Summary: This blog post shares methods to resolve the external hard drive ‘read-only’ error on Mac. These methods involve erasing the drive, ignoring ownership, and repairing the drive.
It further guides you on Mac external hard drive recovery solution, in case the data is deleted or erased while troubleshooting the external hard drive ‘read-only’ error.
Chances of data loss are thin, but it’s better to be prepared.
So free download Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac and rest assured.
It further guides you on Mac external hard drive recovery solution, in case the data is deleted or erased while troubleshooting the external hard drive ‘read-only’ error.
Chances of data loss are thin, but it’s better to be prepared.
So free download Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac and rest assured.
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Discover the world of external hard drives for Mac. Install mac os x from usb on new hard drive. Compare portable, USB and external hard drive models for office and home and shop online. May 14, 2020 3. Repair the Drive. In case the Mac external drive has formatting errors, then do the following: Go to Finder Applications Utilities Disk Utility; Select the external drive from the sidebar and then click the First Aid tab; Click Run. When the report is. Oct 20, 2019 Go to Disk Utility and expand the external hard drive list there (step 4 above). If your My Passport drive shows up in the list go ahead and format. Use a Windows PC to format your WD My Passport drive first to ExFAT. Then try again on the Mac. Use a Mac with an older release of Mac OS to format your WD Passport drive.
Imagine, after connecting an external hard drive to your Mac, you find that you can’t save any files or folders on the drive or delete data from it. Though you’re able to copy the stored data from the Mac external drive. You are baffled with this situation and need an immediate fix for the external hard drive read-only error on Mac.
Verify the Read-Only Status of an External Hard Drive on macOS
To know the status of your external hard drive, do the following:
- Connect your external hard drive to your Mac
- Right-click the drive either from the Desktop or Finder
- From the context menu, select ‘GetInfo’
- Check the file system format of the drive
- From the bottom of the window, check whether it shows “You can only read” or “You can read and write”
If the drive is in read-only state, then you can only read data from the drive, but cannot write data on to it. So, what might be the reasons behind this read-only state? The following section describes in detail.
Reasons for an External Hard Drive ‘Read Only’ State
- MismatchedFileSystem: If your external hard drive is in the NT File System (NTFS) format, then macOS treats the drive as read-only. NTFS is the proprietary file system of Windows and is not compatible with macOS.
- PermissionSettingsIssue: If your macOS could not recognize the access permission settings for your external hard drive, then the system will either prevent access or provide read-only permission to the external hard drive.
- FormattingError: If the external hard drive is not erased correctly and has formatting errors, then macOS may mount the drive but may not allow writing data on to it.
How to Resolve Mac External Hard Drive Read-Only Error?
1. Erase the Drive
Warning: Back up the files on the Mac external hard drive before erasing it. This is critical to avoid data loss.
If the external hard drive is in NTFS format, erasing it to a macOS compatible file system format should fix the read-only issue.
Erase the external storage drive, as follows:
- Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility
- Select the external drive from the sidebar and click the Erase tab
- On the pop-up dialog box, type the name of the formatting drive
- Select APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) alongside the format option
- Click Format to initiate the formatting process
Once you have erased the external storage drive, you can connect the drive as usual to your Mac to read and write content on the drive. In case you wish to use the drive on both Windows and macOS system, then you must erase the drive in either exFAT or MS-DOS (FAT).
Also Read: How to Erase start-up drive on macOS Mojave 10.14
2. Ignore Ownership
When the read-only erroris due to unrecognized access permission settings,then do the following:
- Right-click the storage drive, and from the context menu, opt ‘Get Info’
- Expand ‘Sharing & Permissions’ and click on the lock icon
- Provide the admin password
- Select ‘Ignore ownership on this volume’ checkbox
Ignoring the ownership may solve the read-only problem with the drive.
3. Repair the Drive
In case the Mac external drive has formatting errors, then do the following:
- Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility
- Select the external drive from the sidebar and then click the First Aid tab
- Click Run. When the report is OK, click Show Details to know more about the repair. In case the report is ‘The underlying task reported failure’, try to repair the external drive again
Disk Utility will verify and repair hard drive errors and plausibly fix the read-only issue.
Also Read: Repair your macOS Mojave 10.14 Start-up Drive
While troubleshooting the Read-Onlyerror, there’s a possibility that you forgot to back up the data stored on the harddrive before erasing it or the backup doesn’t contain all the data.
In this situation, a Mac external hard drive data recovery software will help you retrieve the lost data from the erased hard drive. The following section outlines a data recovery software which helps in this particular situation.
Perform Mac External Hard Drive Recovery by Yourself
To recover erased or deleted data from the Mac external storage drive, go through the following steps:
When the softwarecompletes the recovery task, go to the specified save destination to verify therecovered data. Copy the data back to theexternal storage drive with macOS compatible formatting.
Video: Mac External Hard Drive Recovery Tutorial with Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac
Conclusion
The blog highlighted the case of Mac external hard drive read-only error, how to verify the error state, its causes, and how to fix the ‘read-only’ error.
For instance, when the external hard drive has a mismatched file system, then the best fix is to copy the content of the drive to your Mac, and then erase it by using Disk Utility. Once the drive is formatted to the macOS Mojave compatible format, you can restore the copied files from the Mac to the formatted external storage drive.
Further, if you are using the external hard drive on older Mac OS X system, then the newer macOS Mojave system may not recognize the access permission settings. So, you can try to ignore ownership of the drive to fix the read-only problem. When the drive has formatting errors, you can use Disk Utility’s First Aid to fix those errors.
While implementing these procedures, in case the data stored on the hard drive is lost and there’s no back, try a data recovery software such as Stellar Data Recovery Professional.
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It supports macOS Catalina, Mojave, and APFS, and recovers data from all leading storage drive brands.
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Summary: Let’s figure out how to format your WD Passport on macOS & Windows. In this blog post, we will walk you through the formatting process and share instructions to format an external drive on macOS & Windows.
But before you proceed, understand that formatting carries a risk of hard drive corruption and data loss. So, in case, if you had accidentally lost your data due to drive formatting or corruption, we also recommend a data recovery software that can rescue data from your HDD. Take a free trial to evaluate the software now.
But before you proceed, understand that formatting carries a risk of hard drive corruption and data loss. So, in case, if you had accidentally lost your data due to drive formatting or corruption, we also recommend a data recovery software that can rescue data from your HDD. Take a free trial to evaluate the software now.
Professional Photographers and videographers have their hands laid upon various digital devices. Usually, their arsenal includes a cutting-edge Windows 10 desktop, the latest and the magnificent MacBook Pro, DSLR & SD-Cards of-course and the trusted & loved external drives such as the WD My Passport. The role of the WD My Passport drive is crucial since the individual will leverage the portable media to safely store their collection of pictures, videos, audio, and docs. But despite the best of the best device specifications; there remains one small glitch to rectify.
We know, Macs and Windows have their native file systems such as the new APFS or HFS and the NTFS. A WD My Passport formatted with Mac file system will be a dud on the Windows and vice-versa. Thankfully, MS-DOS FAT32 and ex-FAT formats have survived to date, and these are the file system to make your WD My Passport work with a Mac and a Windows PC simultaneously. In the next 5 minutes read, you will master yourself in formatting a WD My Passport safely and in a manner best suited for sharing your digital files between a macOS and Windows OS.
To format a Western Digital My Passport external hard drive in ex-FAT or FAT32 format, you can bank on built-in applications of Mac & PC. However, while doing this, there are things you have to keep in mind and follow the correct steps. Here you will get to know about the process to format your “My passport” portable drive in FAT32 and ex-FAT file system in both Windows and Mac platforms.
In Windows Platform:
1. Connect your Western Digital My Passport hard drive to your Windows PC through the USB cable. Wait till the Windows detects the external hard drive and configure it as an expansion drive automatically.
2. Now, click the Start button and select ‘This PC’. A new Windows Explorer window opens, on the left side of the screen; you will see a list of installed drives and their drive letters.
3. Locate the icon assigned to Western Digital My Passport drive and Right-click the connected drive icon and click ‘Format’ in the pop-up menu.
4. Select the ‘File System’ from the drop-down list, which is available in the format expansion and choose either ‘ex-FAT’ or ‘FAT32’.
5. Enter a relevant name in the ‘Volume Label’ field. This name will represent your drive when you connect it with Windows Explorer or Mac and will be mentioned above the drive letter for the My Passport drive. Therefore, enter a descriptive name.
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6. Now, again select a ‘Quick Format’ option, then click ‘Start’ option, wait for a few minutes to get your drive reformatted with the FAT32 file system, so that you can use it. After successful formatting, you can directly save or move files to it like any other external hard drive.
![Passport Passport](/uploads/1/2/6/4/126455964/597628144.jpg)
In macOS / OS X Platform
- Connect your Western Digital My Passport drive to Mac computer, and let the OS detect and mount the drive for use. Now, a new hard drive icon will appear on the desktop.
- On macOS Dock, select Finder. When the Finder window opens, on the menu bar, select ‘Go’ and then ‘Utilities.’ After that, you will be able to see /Applications/Utilities folder in Finder. From the Utilities folder window, select ‘Disk Utility’ application.
- When the Disk Utility opens, choose the Western Digital hard drive icon from the sidebar.
- Click ‘Erase’ on the Disk Utility file menu. Now, the Erase dialogue window appears, here select the ‘Volume Format’ drop-down list and choose ‘MS-DOS (FAT)’ or ex-FAT File System.’ Note: ex-FAT is a better choice for formatting WD My Passport on Mac.
- Now, click the ‘Erase,’ button and wait a few minutes and let the macOS erase data on the drive and reformat it by FAT32 or ex-FAT format.
- Once formatting is done, you can use the drive in macOS or OS X as a regular hard drive.
Window’s Disk Management and Mac’s Disk Utility applications are secure platforms to erase your WD My Passport easily. You don’t require any third-party software to format your WD My Passport with FAT or ex-FAT.
Caution: Avoid Formatting your WD My Passport without Backup
![Change Change](/uploads/1/2/6/4/126455964/564962169.jpg)
We can’t rule out the possibilities of human errors resulting in the accidental formatting of the WD My Passport external drive. A silly man-made mistake will permanently remove all of the contained pictures, videos, audio files, and docs instantly from the WD My Passport. Hence, fasten your seat-belts and backup your WD My Passport before erasing. If you have already joined the data loss club unwillingly, then try running D-I-Y applications to recover data from Mac and Windows.
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Tips for Effective Formatting
- Format your Western Digital My Passport external hard drive to FAT32 or ex-FAT format so to transfer the data between a Mac and Windows system conveniently.
- There are specific third-party systems, like Digital Camcorders, and Sony PlayStation 3, which need the drives to be formatted in either FAT32 or ex-FAT format to perform read from and write operation. Check it before selecting a file format.
- Due to some limitations FAT32 format is not useful for every type of user, and also affects both Mac’s and PC’s performances. Therefore, it is better to choose ex-FAT instead.
- Ex-FAT supports maximum volume size up to 128 PiB, and its supported maximum file size is 128 PiB.
- Like FAT32, ex-FAT is not a very commonly used file system, due to which its support may vary among third-party devices.
- The corruption chances of the external drive increases, if it is used on both Mac and PC systems regularly. Therefore, it is better to take backup of your important photos and videos before sharing them between both the computers.
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