards, memory sticks, external hard drives and so on. You can open them with one click. Moreover, you can reformat them to NTFS with iBoysoft NTFS for Mac if you need.
Scenario 2: You have read-only permission to access the WD My Passport hard drive
If your WD My Passport external hard drive is not formatted with NTFS but you have no write permission to it, it is probably because you have read-only permission to access the WD My Passport. Since your WD external hard drive is write-protected, all your write access is denied.
To know your permission to the WD My Passport, follow the steps below:
If you can see the message 'You can only read', then you will understand why you can't write to your WD My Passport drive.
Solution: Change read-only permission on the WD My Passport drive
Follow the instruction below to change permission on Mac so that you can access the WD My Passport again:
Step 1: https://bjpowerup335.weebly.com/blog/proper-way-to-format-a-hard-drive-for-macos. Click on the lock icon at the right corner in the Get Info window.
Step 2: Enter password if asked.
Step 3: Check the 'Ignore ownership on this volume'.
Step 4: Click on the gear button and choose 'Apply to enclosed items…'.
Step 5: Click 'OK' when you are asked to confirm the operation.
Step 6: Click the 'Read Only' in Privilege column and select 'Read & Write'.
Kies for mac el capitan update. By now, you have regained the read and write access to the WD My Passport.
Scenario 3: Your WD My Passport hard drive is corrupted
If you are sure that the read-only WD My Passport is not caused by NTFS file system nor read-only permission, another possible cause might be the disk corruption. When an external drive is corrupted, people suddenly have trouble reading or/and writing to the disk. Then you will have to fix the corrupted WD My Passport external hard drive to make it writable again. We will introduce two solutions here:
Solution 1: Fix the read-only WD My Passport in Disk Utility on Mac
This solution might help you solve the read-only external hard drive problem without formatting. You will utilize a built-in tool on Mac called Disk Utility. It is used to manage internal and external disks on Mac. There is a function called First Aid in Disk Utility that can be used to check for and repair errors on the selected disk or volume.
Here is how to fix the read-only WD My Passport in Disk Utility:
Step 1: Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
Step 2: Select the WD My Passport drive at the left sidebar.
Step 3: Click on First Aid and click on 'Run' to repair the WD My Passport drive.
Step 4: Click 'Done' after the operation completes.
If First Aid fails to repair the WD external hard drive, your disk might be seriously corrupted. You will have to reformat the WD My passport to make it not read-only.
Solution 2: Reformat the WD My Passport for Mac
Reformatting the corrupted WD My Passport drive is the ultimate solution for fixing the read only file system on Mac. Follow the steps below to know how to make the WD My Passport compatible with Mac and PC.
Step 1: Make sure you have a copy of your important files on WD My Passport hard drive, or recover lost data from the external hard drive with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
Step 2: Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
Step 3: Click on the WD My Passport drive at the left sidebar.
Step 4: Check Click 'Erase' on the top of the Disk Utility window.
Step 5: Input a name.
Step 6: Choose FAT or exFAT as format for convenience because either of them is compatible with both Windows and macOS. Then, how to format the WD My Passport for Mac exclusive use? Simply choose APFS or Mac OS Extend format in Disk Utility, which also works if you want to format WD Elements for Mac.
Step 7: Choose 'GUID Partition Map' as Scheme.
https://bjpowerup335.weebly.com/blog/new-skype-for-mac-catalina. Step 8: Click on 'Erase' button.
You can reconnect the WD external hard drive to Mac again to see if it is writable now.
Conclusion
The external hard drive read-only on Mac problem doesn't happen to WD external hard drives only. Any external hard drive could be write-protected on Mac. It is quite common to see other notable external hard drive brand get the same complaint like Seagate, Samsung, Toshiba, etc. When you come across the read-only disk problem on Mac, the post is always helpful.
Summary:This article will show you 8 solutions to troubleshoot the external hard drive not mounting in macOS Catalina/Mojave error and how to recover lost data from unmountable external hard drives with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
By Molly | Posted to Mac Data Recovery, updated on March 8th, 2019 |
Normally, when you plug in an external hard drive to Macs, you'll see it mounted on the desktop, in Finder and in Disk Utility. Then you can read, edit, copy and delete files on the mounted external hard drive. However, if you areunable to mount external hard drives, you cannot access your important data on this drive at all. The worst thing is that you don't even have any data backup when your external hard drive is unmountable. But now you can ease your mind, in this page, you will see 8 feasible solutions that you can try to make the external hard drive mounted in macOS Catalina/Mojave/High Sierra/Sierra.
How to fix external hard drive not mounting in macOS Catalina/Mojave issue?Solution 1: Check if the hard drive is properly plugged in.
Since the connection between your Mac and external hard drives relies on cables, loose connections could be the cause that your external hard drive is not recognized by your Mac computer.
If the unstable connection is the case, your external hard drive would not be mounted even with a slight disturbance. Sometimes the cable itself will become hot because of a faulty connection. Therefore, you need to make sure that the connection, i.e. the USB cable, is in good condition.
Solution 2: Check if the USB port/USB hub is unmatchable, damaged or lack of power.
If your external hard drive or USB flash drive is not mounted on Mac, try plugging it into another USB port or a USB hub. That's because there're USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports and they have some differences: USB 3.0 has higher transfer rates, provides more power, more bandwidth, etc. than USB 2.0. As you can see, insufficient power supply or damaged USB ports could also lead to external hard drives not mounting in macOS Catalina/Mojave/High Sierra.
To check this error, you can unplug the problematic external hard drive and plug a functional external hard drive into this USB port to see if it can be mounted normally.
Solution 3: Check if your Mac is set to show mounted drives on the desktop.
It's also possible that your Mac has alreadyrecognized the external hard drive butnot showing up on Mac desktop or Finder. Under such circumstance, you should go to Finder > Preferences > General and make sure the 'External disks' option is ticked. Then you'll see the external hard drive mounted on the desktop.
You can also set your Mac to show external hard drives in Finder. Go to Finder > Preferences > Sidebar and make sure the 'External disks' option under 'Locations' is ticked.
Solution 4: Check if the external hard drive is NTFS formatted.
NTFS (New Technology File System) is a proprietary file system developed by Microsoft. However, for some reasons, macOS comes with read-only support for NTFS; its disabled-by-default write support for NTFS is unstable. Even though the NTFS formatted external hard drive can show up in Disk Utility, external hard drives might not be mounting as normal.
You can go to Disk Utility and check the file system of the external hard drive is NTFS or not, if this is the case, you can back up the files on the NTFS external hard drive and format it to Mac supported file systems (APFS, HFS+ or HFS) or file systems supported by both Windows and Mac, like FAT32 and exFAT.
Nevertheless, the best phenomenon is that you can read and write NTFS both on Macs and on Windows without fuss. So, a good NTFS for Mac application will enable you to write NTFS external hard drives on macOS without reformatting.
Solution 5: Check if the external hard drive is mountable in Disk Utility.
You can check if your external hard drive is mounting in Disk Utility. If your external hard drive appears there but is not mounted, you can click the Mount icon then the external hard drive will be mounted in macOS Catalina/Mojave.
However, if the external hard drive appears in Disk Utility but is unmountable or no volumes of that external drive listed, you got both good news and bad news. Good news is that showing the external hard drive in Disk Utility means the drive has no hardware problem, while the bad news is that the file system of this drive probably is corrupted.
But don't worry, macOS has a built-in repair tool, called First Aid, to fix minor disk errors. You can try to fix the external hard drive not mounting issue with this useful program. Just go to Utilities > Disk Utility and click First Aid.
Solution 6: Fix the unmountable external hard drive with Terminal.
If your external hard drive can't be recognized by your Mac and First Aid failed to repair it, you can try to remount via Terminal by following the steps carefully as below:
1. Go to Applications > Utility > Terminal.
2. Type in diskutil list. Look for the section labeled /dev/disk_ (external, physical), remember the disk number.
3. Type indiskutil info disk_. Replace '_' with your external disk number. This is to check if your system recognizes this drive.
4. Once confirmed, type in diskutil eject disk_ to eject the external drive.
5. Physically remove the external drive and then re-plug it. Hopefully, your external hard drive will be mounted in macOS Catalina/Mojave.
Solution 7: Check if the external hard drive is corrupted.
If unfortunately, none of the above solutions worked, it's very likely that the files system of the external hard drive is corrupted or damaged too seriously to be recognized by macOS Catalina/Mojave. It could be the result of file system broken, virus attacks, improper ejection, etc. And if you have no important files on this drive, you can directly assign a new file system for this external hard drive by reformatting.
1. Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
![]()
2. Select the unmountable external hard drive and click 'Erase' on the top.
3. Provide the required information to format the drive.
4. When finished, you can mount the external hard drive in macOS Catalina/Mojave and use it again.
Solution 8: Recover lost data and reformat the unmountable external hard drive.
But what if you have invaluable data that you don't want to lose on this inaccessible external hard drive? In this case, recovering data from this drive with professional data recovery software, such asiBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac, would be your access to this unmountable external hard drive.
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is able to recover lost data fromnot mounted external hard drives in macOS Catalina/Mojave/High Sierra,recover lost data from corrupted external APFS drives,recover lost data from unreadable external hard drives,recover deleted/lost data from APFS drives, andrecover lost data from formatted APFS files, etc.
Step 1: Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on Mac.
Step 2: Launch this program. Select the unmountable hard drive and click 'Next'. The program will start scanning this drive for lost files.
Step 3: After the scanning process finishes, you can double click the found files and preview them.
Step 4: Choose what you want to get back and click 'Recover'.
Step 5: Go through the recovered files and make sure your desired files are recovered from this external hard drive successfully.
If, unfortunately, your data lost from external hard drive in macOS Catalina/Mojave, whether the disk was formatted accidentally or files were deleted mistakenly, you can recover lost data from unmountable hard drive with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac. But compared with data recovery software, the best way to escape from data loss is to back up your files on a regular basis.
Read more about Mounting a disk
Mounting a hard disk makes it accessible by the computer. This is a software process that 'activates' the disk, which makes the folders and files on the disk readable by the computer. If a hard drive is physically connected, but not mounted, the computer will not recognize it.
Even though most operating systems, such as macOS, will mount newly connected disks by default, you still can't avoid accidental problems in that the hard drive is connected through devices like cable, USB port, etc. To fix external hard drive not mounting issue, you need to exclude the errors one by one, and to avoid external hard drive not mounting on macOS Catalina/Mojave, remember to safely unmount the external disk before ejection to avoid possible file data corruption.
My Passport Ultra 4tb For Mac Os Mojave Pro![]() My Passport Ultra 4tb For Mac Os Mojave 10 14 5
Still have questions?
Comments are closed.
|
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |