You can copy and paste the files anywhere you like. From a logistic point of view, might be easier to create a new folder on the drive with date or description of what sort of files they are. Those pre-populated directories are where Western Digital drive tools and applications are located. WD My Passport Ultra 1TB drive not detected on PC, how to fix it 'I have a WD My Passport Ultra 1TB portable drive for storing movies, photos, and important personal files. This morning, WD My Passport suddenly became inaccessible, couldn't be detected by my computer.
This answer explains how to use a WD external drive (that includes the WD SmartWare software), without using WD SmartWare on Windows or Mac OSX.END is included with many WD external drives. This software is completely optional and does not need to be installed in order to use the drive.
Important Notes:. The Virtual CD (VCD) included on these drives can only be disabled and cannot be removed from the drive. For assistance disabling the VCD please see. WD SmartWare is required in order to use the label included on some drives such as the.
Please see for assistance using the label. Once the label is set you can uninstall WD SmartWare. If WD SmartWare is already installed and you would like to remove it, please see. There are several different ways you can use the drive without WD SmartWare:. You can use the drive without any backup software.
Both Windows and Mac OSX allow you to move files to and from the drive without any special software installed. Please see or for assistance using the drive in this manner. You can use the drive with Windows Backup (on Windows) or Time Machine (on a Mac). If you are having trouble using Windows Backup please see. Please see for assistance using Time Machine. Your WD drive should work with most third-party backup applications.
Please contact the manufacturer of the software you would like to use prior to purchase to ensure it is compatible with your model drive. Western Digital does not keep a list of compatible backup software and would not be able to confirm compatibility with any specific third party backup software. When using these applications be sure to point your backup to the actual external drive and not the Virtual CD (VCD). If your drive is locked, third party applications will not see the drive until the password is entered. In case the answer did not answer your question, you can always visit the for help from WD users.
I’m trying to reformat my External using Disk Utility, I’ve looked at videos on YouTube and I’m pretty sure in those videos they have an older OS for Mac. I currently have El Capitan, installed the update about a week ago. Did they change the way Disk Utility looks once you open it? I haven’t used it in awhile so I cant remember what it looks like, but it did look like the ones in the videos I watched.
When I open it, the “partition” option is there, but won’t let me click on it. I can only hit erase and go from there. Is it safe to erase everything on the external and reformat it that way? I am on El Capitan Beta 10.11.2 and I still have the same problem with My Passport for Mac. When I connect it the light blinks for a few seconds and the disk is shown in Finder but after a few seconds it goes off and no way to have it to life againWD support was totally useless and ended after a few issues in replacing my Passport HD which after having received the replacement did not solve at all the problem. How is it possible that WD does not have the correct driver issued for Mac users of El Capitan???
Anybody has any further suggestion?? Tnx Help Please!!! I’m telling you, I had the same problem. Pulling my hair out, but its that ■■■■ “WD drive utilities” application and all its evil parts 1)in User and groups/startup itemsDELETE IT!!, 2)then again another bloodsucker in Library/launch daemons foldervaporize anything “WD” immediately, in fact I’d uninstall the bloody app asap. It wouldn’t let me reformat the WD drive (using disk utility) nor would the duo’s raid disks that I finally formatted stay mounted on the desktopthe 45 sec peekaboo. Delete trash and uninstall this ■■■■.
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Completely solved the problem. I gotta credit another poster on these forums, but had to register and lost the page he or she was ongrrrr. I have a MY BOOK thunderbolt duo and El Capitan OS 10.11.1 CURSES TO YOU WD for not even mentioning this easy fix due to your vile ■■■■-poor app. Again the solution is to realize the conflict of Apple’s “Disk Utility” and the western digital crapware. To encrypt the WD drives I’ve had to use both apps but sequentially. For example, Just got a 4TB WD passport pro and outa the box it was in striped mode. Tried to erase and disk utility fails.
Therefore, I quit disk utility, installed the WD crapware, erased the drive using OS X-ext journaled or whatever it is. I also had to partition under raid management the 4 TB drive into two 2TB drives. Don’t ask me why this worked but it does. So once i’ve used the wd crapware to break drive up into 2 drives and reformatted (erased), i then completely uninstall the WD crapware, and extricate 2 remnants that don’t uninstall:. system/library/LaunchDaemons/and delete anything that says WD in the name.
go up to apple bar upper left corner and click down to system preferences/Users & Groups/startup items/and select the WD item and delete by using the minus sign at bottom of that window. Then restart computer so they now have been unloaded permanently. Drive images will now appear and stay! The drives can now be encrypted using extended/journaled.
Again, don’t ask me why this worked, but it does. And thats several hours of trial n error. What a joke and what a waste of time. Reminds me of the old hard drive days where drives wouldn’t mount and you had to be a power user with knowledge of how to use command lines and mess around with primitive jumpers on the back of the drive. Can’t believe this is still an issue in this day n age. Hi All, I bought a WD My Passport Ultra.
I was running on pre-El Capitan, I wanted to use Time Machine back up to use on a new macI formatted the Drive (using WD Software, which I had to upgrade) before I upgraded to El Capitan, to make sure the it worked. Worked like a charm. I upgraded to El Capitan and the Drive would not work anymore, it would not last over a minute before disconnecting. I visited many forums, even went out to get a USB Port as some people advised this worked.
The solution, as confirmed by Chuck E, is to get rid of the WD software once I used the uninstaller for the software and restarted for the upteenth time today it finally worked. I formatted before the upgrade, but was also able to reformat once I upgraded ( I believed I had done something wrong, so redid it). As we speak 6GB out of 320GB backed up, without failing, Good Luck. My hard lesson with Maverick is: DO NOT install any software coming with the disk, whatever the manufacturer is. Just rely on the OS Disk Utilities to do the formatting, etc. (I assume that the same thing happens again with the new El Capitan.) I would not say that the disk software is crappy.
But it may not be compatible with the future new OS. Apple may have done something that the disk manufacturers not aware of. If you do not want to run into potential problems in future OS upgrades, forget about the manufacturer’s disk software. If you have install it, uninstall it COMPLETELY. But unfortunately sometimes, you have to use the manufacturer’s disk software to change the RAID mode.
Two ways to handle it, change the mode on a computer which has an older OS. Or install the manufacturer’s disk software, change the mode and uninstall the disk software completely. IMPORTANT: backup the disk before you do anything, unless it is new. If you want some information on how to uninstall WD’s disk software, follow this long thread. I’m having the exact same issue now with a WD 2TB Elements HD Worked perfectly until I upgraded to El Cap moments ago.My Mac detects the HD,I can read all the files on it,I can copy & paste files from the WD HD to my Mac but I cannot copy/cut & paste files to the WD HD itself. I can’t even cut & paste files to my Mac.
I have 2 other very old WD 1 TB HD’s (different model) & they are working fine. Why would the upgrade only effect the WD Elements HD that I only bought months ago? I don’t have any WD software installed on my Mac,I’m running an NTFS driver so there shouldn’t be any compatibility issues. I would appreciate any feedback.