I want to erase my older My Passport and format it for Quicken Backup only. What application would I use to erase the drive and how would I reformat it?
Windows 10 64-bit
You can erase / format it with Windows 10
Right-Click on the drive and select “Format”
(that’s how it works on my Win7, dunno if this is the same for Win10) ?
To JoeySmyth,
Thank you for your quick reply. I will try to erase/reformat thru win10 as you suggested. I looked thru the windows support site but couldn’t decide what to do. I don’t know what file format it is using right now and I don’t know if Quicken requires a specific format. Therefore my indecision. I see that there is a download for Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows. I will try that, too.Thank you very much.
All you need is a computer – yours.
You may only want to erase, but not format, because formatting will delete everything ,including the WD files that came on the disk; maybe even a WD a back up program you will want to use. You are best to erase/delete just the folders and files you put on the disk. You delete these just as you have been doing all along.
I would say it doesn’t matter … NTFS should be fine (unless you have a MAC as well then exFAT will work on MAC and PC)
No mention of drive format here …
http://quicken.intuit.com/support/help/downloading--installing--upgrading-and-converting/quicken-system-requirements/GEN85077.html
Formatting is more thorough than simply deleting files and folders …
i have formatted my My Passport several times without issue.
Since you say you didn’t want to “keep” anything … then formatting is fine 
Mike27oct:
That would make sense. I think I will try your suggestion first and if that doesn’t work I will do as JoeySmyth suggested. Thank you for your quick reply as well.
JoeySmyth:
Thank you for looking up the Quicken link.
Deborah, if you plan to use drive for Quicken Backup only, the drive needs no special formatting. It’s data can go on any drive. What is important is if you are using a PC you use a PC formatted drive, but if you are using a Mac you should use a pre-formatted for Mac drive, it will make your life easier. WD sells both types.
If you have not yet embarked on this project, consider this:
The price of hard drives has really come down since you got the one you have. You can get a new one with twice the capacity at around half the price today. For a PC, you can find a nice portable drive of 1TB capacity on sale for around $60-70.
A Mac HD version will cost more, because manufacturers know Mac users are used to paying more for computer stuff (seriously!).
Also, you likely do not need to erase everything on your current HD to make room for the Quicken backup. You likely need to remove a few gigabytes of data to make room for Quicken data so you can use your present drive without a massive erasing procedure.
Just gOOgled to get an idea of a the size of a Quicken “Backup File / Data”
a 2~8 GB Flash drive (Thumb drive) would be more than enough and cost roughly between $1.50~$5.00 
Good idea Joey, I did not figure a Quicken file would be too big and why I said her present drive likely will work for her. It depends now on what the capacity of that drive is. Unless it is tiny, it should work.
Hi there, JoeySmyth, just wanted to let you know that I first tried to delete the data that was on the WD My Passport. It was very stubborn and I resorted to formatting the drive. I set it up for my Quicken backups and so far have had no problems.
I was using a 7.5 GB thumb drive for the backups and it was full(!). I keep tax return copies and the Quicken backups because I’m such a nervous Nellie… I was using the 200 GB Passport for all other backups until I bought a 3 TB My Book because now I have so much stuff!
I want to thank you and Mike27Oct, for answering my questions and making me feel welcome to the forum. Deb
Good for you, Deb. (You can just call me Mike; the second part of my username is my b-day as you may have guessed – it’s to differentiate me from all the other Mike’s in the world!
And there are a variety of reasons a drive can be stubborn to allow deletion of certain files and folders, many of which would just likely bore you anyway to hear about them.
Glad we made you feel welcome here. Being nice goes a long way. Joey and I are regulars here, and we usually get things more right than wrong, although Joey does like to jab me with a “gotcha” once in a while if I got it wrong.
