I have a 1TB WD Elements.
I haven’t used it in a while but started to use it again In the past mounts.
Since I had a few problems with it.
at first, I connected it to my mac and everything was fine, I could see it and transfer data. the day after my mac didn’t recognize it although the drive seemed to be working.
on windows, it said that was a problem and I should try to repair it. finally yesterday after a few attempts (i have no idea how) I was able to erase it, first on windows then on the mac, which took a few attempts as well (cause at the first few times I got an error).
now the WD Utility software doesn’t recognize the drive, but that may be because I erased it.
when I try to run first-Aid on the mac it runs ok only every other time. at the other attempts, I get an error thaקt the drive couldn’t be mounted.
this יappened with paragon NTFS software as well.
how do I know if the drive is ok? should I even use it after all this?
sorry it’s so long 
Hi EdenMar,
We would like to inform you that the WD Elements drive is Formatted for Windows® operating systems. You can confirm it by right clicking on drive icon and then clicking on properties. You will see the file system is in NTFS.
You need to reformat the drive with the exFAT file system then only you will be able to use your drive both in windows and Mac OS as well.
Make sure that you have backed-up your data stored on the drive before going to format the drive because reformatting is data destructive process.
Please go through this KB article number 20821, It will help you to format your drive with exFAT file system.
Link: How to Format a Drive for Use on Both Windows and macOS Using exFat or FAT32
Also, please be informed that the WD Drive Utility application is not supported by WD Elements drive.
I request you to test the drive health status through Western Digital Dashboard and share the test results with us.
Title: Testing a drive for problems using The Western Digital Dashboard
Link: https://wddashboarddownloads.wdc.com/wdDashboard/DashboardSetup.exe
As mentioned above, you need to reformat the drive with the exFAT file system then only you will be able to use your drive both in windows and Mac OS as well. Further, keeping a regular check on hard disk is not that challenging if you’re using a proper tools. Mechanical hard drives are quite sensitive and prone to physical failure or crash. Mechanical shock, corrupt drivers, improper use, or mishandling of drive or system can cause disk errors that can lead to logical corruption, mechanical failure, and physical crash.
Here, you can check out the below link that will take you through the most effective methods to keep a thorough check on the hard disk health and also help you to stay more productive by scheduling the disk checking and optimization tasks:
Hope this will help!!!
