Can't erase MyPassport Ultra on MacBook Pro using MacOS Sierra

Portable Drives My Passport
1

I just purchased a 4 TB My Passport Ultra from Amazon. I have a MacBook Pro, and I already have four working My Passport 2 TB drives that I use regularly with it as well as a 4 TB MyBook.

When I attached this new drive, it showed up in the finder right away, but when I right-clicked and selected “get info” it showed that I had “read only” permission and didn’t show the padlock for making changes. I was logged in with my Administrator account. I can’t remember if it’s normal to only have read only permissions for a new drive. Just an FYI.

So I proceeded with the disk utility process. When I tried to delete the drive, it unmounted and gave me an error message. This has happened before with WD drives on my Mac, but what happened next was odd.

I followed the WD support suggestions–restarted my Mac, closed any open applications, and plugged the drive back in. This time, the Mac said it could not recognize the disk. I chose the option that opened disk utility and tried again to erase the drive. This time, I got an a new error. “Erase process has failed. MediaKit reports not enough space on device for requested operation. Operation failed…”

The drive now shows a huge amount of corrupted space and only 25 GB free, even though there is obviously nothing on it.

I called WD Support and Amazon support, tried their suggestions (try another port, restart computer, try another computer) and nothing worked. The drive is ruined, I guess? They suggested I return it and had no idea what happened. My only clue is that I’m using Sierra OS and it’s not listed on WD’s support forum, so maybe these drives are not configured to work with it?

2

Hello,

Have you tried formatting the drive?

Take a look at this link:

3

Yes. Maybe it wasn’t clear, but the first step of formatting a drive, is using disk utility to “erase” it. I did exactly what the support forum said. It was then impossible to try to partition the drive.

also, the same exact thing happened with a second 4 TB drive. It seems to be a bigger problem than just getting one bad drive.

4

I have never run into anything like the issue you have. I am thinking of ordering another external WD USB drive.
Are you signed in using a Admin account? It sounds like a permissions problem and an Admin has more of a chance to take care of the problem.
When you go to Get Info, go to the bottom and click on the lock. Your password will be required. Change your permissions to Read/Write. Then select ‘Apply to Enclosed Items’. This option is hidden in that gear-like symbol at the bottom. The Mac will ask if you are sure - click yes.
Hopefully, you will now have the permissions needed to reformat the drive.

5

Seems to me these devices should be a simple plug and play. Most devices are these days. Seem to me WD is lacking software capability. A bunch of hardware geeks (that’s great) but without reliable software, what good is the hardware. Connecting an external drive should be an easy task, not a time of expanding one’s knowledge of how to fool the system.