how to format wd elements for mac and windows

Locate the Mac drive in the list of disks. This tool allows you to manage the partitions on drives connected to your computer - internal ones or external ones connected via USB. Press Windows Key + R to open the Run dialog, type diskmgmt.msc into the box, and press Enter to open it.

RELATED: Understanding Hard Drive Partitioning with Disk Managementįirst, open the Windows Disk Management tool. You’ll probably want to uninstall Java when you’re done.Įrase the Mac Partitions, Including the EFI System Partition HFSExplorer unfortunately requires you install Java to use it, but it’s the only free option here.

If you only have Windows systems available, you can use HFSExplorer to copy files from the drive onto your Windows system drive or another drive. If you have a Mac lying around, you can plug the drive into a Mac and back up the files.

Instead, we’ll just be wiping the drive and starting over from scratch. This process won’t actually convert the file system. “I have a Western Digital 1TB Elements Portable external hard drive, which used to work well with my friend’s computer.First, back up the data on the Mac-formatted drive if you have anything important on it. However, I found that WD Elements not showing in my computer File Explorer after I connected it to my computer running Windows 10. That is to say, I am unable to access my WD hard drive from File Explorer. Is there anyone who encountered a similar issue? Can you give me some advice? Thanks for your help!”ĭifferent solutions under different situations But I would like to use it to store some files. In fact, it is not rare that computer users are bothered by WD hard drive not recognized in Windows 10 issue, which can be caused by various events like incompatible file system, invalid USB port, outdated driver, and so on. ▶ Method 1: Initialize WD hard drive in Disk Management You can take measures described in the following text to enable your WD hard drive to show up properly in Windows 10/11 File Explorer. This way applied to the situation that your WD hard drive shows as not initialized disk when you open Disk Management. Locate the WD hard drive that going to be initialized and right-click it.Ģ. Choose “Initialize Disk” and pick one partition system between MBR and GPT.ģ. Right-click the disk and choose “Create New Simple Volume”. Then, you can do what New Simple Volume Wizard prompts. »Initializing WD hard drive will lead to data loss. If you don’t care about the data on WD hard drive, you can apply this way. ▶ Method 2: Assign drive letter to WD hard drive partition »It is possible that you are unable to initialize hard drive and receive errors like the device is not ready. WD external hard drive not showing up in Windows 10/11 File Explorer could be the result of drive letter missing or conflict.

How to format wd elements for mac and windows