Error Message on Passport 500GB

WD External and Portable SSD External SSD for macOS
1

Hi All,

I have a real big problem with my WD Passport 500GB external drive. I bought it 4 months ago and it worked perfectly fine on my mac. I then had to change macs and ever since I cannot access any of my files on the drive. It does not recognize that I have files on it and when trying to enter, it gives me an ‘error -36’ message. Also, I am missing one of the icons that used to pop up on my desktop when I plugged it up. I used to get an orange icon looking like an external hard drive and the WD Smartware icon which looks like a CD. Now all I get is the WD Smartware. Please help, I have my entire files saved on this thing and really worried they have been lost forever. Not quite sure how this could have happened.

Thanks so much in advance!

Andreas

2

If you have set up the security or password protection for this drive from your previous computer.

That may be the case the drive icon is not showing up on your new computer.

If that is the case then,

You need to install the WD Smartware on your new computer.

Then remove the password. Please power cycle the drive and restart the computer. 

After that the drive icon should show up and you will be able to see your files again.