Formatting wd passport for mac could not un mount disk error

My point in this exercise was to see if somehow, at startup, something was getting loaded from the external drive and remaining active, preventing the unmounting of the drive. But reformatting will delete all data stored on the hard drive, and most of the time, many important files are stored on the wd my passport for mac hard drive. A couple of weeks ago, i ordered a usb 3 western digital my passport for mac 3 tb drive for time machine. With disk utility running see if it shows on the left side. After completion of installation, run the application in order to start recovery process. I open lost partition recovery wizard from mootools, it has detected the drive but shows as 0kb storage.

I started up the disk utility and tried to erase it and make it apfs, but every time i try, i get the following error. Procedure to get back data from corrupted wd passport. Is the drive shown as initialized, with drive letter and a file format. Rightclick on wd drive and choose change drive letter and paths.

When i played around with disk management originally it didnt show all the disks to the right of the tab. For a hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a pc and mac computer, it must be formatted to exfat or fat32 file format. If the unable to unmount error is triggered by first aid or formatting a nonboot partition, you may be able to fix the error by booting from the recovery partition that is included with all new versions of mac os x. However, if first aid is unable to fix wd my passport for mac hard drive not mounting error, the last solutions is to reformat the hard drive. Once you have activated the mac recovery tool you can recover as many. I mistakenly ordered the wd my passport ultra drive for windows instead of my passport for mac. Getting error message one of the volumes on the device is busy and answered by a verified mac support specialist. Command prompt is an effective formatting utility that can help you format western digital drive to fat32 on the condition that the partition is no bigger than 32gb in size, otherwise, youll receive the error. If sometimes, the disk utility may not function as desired. If it does then run disk first aid and tell it to repair.

Here is a stepbystep guide on how to format wd passport. My passport wd external hd fails to mount to desktop. Access terminal application input diskutil list line when the list of all disks appears you need to found the disk that you want to force unmount. How to get qnap to oppen a password protected external. It can be read on a windows laptop after windows automatically fixed an error. This hard drive came out of the box formatted for msdos file system. Formatting a wd my passport for a macbook air macrumors. My mac formatted western digital my passport external hd crapped out and doesnt start anyone. How to fix wd my passport for mac hard drive not mounting.

When i try to format my western digital mybook external. Unable to mount my wd my passport 1 tb in ubuntu 16. Wd passport not showing files mac forum hard drivessd. Partition wd my passport for mac, teach yourself in 10 steps. Make sure that usb boot drive is attached to the device. Erase would then function, which indicated i had fixed the issue. How to initialize wd elements hard disk if it is coming i. Wd passport hd failed to recognize, disk not initilized. Select the unmounted wd my passport for mac hard drive on the left part of the window. This is a software process that stops the macos from being able to read and write data to the disk. The other half is set up as storage and will not mount. You need to select your passport drive at the top level. Now copy that disk location devdisk2 in my case and type the following command in the terminal window. My mac g5 can read it, but i discovered that in that format i could not recover data in the event of a crash.

Click add and choose the drive letter beside assign the following drive letter click ok. Wd red drives include wds exclusive nasware technology that addresses many of the challenges a traditional desktop hard drive has in a nas system. One is set up as a time machine drive and is mounting fine. If your mac doesnt recognize it, itll offer to format it. You can have problems formatting wd passport for mac if you dont.

Hi, i have a 4tb external hard disk wd my passport, split into two partitions. Now, the erase dialogue window appears, here select the volume format dropdown list and choose msdos fat or exfat file system. Stellar data recovery professional supports the recovery of files from an external hard drive on macos catalina, mojave, high sierra and other macosos x variants. Westerndigital my passport lights up, but not detected on.

First connect corrupted wd passport to your windows system though usb. On this popup screen, choose ntfs, fat32 or exfat among listed file systems and click ok. How can i reformat a wd 400gb my book hard drive from msdos to mac os extended journaled format. The easiest way to format the drive is by using macos builtin disk utility app.

Wd works directly with our partners to test compatibility and reduce our customers guess work as to which drive is right for their nas system. Solved erase process has failed when formatting usb. My wd drive is not showing in finder but i can see it in disk utility with a grey color. Then select your actual device not the indented volume and then the erase making sure the partition map scheme is guid and format is mac os extended journaled. Then, download and install yodot hard drive recovery tool on it. Fat32 has several limitations, including a 4 gb perfile limit. Double leftclick on the mac hd, the internal mac hard drive visible on the topright corner of the desktop screen. How to force a hard drive to unmount for formatting in mac. It can happen for external usb and firewire as well as internal disks. Type sudo diskutil unmountdisk force devdiskx line. Fix and repair wd my passport ultra not detectedshowing. If you are not sure how to format your wd my passport drive take a look at my article on how to format wd passport for mac. Open disk utility not in recovery mode and change the view dropdown upper left corner to show all devices.

No go to disk utility and select the drive you want to erase. Thats why i used partition with one partition with guid with the journaled formatting. How do you tell people you are not stupid for buying a mac. The wd passport ultra was plugged into my macbook on battery. Whether you have the wd my passport for mac or have bought the ntfs version they both need to be formatted first before partitioning.

Rather than send it back, id like to format it for my macbook air. I tried opening up disk utility on my mac, but it just spins forever trying to mount the external hard drive. My passport wont format external drives for mac wd. Hit that disk and it will start the process of renaming the volume, and a simple format. If you tried to modify your boot disk by partitioning or formatting, booting from the recovery partition wont work. Some mac osx version does not know how to handle a drive that preformated as gptntfs. Disk utility would not allow me to use the erase function to re format. You can replace ntfs with exfat or fat32, if you want to use it both in windows and mac computer. Use full scan to recover data from how to format my wd my passport for mac on to windows 10 which can not be found with undelete and unformat and recover partition,after showing an error,display as raw file system,unformatted,unknown partition,unpartitioned,needs to be formatted,or the file system is not exfat, not fat32, not ntfs. From the appeared menu select the attached boot drive.

Complete the related information name, format, scheme, etc. When you unmount a disk on mac, its made inaccessible by your pc. This will not work if the error was triggered by attempting to modify the boot disk through partitions or formatting, and you will need to use the method above with a boot disk instead. Replace devdiskx with correct disk number follow with steps further to forcibly unmount the disk from your mac. If i click the partition tab, i get the spinning color wheel and. Have you ever tried to format a disk in mac os x and disk utility wont unmount the hard drive for formatting.

Access disk utility from the appeared boot menu however, if you use installer disk, go to utilities menu and click disk utility. You can force unmount a drive by running the following terminal command. How can i reformat a wd 400gb my book hard drive from ms. How to fix deep formatting problems with os x drives.

Resolve a couldnt unmount disk error in disk utility. In order to avoid data loss, you have to recover data from unmountable external hard drive as soon as possible. How to get qnap to oppen a password protected external drive. That makes perfect sense disk utility is not going to see a drive that isnt connected to the computer. I downloaded wd drive utilities software to check the hd and it passed wd checks.

Wd passport external hard drive not recognized on windows. Click the erase on the top of the disk utility window. In this situation, the only solution is to reformat the wd external hard drive. Hi, there are some reason a user often face this type of errors while connecting external hard disk to the system. Wd my passport format problem high sierr apple community. Free download western digital fat32 formatting tool for.

How to partition and format a wd drive on windows and. After tearing my hair out all evening trying to reformat this stupid drive, it turns out wd has decided to include hidden partitions that make reformatting it almost impossible. My passport wd external hd fails to mount to desktop ifixit. Wd passport ultra cant mount on mac, flashing lights, but. You cant reformat them for use as just a normal drive with linux. The file format then becomes a format that only macs. Id like to be able to use the passport with the time machine.