Western Digital Passport from Mac to Windows

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In 2013, we bought a used MacBook along with a Western Digital Passport back up drive. The Mac is old and the OS has not been able to be updated in years. So, we’ve decided to remove SSD for other uses and get rid of the laptop, but the problem is the Western Digital Passport.

I found the procedure on how to format the drive to work in Windows using the Disk Utilities on the Mac, however “Erase” is greyed out. Western Digital Locker is installed(I don’t even remember installing it) and seems to be the roadblock to us being able to format the drive to ex-fat so we can reuse the drive for another laptop in the house. Fortunately, I wrote down the password and the drive is unlocked, but I still can’t figure out how to make the drive useable on a Windows PC. I tried to use disk Management on a Windows PC and could remove the Locker partition. Can anyone help?

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Try MiniTool® Partition Wizard Free 12.7

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PeachesP

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My reading suggest you need the WD software installed on the PC to be able to use the drive properly. I would try that first.

cheers, Paul

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PeachesP

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Thank you both.

We spent hours on trying to solve the issue with the Passport. We did get the WD Security download after researching for hours and were able to fix the locker problem and then get the drive erased and in a condition to get it formatted in Windows so its now usable. I found out thru this exercise just how helpful “Create a Simple Volume ” was in Disk Management.

We then removed the Crucial SSD we had installed in the ancient laptop and that was another fun exercise. Apple doesn’t make working with their hardware easy for sure.

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