How to Reformat My Passport Ultra for Mac

If you're using a Western Digital (WD) My Passport Ultra external hard drive with your Mac, you might be experiencing some issues. Perhaps you've noticed that it's not compatible with OS X or that it doesn't support Time Machine backups. The problem may lie in the fact that the hard drive is formatted in a way that's not compatible with macOS.

Plus, you can't make partitions bigger than 2 TB or move files larger than 4 GB around. However, if you're like me and need to use at least a part of the hard drive from Windows PCs, you'll need to choose the MS-DOS (FAT) format. On the other hand, if you're only going to use the external hard drive with Macs or want to use it for Time Machine backups, format it in Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

When I first got my WD My Passport Ultra drive, I wasn't able to copy anything over to it (but I was able to copy from it). It turns out that the hard drive was not formatted correctly. After some troubleshooting, I discovered that the issue was with the format of the hard drive.

To fix this problem and get your WD My Passport Ultra drive running smoothly on your Mac, you'll need to reformat it in one of two formats: Journaled (for OS X only) or MS-DOS (FAT), which means it will run with both OS X and Windows.

Here's how to do it:

1. Open the Disk Utility app on your Mac.

2. Select the WD My Passport Ultra drive from the list of available disks.

3. Click the 'Erase' button and wait a few minutes while macOS erases the data on the drive and reformats it in FAT32 or ex-FAT format.

By following these steps, you'll be able to use your WD My Passport Ultra drive as a regular hard drive on your Mac. And if you're only going to use the drive with your Mac, I recommend sticking with Journaled format.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions or need further assistance.

How to reformat my passport ultra for mac