Is the My Book Essential not so "smart"

WD External Drives External Drives for Mac
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… or is it me?

I use my older model Passport and My Book drives for storage only and they both work perfectly on a pc and iMac.  Both operating systems detect either device and read the stored files.   We simply plug 'em in then drag’n’drop whatever files we wish.  I’ve never bothered with the bundled “smart” software and I’m not interested in having automatic backups. 

  

I assumed that the larger capacity My Book Essential would operate the same way but so far it appears not the case.   The pc detects the device but the mac does not … so far.  Is this device operating system specific?   

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The newer My Book Essential is formatted in NTFS.  I thought Mac’s could read but not write to it.  Anyway, the older drives were formatted in FAT 32. That’s why the drives could be read on both PC and Mac. 

You will need to reformat the drive in FAT 32 for it to be visible on both OS’s.  Reformat the drive through your Mac using MS DOS.  That should do it in FAT 32.  Hopefully, Windows will be able to read it.

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FYI: 

here is an article I found from www.wdc.com/support  website.

It might be insteresting to read about using an external drive for both Mac and PC.

Please click on the link below

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=291&p_created=1023897270&p_sid=P*imG8Uj&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_srch=1&p_lva=915&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9NzksNzkmcF9wcm9kcz0yMjgsMjYwLDIyNCZwX2NhdHM9MCZwX3B2PTMuMjI0JnBfY3Y9JnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU9YW5zd2Vycy5zZWFyY2hfZm5sJnBfcGFnZT0xJnBfc2VhcmNoX3RleHQ9Zm9ybWF0IGZvciBNYWMgYW5kIFBD&p_li=&p_topview=1