I tried to reformat my My Book for mac but I think I erased it!

I have a 1TB My Book WD and I tried to reformat it for mac through Disc Utilities. I use the erase/reformat function, but it said there was an error and now when I try to bring it up on my mac, all that comes up is the WD Smartware but no hard drive. Did I erase it? How do I get it back?? Please help!!

Go to Disk Utility again, if the drive is seen click on the one that shows the capacity and the name of the drive, then instead of going to erase go to partition, on partition do this:

  1. Volume Scheme - Select 1 Partition on the drop down menu

  2. Rename the drive, delete untiltled 1 and use another name more confortable for you

  3. Make sure on Format says Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

  4. Click on Options > Select Apple Partition Map > click OK

  5. Click Apply > click Partition

after doing all that you will see creating partition map, when that finishes, you are ready to go, if you have an error saying the drive couldnt be unmounted, restart the computer and do the process above again.

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Thank you! You are my hero!

Anytime…  :smiley:

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What if the drive no longer appears in the Disk Utility? I got a brand new one out of the box yesterday and re formatted it for Fat32 and it work. Or it seemed to. So I began to transfer a project. Just as it was ending I got am error that it could not perform the copy. I ejected the drive and plugged it back in but this time it wasn’t reading at all. Not white light at the front, the drive is spinning but nothing appears on a mac or a pc. What is wrong?

gizmo85 wrote:

What if the drive no longer appears in the Disk Utility? I got a brand new one out of the box yesterday and re formatted it for Fat32 and it work. Or it seemed to. So I began to transfer a project. Just as it was ending I got am error that it could not perform the copy. I ejected the drive and plugged it back in but this time it wasn’t reading at all. Not white light at the front, the drive is spinning but nothing appears on a mac or a pc. What is wrong?

Sounds like something went wrong with the file transfer (this can be caused by a number of different things, including but not limited to: OS issues, Malware/Virii, bad data cables, physical damage to the drive, issues with other installed software, issues with the USB port on the computer, etc.). The first thing I would try is using the drive with a different USB cable… if there is corruption you may need to repartition and reformat the drive again before doing so.

gizmo85 wrote:

What if the drive no longer appears in the Disk Utility? I got a brand new one out of the box yesterday and re formatted it for Fat32 and it work. Or it seemed to. So I began to transfer a project. Just as it was ending I got am error that it could not perform the copy. I ejected the drive and plugged it back in but this time it wasn’t reading at all. Not white light at the front, the drive is spinning but nothing appears on a mac or a pc. What is wrong?

i would also try to use it in a windows computer, as you state you formated it in fat32, the drive should show up 

I renamed it after I used it, but now all my files seem to have disappeared, is there a way I can get them back?

FAT 32 is also more prone to corruption that other formats.

Joe