Step 5 Thereafter, click on the “Erase” button and let the system erase everything on the drive and reformat WD elements for Mac by exFAT or FAT32 format. Step 6 Once formatting completes, you can then use your drive in Mac as a usual hard drive.

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 Format Wd Elements For Mac

Formatting your WD hard drive for PC. Below are the steps to follow when formatting the WD Drive for Mac. Connect your WD hard drive to your Windows PC; Click on the Start button and select This PC. A new Windows Explorer window opens. Right-click on the icon assigned to the WD Drive. Click on Format in the pop-up menu. WD Elements / WD easystore. This answer explains how to format a WD drive for use on Windows and macOS. Reformatting Required for Mac OS Compatibility. How to Format WD Elements for Mac? Open up Disk Utility. In Your Disk Utility Window. Click on your WD Elements Drive. Look at the Top of your Disk Utility Pop Up Window. Filling in your WD Elements Formatting Options. Click the Erase Button. Double Click on Your WD Elements Drive Icon on Your Desktop.

'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?

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. 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.

How to run dmg file in windowsyellowalley. Three simple steps to read and write to NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drive easily. Deadly boss mods download mackbclever.

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:

How To Format Wd Elements For Mac And Pc

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

How to format wd elements for mac catalina

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

How To Format A Wd Elements For Mac

How to format wd elements se for mac and pc

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:

How To Format Wd Elements For Mac Catalina

1. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
2. Select the WD My Passport drive at the left