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So, you just bought an external hard drive or a portable SSD and wanted to use it on your Mac. But somehow, macOS doesn’t allow you to write data to the drive.
That’s all because it’s been initialized with Windows NT File System (NTFS), which is primarily for PCs. Apple Mac machines support a different file system.
In this post, I’m going to show you how to format your external drive for a Mac compatible file system i.e. Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Just follow this easy step-by-step guide and you’re all set.
Important note: If you have useful files stored on the external drive, be sure to copy or transfer them to another safe place prior to formatting. The operation will erase all data and your files will be gone for good. You could use a recovery program like Data Rescue to retrieve them, but the odds of recovery vary.
Pro tip: If your external drive has a large volume, like mine – a 2TB Seagate Expansion. I highly recommend you also create multiple partitions. I’ll also show you how to do that below.
Most External Hard Drives Are Initiated with NTFS
During the last several years, I’ve used several removable drives, including a 500GB WD My Passport, 32GB Lexar flash drive, and a few others.
Three weeks ago, I bought a brand new 2TB Seagate Expansion to backup my MacBook Pro before I updated to the latest macOS, 10.13 High Sierra (also see those High Sierra issues I encountered).
When I connected the Seagate to my Mac, the drive icon showed up like this.
When I opened it, the default content was all there. Since I wanted to use it on Mac, I clicked the blue logo with the text “Start_Here-Mac”.
It brought me to a webpage on Seagate’s site, where it clearly indicated the drive was initially set up to work with a Windows PC. If I wanted to use it with Mac OS or Time Machine backup (which is my intent), I’ll need to format the drive for my Mac.
I then right-clicked the external drive icon on Mac desktop > Get Info. It showed this format:
Format: Windows NT File System (NTFS)
What is NTFS? I’m not going to explain here; you can read more on Wikipedia. The problem is that on macOS, you can’t work with files saved on an NTFS drive unless you use a paid app Paragon NTFS for Mac.
How to Format an External Drive to Work with Mac (from NTFS to Mac OS Extended)?
Note: The tutorial and screenshots below are based on macOS Sierra 10.12.5. They might be different if your Mac has a different version.
Step 1: Open Disk Utility.
The quickest way to do this is a simple Spotlight search (click the search icon on the upper right corner), or go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
Step 2: Highlight your external drive and click “Erase”.
Make sure your drive is connected. It should show up on the left panel under “External”. Select that disk and click the “Erase” button, the one highlighted in red in the screenshot below.
Step 3: Select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” in Format.
A new window will pop up asking which file system you’d like to format the external drive to. By default, it’s the Windows NT File System (NTFS). Select the one shown below.
Pro tip: If you want to use the external drive for both Mac and PC, you can also select “ExFAT”. Learn more about the differences between these file systems from this thread.
By the way, you can also rename your external drive.
Step 4: Wait until the erasing process is complete.
For me, it took less than a minute to format my 2TB Seagate Expansion.
You can also check to see if the format was successful. Right-click on the icon for your external drive on Mac desktop, then select “Get Info”. Under “Format”, you should see text like this:
Congratulations! Now your external drive has been formatted to be fully compatible with Apple MacOS, and you can edit, read, and write files to it as you want.
How to Partition an External Hard Drive on Mac
If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive (in fact, you should for better file organization), here’s a step-by-step guide:
Step 1: Highlight your drive and click “Partition” in Disk Utility.
Open the Disk Utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Make sure you select the disk icon right under “External”. If you select the one below it, the Partition option will be greyed out and become unclickable.
Step 2: Add partitions and allocate volume for each one.
After clicking “Partition”, you’ll see this window. Located on the left is a big blue circle with the name of your external drive together with its volume size. What you need to do next is click the add “+” button to increase the number of partitions on your external disk. Then allocate the desired volume to each partition. You can do that by clicking the small white circle and dragging it around.
After that, you can rename each partition and define a file system for it.
Step 3: Confirm your operation.
Once you hit “Apply”, a new window pops up asking for your confirmation. Take a few seconds to read the text description to make sure it reflects what you intend to do, then click the “Partition” button to continue.
Step 4: Wait until it says “Operation successful.”
To check whether the operation is really successful, go to your Mac desktop. You should see multiple disk icons show up. I chose to create two partitions on my Seagate Expansion — one for backup, the other for personal use. You can find more info in this post: How to Backup Mac to an External Hard Drive.
That wraps up this tutorial article. I hope you find it helpful. As always, let me know if you have any issues during the formatting or partitioning process.
Query 1:
Help, I’m in trouble. I lost my precious data from my Western Digital 2 TB external hard drive due to accidental formatting. Does there exist a solution through which I can recover my data from my WD external hard drive? Note: I am using MacBook Pro with macOS Mojave.
Query 2:
Hello, my 2 TB WD My Passport Ultra external hard drive was not recognizable anymore when connected to my MacBook with macOS Mojave. The drive contained essential data, which I desperately want it back. I would appreciate any data recovery advice, thanks!
Solution: Comfort yourself, as there are easy & powerful techniques through which you can recover your lost data on macOS Mojave. Go through the methods mentioned in this blog to get back your precious data from the erased or unreadable WD external hard drive.
Icebreaker
Knowing your Western Digital (WD) external hard drive is essential in recovering your lost data. Your hard drive is an electromechanical non-volatile data storage device that stores data permanently on a rotating platter coated with the ferromagnetic material. The magnetic head of the WD hard drive writes or reads data to or from the platter. These data are stored in a series of logical blocks or sectors.
macOS Mojave maintains the information of these files as metadata stored in the file system of the drive. When you delete a file, macOS Mojave updates its metadata information. Also, when you erase a drive, Mojave creates a fresh file system. In both situations, data stored in the sectors remain unharmed—This gives a chance for data recovery.
Mounting an External Hard Drive
Seagate External Hard Drive Mac
WD external hard drive mounts on your macOS Mojave when you connect it to your MacBook. Mounting makes the drive available for use and is visible in Finder and Disk Utility. In case the storage drive is corrupt, the file system information is lost, which makes the hard drive un-mountable or unreadable on macOS Mojave.
The only way to create a new file system is by erasing the un-mountable/unrecognizable external hard drive with APFS or other macOS Mojave compatible file system format. Nevertheless, formatting also makes hard drive data inaccessible from macOS Mojave, and consequently, you lose those data.
Steps to Recover Lost Data
To recover lost data from your WD external hard drive, you need to deploy Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac on your MacBook running on macOS Mojave. This practical and efficient macOS Mojave compatible data recovery software provides an intuitive user interface to ease your recovery process.
Toshiba External Hard Drive Tools
The steps to recover your lost data from your WD external hard drive are as follows:
Step 1) Download the software on your Mac from Stellar’s official website.
Install the software on Macintosh HD. Now, connect your Western Digital external hard drive to your MacBook and launch the data recovery software, and from the main interface, select the type of files you want to recover and click Next;
Step 2) Choose your erased or unreadable WD external hard drive and toggle on Deep Scan.
Step 3) Click Scan, and once the scan is complete, preview the scanned files to verify
Step 4) Select the required data and click Recover. Specify the save location to another external storage drive with storage space more than or equal to your WD external drive space, and then click Save
Video: External Drive Recovery on Mojave
This is how you can recover your data from your erased or un-mountable external WD hard drive on macOS Mojave. Free download this amazing software and bring your lost data back to life.
Safeguard Data via Backup
This data loss instance must have triggered your brain to back up your Mac data. Backup does not mean, which most people comprehend, to save data to an external drive without keeping a copy on the internal drive. Backup means if you lose one the other you can use to get back your data.
Therefore, if you saved your data to an external drive and you do not want the same data on your Mac, then you need to have yet another external drive to back up. This is the sole philosophy of backup. It is advisable to create the backup of backup for business-critical data and keep the redundant backup in an offsite location.
Conclusion
The blog showcased tried and tested methodology to recover your lost data from a WD external hard drive on macOS Mojave. Try Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac to recover lost data quickly. The software is great to handle all kind of logical data loss situation from any Mac storage device—internal or external—including WD drives.