

If you are not an experienced computer user, it might be a lit bit complicated to clean WD external hard drive and create new partition using Diskpart for you. ▪ “h” is one of the available drive letters that can be assigned to the created partition. ▪ “n” refers to the disk number of the WD external hard drive. Warning: This way will erase all data on the WD external hard drive. If WD external hard drive won’t format problem is not related to write protection, you can clean it and create new partition. Clean WD hard drive and create new partition Double click WriteProtect and change Value data from 1 to 0 then, click OK. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePoliciesģ. Type the following commands and hit Enter after every command:ġ. Press Windows + R simultaneously to open Run dialogue.ģ. To disable write protection for WD external hard drive, you can clear readonly attributes from Diskpart or change Value data of WriteProtect to 0 in Registry Editor.ġ. If WD external hard drive is being write-protected, it won’t be formatted successfully and you can receive a message –The disk is write-protected. Remove write protection from WD external hard drive

To solve this issue, you can check out one or more solutions that will be demonstrated next. WD external hard drive format failure can occur due to virus infection, corrupted file system, write protection and so on. Can I fix WD external hard drive won’t format issue? Any advice will be appreciated!” Then, I tried Disk Management but only received “The format did not complete successfully”. But I only got “Windows was unable to complete the format” when I tried to format it from Windows Explorer. “Having a 1TB WD Passport external hard drive with RAW file system, I want to format it to exFAT for using in Mac and Windows computer. If the Security Options button is not available, Disk Utility cannot perform a secure erase on the storage device.Unable to format WD Passport external hard drive Secure erase options are available only for some types of storage devices. (Optional) If available, click Security Options, use the slider to choose how many times to write over the erased data, then click OK. If the Scheme pop-up menu isn’t available, make sure you selected the storage device you want to erase-it’s at the top of the hierarchy.Ĭlick the Format pop-up menu, then choose a file system format. Ĭlick the Scheme pop-up menu, then choose GUID Partition Map.

In the sidebar, select the storage device you want to erase, then click the Erase button. If you want to erase any other type of storage device: Double-click Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities folder. Note: If you want to get your Mac ready to trade in, sell, or give away, and your computer is a Mac with Apple silicon or an Intel-based Mac with an Apple T2 Security Chip, use Erase Assistant.
