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.
- Is My Passport Hard Drive Compatible With Macos
- Is My Passport Hard Drive Compatible With Macbook Pro
- My Passport Hard Drive How To Use
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.
'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?'
Please continue reading and look for solutions for solving read-only WD My Passport on Mac problem.
Why is the WD My Passport read-only?
A: Answer The WD My Passport 2TB external drive is compatible with both Windows and Mac OS(s) Windows: 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 MAC: Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan and Sierra The WD Passport 2TB external drive back up software is only compatible with Windows: 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 So you should be ok. This rugged hard disk drive uses a USB-C interface, is compatible with Mac and Windows PCs and is water and shock-resistant. A 4TB Thunderbolt with USB-C version is available for.
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:
- 1. Your WD My Passport hard drive is NTFS-formatted
- 2. You have read-only permission to access WD My Passport hard drive
- 3. Your WD My Passport hard drive is corrupted
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:
- 1. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utilities.
- 2. Click the WD My Passport (you may have changed its name) at the left sidebar. The file system information will be displayed on the right.
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. How to take a photo 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 Big Sur 11/10.15/10.14/10.13.
Three simple steps to read and write to NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drive easily.
- 1. Download, install, and launch iBoysoft NTFS for Mac on your Mac. Then, restart your Mac.
- 2. Connect the NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drive to Mac.
- 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:
- 1. Right-click the WD My Passport disk icon at the desktop and choose 'Get Info'.
- 2. Check the information at the bottom under the Sharing & Permissions tab.
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:
- 1. Click on the lock icon at the right corner in the Get Info window.
- 2. Enter password if asked.
- 3. Check the 'Ignore ownership on this volume'.
- 4. Click on the gear button and choose 'Apply to enclosed items…'.
- 5. Click 'OK' when you are asked to confirm the operation.
- 6. Click the 'Read Only' in Privilege column and select 'Read & Write'.
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:
- Fix the read-only WD My Passport in Disk Utility on Mac
- Reformat the WD My Passport on Mac
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:
- 1. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
- 2. Select the WD My Passport drive at the left sidebar.
- 3. Click on First Aid and click on 'Run' to repair the WD My Passport drive.
- 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.
- 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 for free with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
- 2. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
- 3. Click on the WD My Passport drive at the left sidebar.
- 4. Check Click 'Erase' on the top of the Disk Utility window.
- 5. Input a name.
- 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.
- 7. Choose 'GUID Partition Map' as Scheme.
- 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: Is your external drive WD My Passport not showing up on your Mac? Here’s how to format a drive to be used on Mac, or repair a corrupted external hard drive. Besides, you can learn how to access the contents on WD My Passport that’s not showing up on Mac Desktop/Finder/Disk Utility.
Is My Passport Hard Drive Compatible With Macos
Normally, you will soon see the external drive WD My Passport on the desktop once it’s connected to your Mac’s USB port. Also, you can see it easily in the Finder. You can find it in the left-hand column under Devices. However, sometimes, it’s annoying that your WD My Passport external hard drive doesn’t show up in Desktop/Finder or even in Disk Utility.
And besides, there can be a risk that data on the WD My Passport external drive is lost. That means you cannot access the drive and the data on the drive directly. Here will help you trouble shoot the issues step by step. We can do the best to fix the issue that WD My Passport not showing up on Mac Desktop/Finder/Disk Utility. Or we will help you recover lost data from the damaged drive.
Why isn't My Passport drive showing up on Mac?
Is My Passport Hard Drive Compatible With Macbook Pro
There are a variety of reasons why your external hard drive, flash drive, USB drive, or SSD might not be showing up. Sometimes, your WD My Passport external drive not showing up on Mac just because the cable or port on the computer is bad. Or any other reasons will lead to the issue. We will show you the possible reasons as follows.
- Faulty USB cable or port.
- System failure.
- File system is not compatible with Mac.
- macOS update issue.
- Virus infection.
- Motherboard issue.
- WD My Passport drive damage.
How to fix a drive that won't show up on a Mac
Here we will troubleshoot the issue one bye one as follows and try to fix the issue. Then we may be able to identify the cause and fix the problem hopefully. After that, you would be able to access your WD My Passport external drive and get your data back without problem.
1. Check and change the system preferences.
One possible reason is that the system preferences are not configured correctly. Please first try to check if the system preferences are set to show mounted drives on the desktop.
1)Click on Finder in the menu at the top of the screen on Mac.
2)Choose Preferences > General, please check and ensure External Drives option is ticked.
2)Choose Preferences > General, please check and ensure External Drives option is ticked.
If the settings are configured correctly and the WD My Passport external drive is still not showing up on the desktop, please then do as follows and continue checking the issue.
2. Check the cable and port.
First, please check the ports on both the external drive case and the Mac. You can change the ports to have a try first. If it doesn’t work, then it might be the issue of the cable.
Simply, please just change a new cable to make sure the cable is not faulty. Also, if you change the cable but the issue persist. Please also check if the power is enough. If not, the external drive will also not be mounted normally. If you have a cable that splits into 2 USB connectors, please plug both connectors to your Mac to make sure it has enough power supply. If possible, you can try a USB hub/adaptor that has standalone power supply.
3. Try another Mac and then try a PC.
Sometimes, there is problem with the the Mac. So the next step is to plug your WD My Passport external drive to another Mac. If it still cannot be mounted normally on another Mac, then you will know that there is a problem with the drive.
There is another possible reason is that the format of your WD My Passport external drive is not compatible with Mac. So the next step is to try plugging the drive into a PC. If the drive can be mounted and accessed normally on the PC, then the problem is that the format of the drive is only for PC but not for Mac.
4. Check and fix the disk in Disk Utility
If after checking and you find the issues is really related to the WD My Passport external drive, then you can try to fix the drive issues in Disk Utility. Please do as follows step by step to accomplish the task.
Open Disk Utility and check the left panel to see if the WD My Passport external drive appears there. If you can see the drive in Disk Utility, please check the volume on the disk. Please choose the volume and try to mount it.
If there is no volume listed your Mac, it is not able to access the drive then. The Mount option will be greyed out.). In such a case, Disk Utility see your external disk, your options are First Aid, Erase and Restore. First Aid will check the disk for errors and then try to repair the disk if necessary. This is the option to choose for you. Click the First Aid tab and select Run.
If after running First Aid the Mac finds errors you could fix, you may see the option to Repair Disk. If you do, go ahead and run the repairs.
Note: If you still need the data on the damaged drive, please don’t choose the Restore and Erase option. It will cause further damage to the lost data on the disk. We suggest you recover the lost data first. We will share the guide about how to recover lost data later. Please keep reading on.
5. Recover lost data from not showing disk.
If there are important data on the not showing disk, you may want to recover lost data first before repairing the hard disk issue. You can try one of the best Mac data recovery applications in the market. Here we will share you one of the software and tell you how to do the recovery step by step.
TogetherShare Data Recovery for Mac is the software we suggest for you. With this easy-to-use software, you are able to recover lost data from not showing up WD My Passport external hard drive or any other types of devices, including USB key, SSD, memory card, internal hard disk, etc.
Here is a simple and quick tutorial of the software. Only a few easy steps needed, you can get back lost data from the damaged drive effectively.
Step 1. Download the software.
Please download the trial version to scan and check if it works for you before recovering data. Here is the download available for you.
TogetherShare Data Recovery for Mac
Powerful & easy-to-use data recovery software
Step 2. Connect and select the disk.
Connect the disk to the Mac first. Please run the software from Launchpad and select the WD My Passport external hard drive in the device list. Click the Scan button to continue.
Step 3. Scan the disk.
The software will scan the disk automatically. With different data recovery methods and technology, the software is able to help you check and find the lost data effectively.
Ste 4. Preview and recover data.
After the scan is finished, you will find all the found files are listed for check. Preview the files to identify the wanted files first. Then choose the files to recover to another drive.
What’s more, if you want to recover lost data in other cases - such as deleted files by accidental, reformat hard drive wrongly, deleted/lost partition, and so on - you can also try to use this software to recover the lost data. It can recover lost photos, videos, documents and other files on any digital storage devices.
6. Format the drive to fix the issue.
If your WD My Passport external hard drive is formatted using a file system that the Mac cannot read, or it is corrupted, you can try to reformat it directly to fix the issue. Of course, we suggest you follow the above tutorial about recovering data from a damaged disk to recover data first if necessary. Then you can try to reformat the drive.
Before reformatting the disk, please check and ensure to check the file system that can be read on Mac. Here's a bit of background on file formats: Mac computers, prior to Sierra, used the HFS+ file format. The systems after Sierra use Apple File System (APFS). exFAT or the older FAT32 are formats that can also be read on Mac. If you want your external hard drive to be read by Macs and PCs, you need to format it using exFAT or the older FAT32.
Here's how to reformat your drive in Disk Utility so it can be read by Mac:
1) Open Disk Utility.
2) select the disk and click Erase.
3) Choose your format, give the drive a name.
4) Click on Erase and it will then reformat the drive.
2) select the disk and click Erase.
3) Choose your format, give the drive a name.
4) Click on Erase and it will then reformat the drive.
We will also introduce another simple software to help you format the drive. It’s TS DataWiper for Mac. You can download it first to have a try.
TS DataWiper for Mac
Then run it from Launchpad, choose Disk Format. You can see a format button. Just click Format button to format the hard drive.
We suggest this tiny tool for you because it can not only format the drive, but also with this application, you can even wipe the data permanently on any drives. If you want to erase some sensitive data from your drive, you can use it to do the job. However, please note that the wiped data is no longer recoverable, so please be careful to do this.
How to make sure your drive and data is safe?
We have final suggestion to make your WD My Passport external hard drive is more safe. Also, we will do our best to make that is more of a guard against this error happening again.
Actually, most drive issues are caused when the disk is removed without ejecting it properly. To make sure that your external drive doesn’t become corrupted again in the future, please always unplug the disk properly after using it. Don’t just unplug the USB cable directly. Please first eject the external hard drive in Desktop or Finder by right clicking the disk and choose Eject. Then you can unplug the WD My Passport external hard drive manually.
Besides, please ensure to check the status of your hard drive after a long time use. If the drive is overused, some issues will happen and cause data loss. Don’t cut down power suddenly while the computer is running or the data is transferring between your devices.
No matter how, please just be careful to use your drives to avoid damage to the drive. More important, data is priceless, so please do the best as above to protect your drive and data.
My Passport Hard Drive How To Use
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