Summary :
After researching the issue, it appears that the Western Digital My Book drives use software called 'WD Discovery' to lock and unlock the drive, though I could not find an option to disable the write protection. From all the articles I came across, the write protect / read only issue appears to be a widespread problem that happens to users. Plug It into Another USB Port. You can connect the WD My Passport Ultra to your PC with another. Possible Reasons Why WD My Passport Does Not Work on Mac. Everybody knows that the most important thing is to restore all lost data when a WD My Passport drive is not recognized on Mac, but many people still like to know the reasons why an external hard drive stops working on Mac. Here are some possible reasons.
WD My Passport Ultra is very popular. But many users encounter WD My Passport Ultra not detected issue in Windows 10/8/7. This article will show you how to fix WD My Passport Ultra not recognized Windows 10/8/7 issue in very simple steps.
Quick Navigation :
Do you know what WD My Passport Ultra is? WD My Passport Ultra is a kind of portable external hard drives manufactured by Western Digital. It is favored by many Windows users.
However, while it is an excellent external hard drive, users also encounter some issues such as WD My Passport Ultra not showing up, WD My Passport Ultra not detected and WD Passport not recognized.
If you encounter these issues, take the following solutions to fix it right now.
Solution 1. Plug It into Another USB Port
You can connect the WD My Passport Ultra to your PC with another USB port. Sometimes, it is not because your drive is problematic, but the port you're using to connect it.
If your WD My Passport drive can be recognized after plugging it into another USB port, it indicates that your USB port is not working. In the same way, you can also plug it on another computer to see if that works.
Solution 2. Change USB Cable
The second quick fix to WD My Passport Ultra not detected issue is to change a different USB cable. WD My Passport Ultra not detected Windows 10 issue can be caused by faulty USB cable.
So before you try fixes target to your WD My Passport Ultra disk, you can try using a different USB cable and then check if it appears. If not, please go on with the fixes as below.
Solution 3. Change Drive Letter
The cases to WD My Passport Ultra not detected or recognized can be different. If you find that WD My Passport shows in device manager but not My Computer, you can assign it a drive letter.
Here are two free ways that you use to assign a drive letter for your WD My Passport Ultra. One is using Windows built-in Disk Management. Another way is to try using a third-party WD My Passport Ultra partition manager – MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition.
If you have the WD My Passport Ultra not detected Windows 10/8/7 issue, you might as well try this simple fix, especially for users who find that the WD My Passport shows in device manager but not My Computer or This PC.
Now I will show you the two ways to change drive letter one by one.
Change Drive Letter with Disk Management
Disk Management is a Windows built-in disk partitioning tool. It has some basic features for users to manage disks and partitions on their computer such as format partition, shrink partition, delete partition, change drive letter, convert basic disk to dynamic and so on.
Wd Passport Not Working On Mac
So, you can change drive letter with Disk Management. And here are detailed steps.
Step 1. Open Disk Management.
Here are two ways for you to open Disk Management in Windows 10.
- Press Windows + R, input msc in the dialogue box and press Enter.
- Right-click the Windows Start menu and select Disk Management.
Step 2. Assign a drive letter for the WD My Passport Ultra drive.
1. Select the WD My Passport Ultra drive on the main interface of Disk Management.
2. Right-click it and choose Change drive letter and path….
3. Click Addto add a new drive letter for the USB drive.
4. Then click OK.
After that, you can go back the main interface to check if you can access your WD My Passport Ultra drive.
Although Disk Management can help you change drive letter, its features are limited as it lacks many basic but essential features.
My Passport Drive Not Showing Up
However, if you not only want to change drive letter but also need a partition manager to manage your drive in an all-rounded way, it is recommended to use the MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition.
Change Drive Letter with MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition
MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition is an all-in-one WD partition manager. It can help you not only change drive letter, but also it enables you to move/resize partition, extend partition, split partition, wipe partition on your WD My Passport Ultra drive. Why isn t fortnite downloading on my mac.
You can also utilize this tool to check file system, convert MBR to GPT without data loss, copy disk, and convert FAT to NTFS and so on.
To change a drive letter with this marvelous tool, you should download this tool firstly. You can download the MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition by clicking the following button.
Then follow the simple steps as below to change drive letter with MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition.
Step 1. Select a partition.
- Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition.
- Choose the target WD My Passport Ultra drive.
- Click Change Drive Letter after selecting the partition.
Step 2. Change drive letter.
- Choose a drive letter from the drop-down menu.
- Then press OKbutton.
Step 3. Apply the operation.
Click Apply on the upper left corner to allow the pending operation.
After that, you can go to This PC to see if the WD My Passport Ultra drive appears.
Apart from assigning drive letter, you can make use of its other features to manage your WD My Passport Ultra drive.
Solution 4. Reinstall USB Controller
A Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller is a chip or device that enables the computer to communicate with USB devices. You can check the USB controller in Device Manager.
When there is a yellow exclamation mark next to Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller, it means that the device driver is not installed correctly. In this case, your USB devices cannot be recognized by your PC. This could be the reasons for your WD My Passport not recognized Windows 10 issue.
How to fix my passport not recognized error? Don't worry. You can reinstall USB controller to fix WD my passport not detected issue.
Step 1. Open device manager Windows 10.
- Press Windows + R, type msc in the dialogue box and press Enter.
- Right click Windows Start menu and choose Device Manager from the list.
Wd My Passport Not Working On Mac
Step 2. Start reinstalling USB controller.
1. On the main interface of Device Manager, expand the category of Universal Serial Bus controllers.
2. Find the controller through which the external hard drive is connected.
3. Right-click on it and select Uninstall.
4. Restart your computer and check if the WD My Passport not recognized issue has been solved.
If this fix doesn't work, try the next solution.
Solution 5. Update WD Device Driver
Corrupted or outdated driver could lead to the WD My Passport not detected or recognized issue. And some users reported that updating device drivers resolved their WD My Passport Ultra not detected issue. So if you have the same issue, why not have a try?
You can follow the detailed steps as below to update the WD device driver and fix WD My Passport not recognized Windows 10 issue.
Step 1. Open Device Manager in Windows 10.
- Press Windows + R, type msc in the dialogue box and press Enter.
- Right click Windows Start menu and choose Device Manager from the list.
Step 2. Find the Unknown device in Device Manager.
- To find it, you can expand the Disk Drives, Universal Serial Bus controllers, Other devices, or Portable Devices to check.
- Right-click on it and select Properties.
Step 3. Update driver software.
1. Click on the tab Details.
2. Click on the drop-down menu and choose Hardware Ids.
3. Right-click the first code and choose Copy to copy the code.
4. Paste it into the search engine to download the drivers.
5. After downloading the drivers, right-click on the drive again and choose 'Update driver'.
6. Choose the Browse my computer for driver software from the pop-up window. Now navigate to the driver you downloaded and saved on your computer. Then install it.
If you find this complicated, you might need a piece of driver updater software. This kind of software will scan for and list drivers that need updating or replacing. So you don't need to find it manually, which is very convenient.
There is a great amount of driver management software on the Internet. You download one by yourself. Be sure to choose a reliable one.
Solution 6. Run Anti-virus Software
You may find it weird but it is true that some time malware or viruses can give rise to WD My Passport Ultra not detected issue.
You may perform a virus check on your computer and run anti-virus software to kill virus firstly.
If your WD hard drive still doesn't show up or cannot be detected after trying the above fixes, you may check if there are physical issues on your WD My Passport drive. You can also send it to hard drive repair center to check some physical errors may have occurred to your device.
If your disk is under warranty, you may contact the Western Digital for replacing it.
About WD My Passport Ultra
WD My Passport Ultra is a kind of external hard drive. With its sophisticated design and large capacity, it grabs people's attention.
There are three kinds of capacities for WD My Passport Ultra. They are WD My Passport Ultra 1TB, 2TB and 4 TB. So, you have enough disk space to backup and store various files like photos, videos, music and documents if you are using the WD My Passport Ultra drive.
Besides, WD My Passport Ultra is formatted for Windows 10, Windows 8.1 or Windows 7 operating systems. You don't need to reformat it unless you want to use it on other operating systems.
My Passport Ultra Drive is manufactured with proven real WD components, which is durable and of assured quality. And with up to 4TB of storage and a 3-year limited warranty, you can use the storage for years to come.
Bottom Line
After trying the above fixes in this post, have you fixed the WD My Passport Ultra not detected Windows 10 issue? If you come across WD external hard drive not recognized Windows 7/8/10 issue, try the above fixes.
If you have better solution toward how to resolve WD Passport not recognized or detected issue or if you have any question, you can leave a message in the following comment zone and we will reply as soon as possible. If you need any help when using MiniTool software, you can contact us via [email protected].
'I have a WD My Passport external which is not recognized on Mac, but I have stored many files on this external HDD. So can anybody tell me how to recover data from an unreadable external hard drive for Mac? I have some important excel files on this external, so I would appreciate it very much if anybody can recommend useful excel recovery software.'
WD My Passport external hard drive is able to work on Mac and Windows PC for data transferring or backup. If a WD My Passport external hard drive is not recognized by Mac OS, you had better make it clear if the problem is caused by external HDD error or Mac OS crash. You can connect the WD My Passport to another computer to see if it can work normally. Once you are sure that the WD My Passport is corrupted and becomes inaccessible, you had better stop performing any further operation to this external and then you can use data recovery software to get back lost data.
Data Recovery When WD My Passport Is Not Readable on Mac
For an unreadable external hard drive data recovery, you need to rely on a professional data recovery program. iCare Data Recovery is a good solution for data recovery from any storage media including WD My Passport when it is not detected by Mac OS or other PC. You just need to plug the external to a PC, and this data recovery software will deep scan the external even if it cannot work normally. iCare Data Recovery is a read-only program which is compatible with Windows OS, so you should plug your external to a Windows PC in order to retrieve all lost data when the WD My Passport is not recognized on Mac. Now, you can follow the steps below to recover unreadable data:
Step1. Download and install iCare Data Recovery on Windows PC. Run the software and choose a proper scan mode.
Step2. Select the WD My Passport external and then wait the software to scan it.
Step3. When scanning is completed, you can preview found files and then save the lost data to another drive.
Possible Reasons Why WD My Passport Does Not Work on Mac
Everybody knows that the most important thing is to restore all lost data when a WD My Passport drive is not recognized on Mac, but many people still like to know the reasons why an external hard drive stops working on Mac. Here are some possible reasons:
- WD My Passport external contains too many bad sectors
- The WD My Passport is infected with virus or Trojan
- WD My Passport portable HDD file system is corrupted
- WD my passport external hard disk is formatted wrong or needs updated drivers
- More other reasons
Solution When WD My Passport Is Not Recognized due to Incompatibility issue
An external hard drive might not show up on a computer when it is formatted improperly. As you know, when you buy a new external hard drive, it usually has FAT32 or NTFS file system. Both of file systems are able to be recognized by Windows OS, but it might become unreadable when you plug an external hard drive that has FAT32 or NTFS file system to a Mac computer. Therefore, if a WD my passport external hard drive is not recognized by Mac OS, but it is able to be compatible with Windows OS, you only need to format it to HFS+ file system which is able to be recognized by Mac OS.
WD My Passport Does Not Show up due to Virus Attack
As mentioned above, an external hard drive must be formatted properly so that it can be detected by Windows or Mac OS. However, sometimes, virus infection might corrupt the file system of WD my passport external hard drive and make it not show up when you connect the external to your computer. In this situation, you can recover all inaccessible data at first and then you can run antivirus software to scan the external hard drive and finally format the external into proper format.
WD My Passport External Is Recognized on Mac but becomes Inaccessible
Another situation is that the WD my passport portable hard drive can show up on Mac OS when you plug it to your computer, but the problem is that you are unable to access any data stored on this disk. In this situation, you can also check whether the external hard drive file system is compatible with Mac OS. If WD my passport external HDD has unknown file system, you can use iCare Data Recovery to recover files from inaccessible drive and then try to format the WD my passport external hard drive to HFS+ file system. If you want to use your external hard drive in Windows PC, you can connect it to a Windows PC and format RAW to NTFS file system.
It does not matter why a WD My Passport external HDD is not recognized, you have chance to recover files from WD portable hard drive which is not detecting as long as it is not physically damaged or overwritten.
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