I have a 2 TB My Passport Ultra external hard drive. It was working fine on my Windows laptop up until a while ago. I hooked it up to my Mac, not knowing that the drives have different formats. When it didn’t show up on my Mac, I unplugged it (after proper ejecting, of course). Now I am trying to use it on my Windows laptop again, and it doesn’t show up in My Computer. The drive is listed in Disk Management, under Control Panel > Device Manager, and under Devices and Printers. I called WD Support, and they seem to think that the drive has been reformatted. I certainly didn’t reformat it myself… Is it even possible for the drive to reformat automatically just after being connected to a Mac?! How can I tell what format the drive is current in (NTFS, FAT32, HFS+, etc.)? WD Support was not helpful at all, I hope to get some resolution here. Thanks!
Well, not reformat. But if the operating system doesn’t recognize the drive it may ask you to do something like “Initialize the drive?”. If it does ask, and you say yes, then you’ve effectively wiped the data on the drive.
So, although new macs may recognize a Window’s drive, they still work on completely different file systems. Because of that, even when you are using compatible file formats, like FAT32, you can still corrupt data passing a drive between Windows and Mac pcs. People that do this regularly understand the risks they’re taking, and will have their data backed up appropriately for each system. That way they can just reformat the drive and start over.
I do not remember saying yes to such a question. Is there any way to
recover the data on the drive if it did happen that way?
It depends on how much was corrupted. You can look online for data recovery software that can rebuild the file structure. Some will even allow you to test the data recovery before you buy it.
Hi Bill. I have a similar problem. My computer stopped recognizing my “WD My Passport Ultra” 2 TB hard drive. I’ve read that I can get a new interface board and try connecting it back to the computer to see if that was the issue. I have tried the external drive to multiple computers with multiple cables. The light (solid) on the drive does come on, I hear a soft hum, and when connected to the computer I hear the connection tone. Any suggestions? Can I buy another 2 TB external drive and put the new interface board in the one not working?
