I recently had my old Mac backed up on a WD MyPassport. It’s now connected to my new Mac. How can I see what’s on the MyPassport drive? I need to see if everything I want is on the MyPassport, so I can have the old Mac “wiped clean.” I’m giving it to our science museum for tech classes. Thanks.
If you encounter any difficulties accessing the drive or seeing its contents, ensure that the drive is properly connected, powered on, and recognized by your Mac. In some cases, you may need to install WD software or drivers for the drive, although it should work as a plug-and-play device in most cases.
To access the contents of your WD My Passport drive on your new Mac, follow the below steps:
- Connect the WD My Passport drive to your new Mac using the provided USB cable.
- Wait for a moment to allow your Mac to recognize the connected drive.
- Open a new Finder window.
- In the Finder window, you should see the WD My Passport drive listed in the left-hand sidebar under the “Devices” section. It may appear with the name “My Passport” or “Untitled” if it hasn’t been named before.
- Click on the WD My Passport drive in the sidebar to view its contents in the main window.
Once you’re in the WD My Passport drive, you can navigate through the folders and files to check if everything you want is present. You can open files by double-clicking on them, and you can browse folders by clicking on them.
If you find that all the important files are on the My Passport drive and you’re ready to wipe your old Mac, make sure you have a separate backup of any crucial data on your new Mac or another storage device. Once you’ve confirmed the backup, you can proceed with wiping the old Mac. To securely erase data from a Mac device, you can also opt for a data erasure tool such as BitRaser File Eraser, which helps the user to securely erase data from any storage device, beyond the scope of any recovery.
