Click on the Erase tab, choose your external hard drive and select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and then click Erase Then simply drag and drop your data onto your newly formatted disk. Or if you wish to be able to transfer back and forth (PC to Mac or Mac to PC), select the FAT32 format. The Volume Label field can be customized in order to give the volume a desired name, such as My Passport or WD Black 1. Check the box labeled Perform a quick format and click Next. Click Finish to begin formatting the drive.
I don't know, I'm asking you. My dad has a WD Passport Essential with it's fancy schmancy encryption. He set a password, locked the thing and forgot the password. So the drive is essentially useless. After scouring the internet for a way to recover the password, I learn that there is no way to recover the password or data on the drive, but the manual and other resources hint that there is a way to reset the drive and delete the data on it. WD apparently doesn't want people doing it though because I can't find any information on this process anywhere, and by anywhere I mean Google.
So I'm here wondering if anyone figured out how to reset this damn thing. I've taken the thing apart and have a feeling that it might relate to jumping some pins. I've sent WD this question, but I doubt I'm going to get a useful response. If I do, I'll be sure to post it here. My dad in his haste tried reformatting the drive. So I'm receiving it in possibly an odd configuration where the HD is not immediately visible in Windows, but its various utilities on it's 'virtual CD' is.
Disk manager says that the HD is write protected and apparently missing a partition table when I try to initialize the drive. Probably has to do with the encryption stuff. The various utilities won't let me do anything until I unlock the drive.
I tried WD's Datalifegaurd to see if it could do anything, but it can't seem to find the drive. It's a 750GB model. Model Number: WDBABM7500ABK-NESN On the inside the drive carries the model number WD7500KMVV. It has an SATA label, but its PCB only has a USB port and unlabeled pins. For those thinking about getting a passport: I don't know if it's been mentioned but there is a downside to the Passport's encryption. It's bricked if you forget the password unless WD's magic reset process is found. Any help will be appreciated.
![Reformat my passport for mac Reformat my passport for mac](/uploads/1/2/5/5/125562325/504706376.png)
Thanks in advance. Guys, there are 2 kinds of people looking for an answer on this forum: (1) the guy who wants to erase the data locked in the WD passport essential (2) the person who wants to recapture the data on the drive and has no idea how the damn thing got locked in the first place.
I want to know how to recapture the original data. My essential got locked without my permission. It was an accident. I have no idea how it happened. I'm tired of the tics of the WD. Their new ones are cheaper, but they come pre-formatted for either PC or Macbook.
I haven't bought one yet because I fear they're less versatile. I'm afraid they may not be readily changeable to a format Ms-Dos (FAT), the interchangeable format I use to move common file ending files back and forth between PCs and Macs. The greyed out area on the disk utility says my WD Passport is Mac OS Extended (journaled), whatever that means.
I want to restore this disk for interchangeable use of common file ending files between PCs and Macs. Anyone have any answers for me with a view toward achieving this? Please post if you do?
Yes you can repartition without losing data. Using Disk Utility, perform a repair on your drive to make sure the drive is free of errors (even better, use Diskwarrior if you have a copy). Then unmount your drive but don't eject it.
Select the drive in the left hand pane, then go to the Partition tab. On the Partition Layout section click on the '+' to create a new partition. Optionally you can specify the new partition size. When you're happy hit the Apply button and wait.
If you've absolutely critical data on the drive make sure you have a backup (which you should have anyway) but I've done this many times without an issue. The reason that everyone always harps on creating a backup before running any kind of partition command is that if something goes wrong, then generally every thing is gone. I have preformed this kind of operation on PC's many times, generally it has gone well, but the two times over the years the process glitched the partition table was destroyed. Once I was able to purchase a low level sector recovery tool to get files out that way, the other I had backups and just relied on them. If you don't have any backups, and you preform a partition re-size, and there is a problem, you better hope for either backups, or plan on paying for data recovery.