So i just bought a MacBook Pro and I have been a PC user forever. This is my 1st time owning a Mac and Im not sure if this is my bad or an issue with the hard drive. So heres what happened.
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I have a 160 GB WD Passport and I had it Windows formatted originally. When I got my MacBook Pro I decided to reformat the drive to use exclusively for data transfers of large files between my MacBook and my Windows desktop PC. I'm very computer savvy and have been building PC's for years now and as far as I can tell I formatted the drive into the correct format. I used my MacBook to do the formatting and using Disk Utility I erased and reformatted the drive into FAT as thats the only format thats the utility allows that is windows compatible. After I did that I made sure the drive was partitioned correctly and all was working on the MacBook. I was able to read and write file to the drive using the MacBook with no issues.
When I went to plug the drive into my Windows PC the drive would not be recognized at all. The light on the drive turns on and just blinks on and off once every second or so. So now that you know the situation I guess the question is. Did I do something wrong? How do I fix this so the Hard Drive will be compatible on both Operating systems? If any body know the answer to this please help me because I cannot figure this out for the life of me. Thank you in advance for your help.
Hi and welcome to Discussions, sounds to me like when you reformated the harddisk with Disk Utility the GPT (GUID Partition Table) was used. Check with Disk Utility to verify. Windows can not see/use harddisk that are using GPT. If possible, reformat the harddisk with Disk Utility, use MS-DOS (=FAT32) and use the 'Options' to set the partition table to be MBR (Master Boot Record). (Caution, this deletes everything that is on that harddisk!!) That way both OSX and Windows can use the harddisk.
You are aware that with FAT32 you have a single-file size limitation of around 4GB. Regards Stefan. Apple Footer.
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Thank you Paul-nz, but no, it doesn't show up under Disk Utility. I had a similar problem several months ago with a WD My Book that I was using as my Time Machine backup. It took it several hours to appear on my desktop, but finally did and I was able to copy off my files onto this new WD My Passport, then run Disk Utility on the My Book and now it is working just fine. I bought the My Passport to copy my files from the My Book. So all my work for several years is on this My Passport.
Now I can't get the My Passport to mount even when I leave it connected to my computer overnight. I don't know how to access the files on this My Passport so I can back them up and reformat the drive. Historically, the problem has been that many USB-powered drives can't get enough power from a USB port after they begin to age. The Passport is bus-powered, getting all its power from a USB port. Not the best solution for a desktop computer. To get such a drive going again, you need one of two workabouts: 1) a powered USB hub (has its own power supply to make up the shortfall) that goes between the external drive and the computer. 2) use a 'Y' USB cable to get power from two USB ports simultaneously (such as ) Also, WD uses an odd proprietary formatting scheme that is of itself a problem area.
WD makes very good bare drives but the enclosures into which they put them to make an external drive are not very good and not particually Mac-Friendly. The formatting makes them harder to use. Once you get the files you need off the external, consider erasing and reformating it to Mac Extended Journaled using Disk Utility. That often makes the drive more reliable without having to revert to USB hubs or special cables. It gets rid of the proprietary formatting that seem to contribute to the problems.
I have three external drives. All have WD bare drives inside but none are in WD encosures. By far the best enclosures for Mac external drives are those from OWC: I have two of the desktop model shown and one of its portable version for my MacBook Pro. All three have given me superb service and zero problems. Jan 6, 2015 12:23 PM HI, I have a some what similar problem.
I am afraid the drive is in big trouble. In the middle of copying files, I accidentally unplugged it.
Now it WILL NOT MOUNT! It shows up in disk utility and passes verification and repair with flying colors. BUT it won't mount. ( I tried both the disk and its indented partition) the partition remains grayed out and I get an error when I click on the mount button.
![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/2/5/3/125397594/173342725.png)
What's worse it wont mount on my other macbook pro or even my sony vaio. On the sony it does not show up but under disk management it 'volume appears to be OK' and I dont get a chance to repair it. So am I screwed? I need the data but balk at 1000 dollar softwares that 'may' fix it.
Any suggestion? I took a look at the upgrade (I have Data Rescue 3). When you go to check out in the purchase process, you find a Data Rescue 4 flash drive ('Bootwell') added to your 'basket' for an additional $15. Any thoughts on the benefit of having the flash drive, as opposed to just running Data Rescue from another hard drive? I turned a spare 2.5' HD into a rescue drive a while back, with partitions for four OS versions, with my preferred disk utilities installed in each.
Can't see any reason to get the flash drive. The description is rather skimpy. 'Introducing Data Rescue's NEW BootWell™ Technology. BootWell™ allows you to create a special secondary startup drive that can be used to recover files from your main startup hard drive. While being booted into BootWell™ it allows you to unmount your internal hard drive and get into a booted environment so you can recover files from your main startup hard drive and avoid the added steps of creating your own bootable copy of Data Rescue.'
As discussed in this discussion, the problem is that even Disk Utility will not mount the drive. Your solution is to be able to write to an NTFS formatted drive, not to mount a drive. A NTFS formatted drive will mount on a Mac and a Mac can natively read the drive but not write to it. Dev Sebastian wrote: I found a solution for this problem after having it myself and than doing some research. Here's the link to the solution: #1: Just download the 10 day free trial and see if it'll bring back your External Hard drives. #2: If it does bring your Externals back consider buying it, I'm going to wait until my 10 day trial is over before considering to buy it. That way during the 10 days Apple might come out with an update for Ei Capitan fixing this issue.
Best, Sebastian. When I installed the Paragon NTFS for Mac and restarted my macbook the WD Passport drive seemed to mount and appeared for just a moment after logging back in and then it disappeared. Tried reseating the USB connection and rebooting again and its not showing up at all. Initially the drive mounted fine out of the box. First thing I did was reformat it in disk utility with the mac journaling and I did a full back up.
When the backup was done I couldn't unmount the drive. I had also waited for the encryption feature to finish. From what I could tell everything was done but the macbook wouldn't eject it. So I just unplugged it. Now when I plug it in it won't mount but I do get a light on the drive.
It stays solid for some number of minutes and then it goes to blinking. I've also tried using a USB hub with its own power and that made no difference. It shouldn't be a power problem if it was working before out of the box. So at the moment I don't know what to do. I just bought this thing, I did a full backup, and now it its useless.
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