Convert Mac Passport into Windows?

WD External Drives External Drives for Mac
1

I accidentally purchased the mac variant from amazon not realizing it was mac. I’m pretty technical, i know that i can reformat the device to ntfs to work with windows, my question is:

If i reformat, am i able to turn the mac passport into the same exact functionality as the windows variant? Will i still have the hardware encryption and whatnot??

2

Hello, lucid88,

Well, formatting Mass storage drive to the different file system will never disable the hardware encryption. You can still use the same drive on the different operating system as a mass storage drive and to encrypt the data on it.

If you have any other concern about the drive then you should try contacting WD’s Technical Support about this.

To Contact WD for
Technical Support

http://support.wdc.com/support/case.aspx?lang=en

3

Alright, I’m just trying to figure out if i need to return this Mac Passport or not, if they have identical functionality when reformatted then I don’t have to. So, just to be clear, the only difference between the two is the pre-configured format? Or will i only be able to use the hardware encryption via mac?

4

For future reference, the answer i was looking for was “Yes the drives are identical aside from their pre-configured format. To change a Mac Drive to a Windows Drive of identical function, Simply run the WD Quick formatter for Windows found here How to Format an External Drive Using WD Quick Formatter … furthermore to secure you’re drive using the hardware encryption simply download, install, and set a password using WD Security for Windows found here Software and Firmware Downloads | WD Support . After that, whenever you unplug and replug the drive into your computer you will have access to only a small partition with the application to quickly decrypt and reveal you’re drive, Enjoy!”

5

Wondering how your reformatting went. I backed up my older Mac (Lion) without a problem, but when I bought new iMac w/ el Capital many of my files were messed up just going from Mac to Mac’s newest OS.