WD hard drives use drivers that are built into the operating system (OS). It is extremely rare for the built-in drivers to become damaged or corrupted. The most common reason the operating system fails to recognize a drive is that the drive is defective or damaged. This is a clear case where you need to update the drivers for your Western Digital Hard Drive. Visit the manufacturer’s website to get the correct driver for your hard drive. Link given below is for Western Digital hard drive drivers download.
External hard drives and external solid state drives come pre-formatted and ready for use. Internal HDD and internal SSD drives do not ship pre-formatted and will need to be Partitioned and formatted before being used.
Please note the instructions do not differ when formatting different capacity sizes, this is not capacity specific.
Critical: The instructions in the article below are designed to help repartition and format a hard drive. This process is Data Destructive and cannot be undone. Once the process begins, ALL THE DATA ON THE DRIVE WILL BE LOST! |
Important: Please note if this is the first time connecting an external device to a macOS, there is a Reformatting Required for Mac OS Compatibility, please see Answer ID 3879: Reformatting Required for Mac OS Compatibility. |
Western Digital does not recommend multiple partitions due to potential corruption of the Partition table. The partition table is used to display each partition within the Operating System and if this becomes corrupted it will lead to data loss. Please contact Microsoft or Apple for more support.
Select an Operating System (OS) | ||||
Windows 10 and 8.1 | Click here for Instructions | |||
Windows 7 and Windows Vista | Click here for Instructions | |||
macOS 10.14.x (Mojave) | Click here for Instructions | |||
macOS 10.13.x (High Sierra) | Click here for Instructions | |||
macOS 10.11.x (El Capitan) and macOS 10.12.x (Sierra) | Click here for Instructions | |||
macOS 10.9.x (Mavericks), and macOS 10.10.x (Yosemite) | Click here for Instructions | |||
macOS 10.7.x (Lion), and macOS 10.8.x (Mountain Lion) | Click here for Instructions | |||
Both Windows and macOS (exFAT & FAT32) | Click here for Instructions |
Important: If at any time an error occurs stating that the drive can not be dismounted or unmounted, this is not caused by an issue with the hard drive. Please see Answer ID 18670: When formatting or partitioning a drive, an error occurs stating the drive cannot be dismounted or unmounted for additional information on this particular issue. |
Partitioning a hard drive means preparing it to be used by the Operating System (OS) Intel wifi 512an mmw drivers for mac. , creating a Volume for the OS to use. Formatting, however, deletes the content of a volume to clean it, and assigns a file system to it so that data can be moved into and out of the volume. Both processes are normally done together.
Critical: The instructions in the article below are designed to help repartition and format a hard drive. This process is Data Destructive and cannot be undone. Once the process begins, ALL THE DATA ON THE DRIVE WILL BE LOST! |
Windows 10 includes a built in utility known as Disk Management that can be used to partition and format a hard drive. To partition and format the drive with Disk Management, follow these steps:
Important: If Disk Management shows the drive as Not Initialized, the drive will have to be initialized. For assistance initializing a hard drive, please see Answer ID 18824: How to initialize or write a signature to a secondary hard drive or Solid State drive in Windows. |
Note: | To create multiple partitions, select or type a specific number of megabytes (MB) for the first partition and continue to the next step. Once done with this process, the remaining space will display as unallocated space. Now, create another New Simple Volume in the remaining unallocated space for the next partition. For example, on a 2TB drive, set the volume size to 1000000 (1 TB) and continue to the next step. When done, begin the New Simple Volume process again and select the remaining capacity, the unallocated space, for another 1TB partition. |
Partitioning a hard drive means preparing it to be used by the Operating System (OS), creating a Volume for the OS to use. Formatting, however, deletes the content of a volume to clean it, and assigns a file system to it so that data can be moved into and out of the volume. Both processes are normally done together.
Critical: The instructions in the article below are designed to help repartition and format a hard drive. This process is Data Destructive and cannot be undone. Once the process begins, ALL THE DATA ON THE DRIVE WILL BE LOST! |
Windows 8 includes a built in utility known as Disk Management that can be used to partition and format a hard drive. To partition and format the drive with Disk Management, follow these steps:
Important: If Disk Management shows the drive as Not Initialized, the drive will have to be initialized. For assistance initializing a hard drive, please see Answer ID 18824: How to initialize or write a signature to a secondary hard drive or Solid State drive in Windows. |
Note: | To create multiple partitions, select or type a specific number of megabytes (MB) for the first partition and continue to the next step. Once done with this process, the remaining space will display as unallocated space. Now, create another New Simple Volume in the remaining unallocated space for the next partition. For example, on a 2TB drive, set the volume size to 1000000 (1 TB) and continue to the next step. When done, begin the New Simple Volume process again and select the remaining capacity, the unallocated space, for another 1TB partition. |
Critical: The instructions in the article below are designed to help repartition and format a hard drive. This process is Data Destructive and cannot be undone. Once the process begins, ALL THE DATA ON THE DRIVE WILL BE LOST! |
Windows includes a built in utility known as Disk Management that can be used to partition and format a hard drive. To partition and format the drive with Disk Management, follow these steps:
Important: If Disk Management shows the drive as Not Initialized, the drive will have to be initialized. For assistance initializing a hard drive, please see Answer ID 18824: How to initialize or write a signature to a secondary hard drive or Solid State drive in Windows. |
If there is already a partition on the drive, the bar above that drive will appear blue. this indicates that the drive is already formatted and may contain data. Make sure that all critical data on this drive has been backed up elsewhere. When ready to proceed, right-click on the blue bar and choose Delete Volume. The bar should now be black.
Note: | To create multiple partitions, select or type a specific number of megabytes (MB) for the first partition and continue to the next step. Once done with this process, the remaining space will display as unallocated space. Now, create another New Simple Volume in the remaining unallocated space for the next partition. For example, on a 2TB drive, set the volume size to 1000000 (1 TB) and continue to the next step. When done, begin the New Simple Volume process again and select the remaining capacity, the unallocated space, for another 1TB partition. |
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 Answer ID 16330: Unable to safely remove (unmount) a WD external drive in Windows for assistance with this error under Windows. |
Partitioning a hard drive means preparing it to be used by the Operating System (OS), creating a Volume for the Operating System to use. Formatting, however, deletes the content of a volume to clean it, and assigns a file system to it so that data can be moved into and out of the volume. Both processes are normally done together.
Critical: The instructions in the article below are designed to help repartition and format a hard drive. This process is Data Destructive and cannot be undone. Once the process begins, ALL THE DATA ON THE DRIVE WILL BE LOST! |
Windows Vista includes a built in utility known as Disk Management that can be used to partition and format a hard drive. Please see Answer ID 18075: How to access Disk Management in Windows for more information.
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Please follow the steps outlined below:
Important: If Disk Management shows the drive as Not Initialized, the drive will have to be initialized. For assistance initializing a hard drive, please see Answer ID 18824: How to initialize or write a signature to a secondary hard drive or Solid State drive in Windows. |
If there is already a partition on the drive, the bar above that drive will appear blue. this indicates that the drive is already formatted and may contain data. Make sure that all critical data on this drive has been backed up elsewhere. When ready to proceed, right-click on the blue bar and choose Delete Volume. The bar should now be black.
Note: | To create multiple partitions, select or type a specific number of megabytes (MB) for the first partition and continue to the next step. Once done with this process, the remaining space will display as unallocated space. Now, create another New Simple Volume in the remaining unallocated space for the next partition. For example, on a 2TB drive, set the volume size to 1000000 (1 TB) and continue to the next step. When done, begin the New Simple Volume process again and select the remaining capacity, the unallocated space, for another 1TB partition. |
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 Answer ID 16330: Unable to safely remove (unmount) a WD external drive in Windows for assistance with this error under Windows. |
Msi ms-16372 driver for mac. How to format a drive on macOS 10.14.x (mojave)
Critical:The instructions in the article below are designed to help repartition and format a hard drive. This process is Data Destructive and cannot be undone. Once the process begins, ALL THE DATA ON THE DRIVE WILL BE LOST! |
How to partition and format A DRIVE ON macOS 10.13.x (High Sierra)
Critical:The instructions in the article below are designed to help repartition and format a hard drive. This process is Data Destructive and cannot be undone. Once the process begins, ALL THE DATA ON THE DRIVE WILL BE LOST! |
Critical:The instructions in the article below are designed to help repartition and format a hard drive. This process is Data Destructive and cannot be undone. Once the process begins, ALL THE DATA ON THE DRIVE WILL BE LOST! |
Steps for macOS 10.11.x (El Capitan) and macOS 10.12.x (Sierra)
Partitioning a hard drive means preparing it to be used by the Operating System (OS), creating a Volume for the OS to use. Formatting, however, deletes the content of a volume to clean it, and assigns a file system to it so that data can be moved into and out of the volume. Both processes are normally done together.
Critical: The instructions in the article below are designed to help repartition and format a hard drive. This process is Data Destructive and cannot be undone. Once the process begins, ALL THE DATA ON THE DRIVE WILL BE LOST! |
Mac OSX 10.9.x, and 10.10.x include a built in utility known as Disk Utility that can be used to partition and format a hard drive. To partition and format the drive with Disk Utility, follow these steps:
Note: | Partitioning a drive is only necessary if planning to use multiple partitions on the drive. It's recommended using a single partition in most cases, if the primary objective is to simply prepare the drive for use with the computer, no partitioning is required. No further action is required. |
Important: If the Mac computer being used is an Intel-based Mac, Apple recommends to use the GUID Partition Table instead. |
Note: | If an error message is received stating that the drive is unable to be unmounted, 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 before trying to format the drive again. If the error message persists, restarting the computer may resolve the issue. If additional assistance is required, please Contact Us. |
Partitioning a hard drive means preparing it to be used by the Operating System (OS), creating a Volume for the OS to use. Formatting, however, deletes the content of a volume to clean it, and assigns a file system to it so that data can be moved into and out of the volume. Both processes are normally done together.
Critical: The instructions in the article below are designed to help repartition and format a hard drive. This process is Data Destructive and cannot be undone. Once the process begins, ALL THE DATA ON THE DRIVE WILL BE LOST! |
Mac OSX 10.7.x, and 10.8.x include a built in utility known as Disk Utility that can be used to partition and format a hard drive. To partition and format the drive with Disk Utility, follow these steps:
Note: | If the screen does not look like the one in the picture below, the folder view may be set to a different one. Click on the Columns button (it's highlighted in blue in the screenshot) in the upper left corner of the window to change to the same view used here. |
Important: If the Mac computer being used is an Intel-based Mac, Apple recommends to use the GUID Partition Table instead. |
Please see Answer ID 20821: How to format a WD hard drive to exFAT or FAT32 file system for assistance formatting a drive to be used on both a Windows PC and a system running Mac OSX.