Summary: This guide introduces three common scenarios in which you might find your WD My Passport external hard drive read-only on Mac. If the WD My Passport read-only on Mac problem is caused by the NTFS file system, installing iBoysoft NTFS for Mac to edit, rename, delete the saved files and transfer files to the read-only WD My passport hard drive.
Western Digital is one of the most popular hard drive manufacturers. Its product line covers WD My Passport, WD My Passport Ultra, WD My Book, WD My Passport for Mac and more. Among those external hard drive categories, WD My Passport external hard drives are the most widely used ones. However, many users complain their WD My Passport is read-only on Mac like the user below in WD community.
'I have a WD My Passport 320GB external hard drive that I am trying to hook up to my iMac for the first time. I'm running macOS 10.13. I'm extremely frustrated because this drive is in a read-only mode, and I can't figure out how to change it! Any suggestion to fix this?'
--A user from WD Community
If you are looking for solutions for solving read-only WD My Passport on Mac problem, you have come to the right place. This post will explain three common reasons why your WD My Passport is not writable and corresponding fixes.
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Formatting Your WD My Passport for Your Mac. If you want to get on with formatting your WD My Passport on your Mac, you’ll find the step by step walk through just below. Underneath the quick guide you’ll find some advice. Advice you’ll find useful ahead of formatting your My Passport drive on your Mac. If you have time they are worth a read. Equipped with USB-C™ technology, the My Passport™ Ultra for Mac portable drive offers an easy way to expand your storage with a modern metal design that complements your PC. It’s Windows® 10-ready out of the box to seamlessly deliver plug-and-play storage, while password protection with hardware encryption helps enforce the security of your content.
- Table of contents
- Why is the WD My Passport read-only?
- Scenario 1: Your WD My Passport hard drive is NTFS-formatted
- Scenario 2: You have read-only permission to access WD My Passport hard drive
- Scenario 3: Your WD My Passport hard drive is corrupted
- Conclusion
- Your My Passport for Mac drive is formatted as a single HSF+J partition for compatibility with Mac OS X operating systems. If you want to use the drive with a Windows computer, see Reformatting the Drive and Troubleshooting. About Your WD Drive My Passport for Mac User Manual 2.
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Why is the WD My Passport read-only?
Sometimes, the WD external hard drive is read-only on Mac when you just got a brand new WD external hard drive. In other times, it suddenly became read-only after you have been using it for a while. The most common reasons for a read-only WD external hard drive, like WD My Passport, are listed below:
- Your WD My Passport hard drive is NTFS-formatted.
- You have read-only permission to access the WD My Passport hard drive.
- Your WD My Passport hard drive is corrupted.
If you are not sure which reason has caused your WD My Passport external hard drive read-only on Mac, check the scenarios one by one. If you know the reason already, you can jump to the scenario that best describes your situation.
My Passport For Mac Manual
Scenario 1: Your WD My Passport hard drive is NTFS-formatted
By default, macOS can mount a Windows NTFS volume or drive in read-only mode. You can view the files saved on the NTFS-formatted partition or drive but can't make any changes to them. In addition, the WD My Passport hard drive won't let you add any files to it. To check if your WD My Passport is NTFS formatted, follow the steps:
- Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utilities.
- Click the WD My Passport (you may have changed its name) at the left sidebar. The file system information will be displayed on the right.
Note: You can also right-click the disk icon at the desktop and choose 'Get Info' to check the file system information.
After having confirmed that the WD My Passport is formatted with NTFS, many people will choose to convert NTFS to APFS (for macOS Catalina, Mojave and High Sierra) or reformat the WD My Passport hard drive to make the WD external hard drive compatible with Mac. In fact, installing an NTFS for Mac driver is a much easier way.
Solution: Install an NTFS for Mac driver to make WD My Passport writable
We will introduce an NTFS for macOS drivers - iBoysoft NTFS for Mac. It can help read and write to NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drives on Mac.
iBoysoft NTFS for Mac: NTFS for Mac driver and more
iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is an NTFS disk management tool. It can manage NTFS drives with NTFS write support. It can easily and effectively mount NTFS drive on Mac automatically in read-write mode. It works with macOS 10.15/10.14/10.13/10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8.
Three simple steps to read and write to NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drive easily.
Step 1: Download, install and launch iBoysoft NTFS for Mac on your Mac.
Step 2: Connect the NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drive to Mac.
Step 3: Write to NTFS-formatted WD My Passport drive after the drive has been mounted successfully.
Besides an NTFS mounter, iBoysoft NTFS for Mac can also open, unmount, eject, erase and repair NTFS volumes. It can list all attached external disks including USB flash drives, SD cards, memory sticks, external hard drives and so on. You can open them with one click. Moreover, you can reformat them to NTFS with iBoysoft NTFS for Mac if you need.
Scenario 2: You have read-only permission to access the WD My Passport hard drive
If your WD My Passport external hard drive is not formatted with NTFS but you have no write permission to it, it is probably because you have read-only permission to access the WD My Passport. Since your WD external hard drive is write-protected, all your write access is denied.
To know your permission to the WD My Passport, follow the steps below:
- Right-click the WD My Passport disk icon at the desktop and choose 'Get Info'.
- Check the information at the bottom under the Sharing & Permissions tab.
If you can see the message 'You can only read', then you will understand why you can't write to your WD My Passport drive.
Solution: Change read-only permission on the WD My Passport drive
Follow the instruction below to change permission on the WD My Passport on Mac:
Step 1: Click on the lock icon at the right corner in the Get Info window.
Step 2: Enter password if asked.
Step 3: Check the 'Ignore ownership on this volume'.
Step 4: Click on the gear button and choose 'Apply to enclosed items…'.
Step 5: Click 'OK' when you are asked to confirm the operation.
By now, you have regained the read and write access to the WD My Passport.
My Passport For Mac Cord
Scenario 3: Your WD My Passport hard drive is corrupted
If you are sure that the read-only WD My Passport is not caused by NTFS file system nor read-only permission, another possible cause might be the disk corruption. When an external drive is corrupted, people suddenly have trouble reading or/and writing to the disk. Then you will have to fix the corrupted WD My Passport external hard drive to make it writable again. We will introduce two solutions here:
- Fix the read-only WD My Passport in Disk Utility on Mac
- Reformat the WD My Passport on Mac
Solution 1: Fix the read-only WD My Passport in Disk Utility on Mac
This solution might help you solve the read-only external hard drive problem without formatting. You will utilize a built-in tool on Mac called Disk Utility. It is used to manage internal and external disks on Mac. There is a function called First Aid in Disk Utility that can be used to check for and repair errors on the selected disk or volume.
Here is how to fix the read-only WD My Passport in Disk Utility:
Step 1: Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
Step 2: Select the WD My Passport drive at the left sidebar.
Step 3: Click on First Aid and click on 'Run' to repair the WD My Passport drive.
Step 4: Click 'Done' after the operation completes.
If First Aid fails to repair the WD external hard drive, your disk might be seriously corrupted. You will have to reformat the WD My passport to make it not read-only.
Solution 2: Reformat the WD My Passport on Mac
Reformatting the corrupted disk is the ultimate solution for fixing the read-only WD My Passport drive. Follow the steps below to know how to make the WD My Passport compatible with Mac and PC.
Step 1: Make sure you have a copy of your important files on WD My Passport hard drive, or recover data from the external hard drive with iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery.
Step 2: Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
Step 3: Click on the WD My Passport drive at the left sidebar.
Step 4: Check Click 'Erase' on the top of the Disk Utility window.
Step 5: Input a name.
My Passport For Mac 1tb
Step 6: Choose FAT or exFAT as format for convenience because either of them is compatible with both Windows and macOS. Of course, you can choose another file system that best meets your needs.
Step 7: Choose 'GUID Partition Map' as Scheme.
My Passport For Mac 4tb
Step 8: Click on 'Erase' button.
You can reconnect the WD external hard drive to Mac again to see if it is writable now.
Conclusion
The external hard drive read-only on Mac problem doesn't happen to WD external hard drives only. It is quite common to see other notable external hard drive brand get the same complaint like Seagate, Samsung, Toshiba, etc. When you come across the read-only disk problem on Mac, the post is always helpful.