WD Elements problems

[unleashedtails]

As you can see above, my computer detects that I have an Elements drive connected but it is not showing up in file explorer. I need to reformat this drive for a mac and it is not showing up on that either. HELP!

[radical guild]

Try reformatting it 

[unleashedtails]

How do I do that without it showing up on file explorer.

[astrosheen]

5 minutes ago, unleashedtails said:

How do I do that without it showing up on file explorer.

disk manager

right click window button

[unleashedtails]

3 minutes ago, astrosheen said:

disk manager

right click window button

Formatting is greyed out, that's not normal is it?

[astrosheen]

1 minute ago, unleashedtails said:

Formatting is greyed out, that's not normal is it?

Yes can you post screen shot 

[unleashedtails]

1 minute ago, astrosheen said:

Yes can you post screen shot 

 

[astrosheen]

1 minute ago, unleashedtails said:

 

try making the drive a single partition rather than 3

[unleashedtails]

2 minutes ago, astrosheen said:

try making the drive a single partition rather than 3

I cannot delete the 300 mb or the 128 mb one, only the main partition as seen in the picture. I should also mention that this is new and shouldn't be hardware problems.

[astrosheen]

3 minutes ago, unleashedtails said:

I cannot delete the 300 mb or the 128 mb one, only the main partition as seen in the picture. I should also mention that this is new and shouldn't be hardware problems.

delete the main one and create a new one with the 4tb plus the 128mb and format as NTFS 

[unleashedtails]

6 minutes ago, astrosheen said:

delete the main one and create a new one with the 4tb plus the 128mb and format as NTFS 

uhh, shouldn't I use exFAT because this will be used for a mac?

[astrosheen]

1 minute ago, unleashedtails said:

uhh, shouldn't I use FAT32 because this will be used for a mac?

mmmmm i suppose it wont really matter. Go for it 

[unleashedtails]

heh, not responding.....

[astrosheen]

odd this could get interesting

8 minutes ago, unleashedtails said:

heh, not responding.....

 

[unleashedtails]

10 minutes ago, astrosheen said:

odd this could get interesting

 

well, probably should just go and get a replacement

[unleashedtails]

[unleashedtails]

Ok, something happened but it's still not showing up in file explorer. It gives me a format option now, should I do that?

[astrosheen]

3 minutes ago, unleashedtails said:

well, probably should just go and get a replacement

before you do 

is the drive usb 3.0 if so is it plugged into a usb 3.0 port.

Restart the pc with the drive plugged in and see what it says when you get into disk manager 

[astrosheen]

2 minutes ago, unleashedtails said:

Ok, something happened but it's still not showing up in file explorer. It gives me a format option now, should I do that?

yes

[unleashedtails]

3 minutes ago, astrosheen said:

yes

It is usb3.0 in usb3.0 port and the formatting is not responding

[unleashedtails]

Ok, something weird is happening. The hard drive was discovered on both window's disk management and mac's disk utility but it cannot be found in file explorer or finder.

[astrosheen]

did you have to assign a drive letter in windows?. Could you post another screen shot?

[unleashedtails]

Nevermind, apparantly formatting it on windows, then formatting it on mac works! Now I can use it finally. Thanks for all the help.

[astrosheen]

I was a bit worried there for a bit that you had a stuffed drive. Enjoy that 4tb

[Captain_WD]

6 hours ago, unleashedtails said:

~snip~

Hi there

 

I'm sorry for the situation with the WD Elements drive. I'm glad to see you've resolved it! 

 

The fact that the drive has some partitions on it may indicate that there was some data on it. Did you need it or you wanted to simply get the drive working on a Mac? 

If you want the plain drive I would recommend filling the drive with zeros and checking its health status before using it just to be on the safe side. I would recommend doing this with WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic. The tool should remove (with the write zeros function) any partitions on the drive and all data from it and you will be left with one big unallocated space which you can manipulate under your Mac system.

 

Post back if you need further help

 

Captain_WD.