I found out the format structure on my Linux system by taking a spare hard disk and formatting it with my Mac mini and then plugged it into the Linux system which can read/write to both formats. The app would act as a 'converter' when accessing the drive and allowed read/write operations.Īnother reason why Apple never really makes it in the business world. There was a regular hard disk at one time that would but itĬame with a program that you installed on the Mac. Apple modified a NTFS file system format which does not exist on the drive table listing for formats. Yea, I had hooked up my mini-HD to my Mac mini to test it out and thought to explore 'why'. Those are not machine dependent and both systems can use it. The hard disk you have now, useĪpple did this deliberately a long time ago and there is only one universal solution and that is to get a NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive which hooks up to your router. You can use it to backup all your files on the Mac. If you want a drive to backup your Mac, you can get another WD hard disk and reformat it via the Disk utility on the Mac and it will be totally usable 'on the Mac only'. On the Mac, go to the App Store and download/install OneDrive for Mac and transfer your files in that fashion. Since you already have the hard disk formatted for your Windows system, keep it that way. On a Mac but you cannot write to it (it will tell you it is locked). A hard disk formatted from a Windows computer can be read To all of you Apple uses a customized NTFS file system which does not exist in the drive table recognized by Windows and there is no patch or fix unless WD may have an app that can be installed.

Click on Next and follow the on-screen prompts.

Click on Troubleshooting and choose Hardware and Sound then select.

Type in Troubleshooting in the search box.

Make sure that your Surface Pro 4 is plugged in and connected to the internet.

If the USB port works fine with other devices other than your external hard drive, here are the troubleshooting steps that you can follow:

To isolate the issue, you may try another USB drive to make sure other devices are working.

Please Install Surface and Windows updates.

Here's what we can do to make your external hard drive be detected or recognized by your device: We want to make sure that you get the best out of your Surface Pro 4. Can I reconfigure it to be read by my surface? I'm not really 100% sure what to do. I saw a post about getting the WD app,Īnd I did that, but it doesn't recognize my device, or at least it is not detecting it. I have a WD Ultra 'My Passport' external hard drive and had originally configured it to my MacBook pro, but I just received the surface pro 4 as a gift and I'm trying to use the external hard drive with this device.

Find a document on my passport for mac