Using Western Digital Hard Drive on PC and Mac

I just bought a Western Digital 1 TB portable hard drive. I am looking to use the hard drive on my Mac at home, and PC at school. I was wondering if anyone could tell me how I partition the hard drive to work on both operating systems.
Thanks,
Bobcat

Format it from the Mac using Disc Utility
If you format the drive as a single partition and use Mac GUI / HFS Journaled then you won't be able to read and write to it from both platforms.
If you want to Boot the Mac from it then make the first partition a Mac Bootable one and then make the second partition FAT32 so you can read and write data to it from both platforms.
Hope that's clear if not post again

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Western digital hard drive worked fine on my pc. I connected it to my macbook and it began time capsule, but now I cannot see any of my files on either my mac or pc?

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Hi there,
Thanks for the reply.
I plugged my usb hard drive in and what looked like time capsule started automatically on my mac. The same hard drive worked perfectly on my laptop pc before, now it connects but isn't visible in my computer.
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I tried to boot by MacBook into safe mode with the external plugged into the USB port and could never get past the Apple Logo boot screen. I then detached and tried to boot up my MacBook regularly and still nothing.
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I just bought a Western Digital Hard Drive (My Book Home Edition) 1 TB. Thing is it works for USB 2.0 but my Imac won't recognize the drive when I plug it in a 400fw. I called western digital and tried the disk utility tricks, and still nothing. The 400 input on my computer is fine, so is the cable. In fact the computer worked fine with a 500 gb Lacie a few days ago.
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First thing is try the steps in this article by Apple:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1317
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Regards,
Roger

Can I use an external hard drive to download and store my iTunes library?

Can I use an external hard drive to download and store my iTunes library?

Yes - in most cases you can just copy your entire library (by default C:\Users\username\Music\iTunes) to your external drive, with the result being a iTunes folder in the root of that drive with a structure like this:
Then hold down SHIFT when you start iTunes, and when you see this prompt:
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If you follow the directions in this Link...
Copy iTunes to an External Drive
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
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Ok, so I am computer illiterate. I have always used PC's and have just bought a MacBook. When I plug in my external hard drive into my new Mac, it says it needs to be reformatted to use with Mac, which would cause all data to be erased. Is there anyway to get around this?
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OK... as Woggledog indicated, OS X cannot write to NTFS formatted drives. NTFS is a proprietary Microsoft format. Conversely, Windows can neither read nor write to an OS X formatted drive.
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It's usually not a good idea to use a Time Machine drive for anything else. It's too easy to make mistakes, or not do regular backups, or run out of space. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions #1 and 3.
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Hi
I have read many articles that suggest placing all video projects/events in an external hard drive to save space on my Mac Book or Mac Air.
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Thank you.
Sebastian

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Geoff.

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I have just solved this problem, with a fresh head this morning i realised that the external drive was empty and the cloning process didn't complete for some reason?
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I bought a Macbook Pro a few months ago and I've been using my Western Digital external USB hard drive with up until now with no problems. Then today for some reason, I turn my computer on and the drive doesn't show up anymore. It doesn't show up in disk utility either. I've rebooted a few times but no luck. I inserted a flash drive and it mounts ok so it's not the USB port. I even switched usb cables just in case the cable was bad. Any suggestions?

Hi there
Sorry to hear you are having trouble with your Mac.
Is the ext HD a powered drive (needs AC power to run) or portable? (smaller, doesn't need to be plugged in to AC)
If its AC powered, check that all the usual lights are lit up on it (flashing activity light, power light etc), if not, then you would need to contact WD.
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Cheers

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I have been using a Western digital to back my macbook, but since upgrading to OS X 9 maverick it is no longer visible in the finder window?
I've used the Western digital utility and the drive passes all tests and it sees it?
updated the driver
view hard drives is turned on in preferences
Why isn't the macbook seeing it to do a backup?

Disregard, I guess it takes a while? It is finally there.

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Before you ask yes I have connected all leads e.t.c properly!
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check the formatting and be sure it's something like FAT32(i prefer it so i can have pc compatibility)if it's FAT it won't work and some companies use FAT i know my flash drives i got aren't mac compatible right away you have to format them to FAT32(which i did and got extra space on my 1GB).

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Could someone please help me?
I have an HP Compaq nx6310 laptop with a corrupted 40Gb HDD. I decided it was best just to replace it.
I have purchased a Western Digital WD3200BEVT 320Gb HDD. I have the OEM OS disk which I also had to purchase from HP.
Nothing I do seems to work. The OS (WinXP Home Ed) goes through the install process, but when it tries to run for the first time it always comes up with a disk error.
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I'm really at my wits end, and am ready to try anything.
Thanks, Bill

Hi, I have the same problem, change de properties of ide/sata in your bios, the real value should be not to sata, sorrry by my english, if you need more help i tried to write more clearly

Intel Mac Pro w/10.4.7 - I need to access a 2003 Western Digital hard drive

Hey another question for the gurus of Mac out there. Got an Intel Mac Pro running 10.4.7 and I need to access old information from someones else's Western Digital (internal/ external w/case) drive. It's a "WD1200JB-00RCA1" model drive from 2003. I've already tried using the case with firewire connection on both my laptop and Mac Pro, but it will not mount. I does get power though. I'm thinking of trying it internally, but know that the Mac Pro is picky about specific types and specs on drives. Just curious if anyone thinks I can make it work internaly without screwing up the drive or more importantly, the Mac Pro.
Apparently this same drive was used internally on a mac back in 2003, but obvioulsy an older Mac. Any tips appreciated.

That drive (according to WD) is a WD Caviar SE 120GB UDMA 100 IDE drive. Assuming everything is set-up correctly, external enclosures typically require the drive to be jumpered as and IDE master, then it should mount.
The fact that it doesn't mount is not a good sign.
You could try this internally in the spare optical drive bay - you'd need a 5.25" to 3.5" mounting kit. If I were to go this route, I'd disconnect the optical drive temporarily - the cables will reach better and you stand less chance of getting an IDE bus incompatability with the optical drive.
I think the default set-up for the MacPro IDE bus is Cable Select so you may need to look into jumpering the drive dor this (CSEL)

Using Western Digital Hard Drive on PC and Mac

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