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ElaineLuria's avatar
ElaineLuria
Iron Contributor
Sep 08, 2025

My Passport Hard Drive

I've been using a WD My Passport hard drive on my Mac for years, and my Mac is the only device that recognises and lets me use it. Now that my Mac is on its way out, I want to put what's on my Mac that I want to keep, onto my hard drive, then format the hard drive so that I can use it on my Windows laptop. I don't want to reformat it and lose what's on there.

The hard drive is currently formatted as "Mac OS Extended". Does anyone know how to reformat it to a Windows computer without losing its contents?

1 Reply

  • Nayaoh's avatar
    Nayaoh
    Iron Contributor
    Sep 16, 2025

    Since your WD My Passport drive is currently formatted as Mac OS Extended (HFS+), it isn't natively recognized by Windows, and reformatting it will erase all data. To convert it for use on your Windows laptop without losing data, you'll need to perform a data migration first, then reformat the drive to a Windows-compatible file system.

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