Can't find files on WD My Passport Ultra HD

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aaronfarley

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Sep 18, 2016
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I have a WD My Passport ultra with a bunch of files backed up to it. These files were backed up from a Mac laptop. I then plugged in the HD to a windows 10 desk top. I'm not sure if the translation from one OS to another is significant here. When I go into Control Panel, I see that the device is recognized. I was even able to create a shortcut for it on the desk top. I see in disk management that the appropriate drivers etc are installed. But, when I click on it, it only shows a drive property menu. The Drive does not show up in in my files at all. I'm frankly baffled. Some googling suggests that the issue may be that the drive is not assigned a letter, but when I went into Computer Management -> Disk Management, and located the drive but the "Change Drive Letter and Paths" option is greyed out.
 
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SuperSoph_WD
Welcome to the TH Community, @aaronfarley!

Unfortunately, the transition of a device from the Mac OS X laptop to a Windows OS desktop does make a difference. I suppose that if you have used it on the Macbook, it means that the My Passport file system is most probably HFS+ which is typical for Mac OS and it cannot be read by the Windows PC because it uses a different file system (NTFS).
Do you plan to use the external WD My Passport on both operating systems?
If you want to do that, you will need to BACK UP the data from the external on the Mac laptop first (since it's where you should be able to still access your files), and then re-format it either there or on the Windows PC in FAT32 or exFAT. These file systems...
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

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Jul 30, 2014
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Welcome to the TH Community, @aaronfarley!

Unfortunately, the transition of a device from the Mac OS X laptop to a Windows OS desktop does make a difference. I suppose that if you have used it on the Macbook, it means that the My Passport file system is most probably HFS+ which is typical for Mac OS and it cannot be read by the Windows PC because it uses a different file system (NTFS).
Do you plan to use the external WD My Passport on both operating systems?
If you want to do that, you will need to BACK UP the data from the external on the Mac laptop first (since it's where you should be able to still access your files), and then re-format it either there or on the Windows PC in FAT32 or exFAT. These file systems allow you to read and write to the external from both operating systems without any issues. However, they do have some file & partition size limitations, you should be aware of.

If you have any more questions or concerns, please let me know!
SuperSoph_WD
 
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