Critical: The instructions in the article below are designed to help repartition and format a hard drive. This process is Data Destructive and cannot be undone. Once the process begins, ALL THE DATA ON THE DRIVE WILL BE LOST! |
Critical: Never attempt to connect any external drive to multiple computers at the same time. This could quickly damage the drive's partition and corrupt the data on the drive. |
exFAT | ||||
10.11 (El Capitan) and above | Click Here for Instructions (instructions will appear below this table) | |||
10.10 (Yosemite) and earlier | Click Here for Instructions (instructions will appear below this table) | |||
Windows 10 | Click Here for Instructions (instructions will appear below this table) | |||
Windows 8 and earlier | Click Here for Instructions (instructions will appear below this table) | |||
Unix/Linux (All Distributions) | Click Here for Instructions (instructions will appear below this table) |
FAT32 | ||||
10.11 (El Capitan) and above - Recommended Method | Click Here for Instructions (instructions will appear below this table) | |||
10.10 (Yosemite) and earlier- Recommended Method | Click Here for Instructions (instructions will appear below this table) | |||
Windows 10 and earlier | Click Here for Instructions (instructions will appear below this table) | |||
Unix/Linux (All Distributions) | Click Here for Instructions (instructions will appear below this table) |
Note: | Only legacy macOS systems, using non-Intel CPU's, will utilize the Apple Partition Map. It is best to use Master Boot Record only for MS DOS format. All Intel-based macOS computers and drives larger than 2 Terabytes should use the GUID Partition Map. |
Note: | If an error message is received stating that the drive is unable to be unmounted, this means that there is a program or service currently reading or writing data on the drive. Determine what program is accessing the drive and shut it down before trying to format the drive again. If the error message persists, restarting the computer may resolve the issue. If additional assistance is required, please Contact Us. |
Important: If Disk Management shows the drive as Not Initialized, the drive will have to be initialized. For assistance initializing a hard drive, please see Answer ID 18824: How to initialize or write a signature to a secondary hard drive or Solid State drive in Windows. |
Note: | To create multiple partitions, select or type a specific number of megabytes (MB) for the first partition and continue to the next step. Once done with this process, the remaining space will display as unallocated space. Now, create another New Simple Volume in the remaining unallocated space for the next partition. For example, on a 2TB drive, set the volume size to 1000000 (1 TB) and continue to the next step. When done, begin the New Simple Volume process again and select the remaining capacity, the unallocated space, for another 1TB partition. |
Important: On Windows 7, Vista, or XP, instead click on Start, right-click on top of Computer and click on Manage. Then, click Disk Management right below Storage. |
Note: | On other versions of Windows, Disk Management can be accessed through Control Panel, going to System >Administrative Tools >Computer Management. |
Note: | If an error message is received stating that the drive is unable to be unmounted, this means that there is a program or service currently reading or writing data on the drive. Determine what program is accessing the drive and shut it down before trying to format the drive again. If the error message persists, restarting the computer may resolve the issue. |
Important: Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP can only (using the actual operating system itself) create FAT32 partitions that are 32 GB or smaller. In order to format a drive larger than 32 GB using Windows OS, additional software may be required. Western Digital provides the Acronis True Image WD Edition software that allows users of our internal hard drives to format their drives. Users of our external drives will need to find third-party software to accomplish this task. |
Critical: All data on the target hard drive will be erased during this process. Please remove or backup any valuable data before performing this step. |