I went through the procedures discussed earlier; no help. I did a SMC reset. This seemed to fix it. I could see all my HDs. Then only a few seconds later (while I was opening Firefox), I got a message saying that the disc was not properly ejected. The Passport for Mac was no longer there.

This seems to have corrected the problem - at least for the last 5 minutes. I'll feel better if it is still functioning after 48 hours. Consequently, if this is acceptable procedure, I'lll leave this thread open and report back in a couple of days. Thank you so very much for your help. Over the years, I have had a few occasions to turn to the Forum for help.

I have a program called 'Finale Songwriter 2012' that I use to write and arrange a lot of music. I've copied most of the files on my Passport to my computer but have a problem. I can't seem to find some of the files on my computer that I know I copied. How to Reformat Passport External Hard Drive From Read Only to Read and Write for use with Mac computers***IMPORTANT: WHEN YOU REFORMAT YOUR HARD DRIVE YOU WIPE IT CLEAN SO MAKE SURE TO MAKE A.

Secondly, I have two external drives that I use for both backups and storing some other stuff )like old tax returns, old photos, movies and TV series, etc.). I also have Disk Warrior, which is another premiere disk maintenance/repair program (not free), but I only use it once in a while. Still, there are times when it comes in handy.

You can exclude any folder you want. If the Exclude list is empty, all files will be backed up. You can add additional files to the WD drive outside of your Time Machine back up folder. But why would you when you're backing everything up? Thanks for your reply -- I don't think I was completely clear so I will explain again. Once I clean install Mountain Lion, I am NOT bringing back my Time Machine from here. I am doing it as a safety, first, then clean installing Mountain Lion and bringing back ONLY the folders that I need (writing, iPhoto library, iTunes, and a few miscellany).

Apple recommends by brand name. The basic idea, however, is to wipe your keys gently with something alcohol-based.

How to format your hard drive Seagate branded external drives come preformatted, some for PCs, some for Macs, and some of them have special utilities allowing them to work between both without formatting. Seagate internal drives must be formatted before use. Drives that will be bootable are formatted during the process of installing the operating system (ie, Windows or MacOS). Drives that will be used for storage can be formatted according to the instructions below. Or, if you have a drive that is formatted for a different type of computer or a drive that is not preformatted, you will need to format the drive before you can use it.

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Acc to what I understood from Western Digital, the virtual CD drive partition cannot be removed, only disabled. Most recently I downloaded a program called Hard Disk Low Level Format Tool from hddguru.com and ran it. From what I could tell, it does a true 'low level' format rather than just zeroing, which seems to be what a lot of people are calling low level formatting these days. I haven't had a chance to check the results yet.

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If your formatted hard drive is an internal drive on Windows or Mac, you need to select 'Deleted Files Recovery' to recover all files. • Select the formatted hard drive location for recovery After selecting the recovery scenario, you need to specify the location for scan. If it's your computer's hard drive formatted, you need to seach your whole computer. If it is an external devices, you should select your formatted hard drive location. • Begin to scan If quick scan cannot find your files, please go to 'All Around Recovery', it supports. • Preview and recover The 'All Around Recovery' will take you a bit long time, and you can have a cup of coffee during the time.

That action will be followed by selecting Reinstall Mac OS X. After that, you will be prompted to migrate your essential documents including photos, music, work products and other essential files from the Time Machine backup.

2) I keep all of my data, primarily photographs on a 3 TB external HD with 1.36 TB free. I back this external HD up to a second external HD daily. That other HD is also a 3 TB drive with 1TB free.

No /dev/ files are created for the drive so it cannot simply be re-partitioned. There is some info about Windows-only U3 management utilities, and but they don't seem very reliable and there are no accounts of using them on HDDs.

While underway I simply plug it in via Firewire - at home I connect it to my Airport Extreme to have it available as a network storage. Today I connected the HDD to my MacBook Pro (via firewire) and NOTHING.

Note: If an error message is received stating that Windows is unable to unmount the drive, this means that there is a program or service currently reading or writing data on the drive. Determine what program is accessing the drive and shut it down, and then try again. Please see for assistance with this error under Windows. • The listing for the drive (Disk 3 in the picture below) will say Formatting as it formats the drive.

Secondary uses are emails, search for stuff using Firefox or Safari., Occasional use of TexShop. Tracking Investments using some on-line Quicken Program.

To the best of my recollection you, Mr Cooper, have always responded and your advice has always been sound. Again thank you for your kind and generous help. Glad you were able to resolve your issue. And yes, Cory is a valuable resource, that's for certain!

Then leave us a comment below to let us know how much CleanMyMac saved you;-).

Western Digital external hard drives are useful for storing and backing up files. However, you may have run into a problem trying to use your Western Digital hard drive with multiple operating systems. This is because you must format the drive with a specific file system before using it with a computer, and Windows and Mac computers run on different file systems. The only solution to making your hard drive compatible with a different operating system is to reformat the drive. This, however, erases all of the data on the drive.

WD sells both types. If you have not yet embarked on this project, consider this: The price of hard drives has really come down since you got the one you have. You can get a new one with twice the capacity at around half the price today. For a PC, you can find a nice portable drive of 1TB capacity on sale for around $60-70. A Mac HD version will cost more, because manufacturers know Mac users are used to paying more for computer stuff (seriously!). Also, you likely do not need to erase everything on your current HD to make room for the Quicken backup.

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If you need to use a data recovery program you will also need enough free space on a hard drive to move the data over to. I have done this successfully several times. I've never had a time where I tried it and it didn't work. I have done it with western digital hard drives, never with your model of hard drive. Several people here have mentioned data recovery programs.

The bottom line is, if you don’t yet own a USB 3.0 external drive and want something that’ll make backups & security easy, this will definitely be a worthwhile purchase.

On the left-side pane, under Storage, click on Disk Management. This will load Disk Management on the right-side pane. Disk Management will proceed to display all the hard drives detected by Windows. The window may need to be maximized in order to see all the drives listed. • The lower pane will display a list of available drives. Identify the drive that needs to be partitioned and formatted.