Summary :
Format an SD card FAT-32. Create a folder on the SD card named 'update'. Copy the MyPassportWirelessx.bin file into the 'update' folder. Turn OFF the My Passport Wireless. Insert the SD Card. Turn ON the My Passport Wireless. The My Passport Wireless will boot up, then will start flashing a White LED while the update is happening. Plug It into Another USB Port. You can connect the WD My Passport Ultra to your PC with another. Your My Passport drive fits perfectly into the busy life of anyone with an on-the-go digital life. Back Up Automatically — The My Passport drive comes equipped with WD Backup software to help make sure your photos, videos, music and documents don’t get lost. You can set it to run automatically to your schedule. Just pick the time.
WD My Passport Ultra is very popular. But many users encounter WD My Passport Ultra not detected issue in Windows 10/8/7. This article will show you how to fix WD My Passport Ultra not recognized Windows 10/8/7 issue in very simple steps.
Quick Navigation :
Do you know what WD My Passport Ultra is? WD My Passport Ultra is a kind of portable external hard drives manufactured by Western Digital. It is favored by many Windows users.
However, while it is an excellent external hard drive, users also encounter some issues such as WD My Passport Ultra not showing up, WD My Passport Ultra not detected and WD Passport not recognized.
Turn on Your Mac and Log In. Plug in your WD My Passport’s USB cable into its Micro USB B port. Disk Drive Format Your My Passport Ultra drive is formatted as a single NTFS partition for compatibility with all updated Windows operating systems. If you want to use the drive with a Mac computer, see Reformatting the Drive and Troubleshooting. Physical Description As shown in figure 2, the My Passport Ultra drive has: A USB 3.1 interface port.
If you encounter these issues, take the following solutions to fix it right now.
Solution 1. Plug It into Another USB Port
You can connect the WD My Passport Ultra to your PC with another USB port. Sometimes, it is not because your drive is problematic, but the port you’re using to connect it.
If your WD My Passport drive can be recognized after plugging it into another USB port, it indicates that your USB port is not working. In the same way, you can also plug it on another computer to see if that works.
Solution 2. Change USB Cable
The second quick fix to WD My Passport Ultra not detected issue is to change a different USB cable. WD My Passport Ultra not detected Windows 10 issue can be caused by faulty USB cable.
So before you try fixes target to your WD My Passport Ultra disk, you can try using a different USB cable and then check if it appears. If not, please go on with the fixes as below.
Solution 3. Change Drive Letter
The cases to WD My Passport Ultra not detected or recognized can be different. If you find that WD My Passport shows in device manager but not My Computer, you can assign it a drive letter.
Here are two free ways that you use to assign a drive letter for your WD My Passport Ultra. One is using Windows built-in Disk Management. Another way is to try using a third-party WD My Passport Ultra partition manager – MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition.
If you have the WD My Passport Ultra not detected Windows 10/8/7 issue, you might as well try this simple fix, especially for users who find that the WD My Passport shows in device manager but not My Computer or This PC.
Now I will show you the two ways to change drive letter one by one.
Change Drive Letter with Disk Management
Disk Management is a Windows built-in disk partitioning tool. It has some basic features for users to manage disks and partitions on their computer such as format partition, shrink partition, delete partition, change drive letter, convert basic disk to dynamic and so on.
So, you can change drive letter with Disk Management. And here are detailed steps.
Step 1. Open Disk Management.
Here are two ways for you to open Disk Management in Windows 10.
- Press Windows + R, input msc in the dialogue box and press Enter.
- Right-click the Windows Start menu and select Disk Management.
Step 2. Assign a drive letter for the WD My Passport Ultra drive.
1. Select the WD My Passport Ultra drive on the main interface of Disk Management.
2. Right-click it and choose Change drive letter and path….
3. Click Addto add a new drive letter for the USB drive.
4. Then click OK.
After that, you can go back the main interface to check if you can access your WD My Passport Ultra drive.
Although Disk Management can help you change drive letter, its features are limited as it lacks many basic but essential features.
However, if you not only want to change drive letter but also need a partition manager to manage your drive in an all-rounded way, it is recommended to use the MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition.
Change Drive Letter with MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition
MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition is an all-in-one WD partition manager. It can help you not only change drive letter, but also it enables you to move/resize partition, extend partition, split partition, wipe partition on your WD My Passport Ultra drive.
You can also utilize this tool to check file system, convert MBR to GPT without data loss, copy disk, and convert FAT to NTFS and so on.
To change a drive letter with this marvelous tool, you should download this tool firstly. You can download the MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition by clicking the following button.
Then follow the simple steps as below to change drive letter with MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition.
Step 1. Select a partition.
- Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition.
- Choose the target WD My Passport Ultra drive.
- Click Change Drive Letter after selecting the partition.
Step 2. Change drive letter.
- Choose a drive letter from the drop-down menu.
- Then press OKbutton.
Step 3. Apply the operation.
Click Apply on the upper left corner to allow the pending operation.
After that, you can go to This PC to see if the WD My Passport Ultra drive appears.
Apart from assigning drive letter, you can make use of its other features to manage your WD My Passport Ultra drive.
Solution 4. Reinstall USB Controller
A Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller is a chip or device that enables the computer to communicate with USB devices. You can check the USB controller in Device Manager.
When there is a yellow exclamation mark next to Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller, it means that the device driver is not installed correctly. In this case, your USB devices cannot be recognized by your PC. This could be the reasons for your WD My Passport not recognized Windows 10 issue.
How to fix my passport not recognized error? Don't worry. You can reinstall USB controller to fix WD my passport not detected issue.
Step 1. Open device manager Windows 10.
- Press Windows + R, type msc in the dialogue box and press Enter.
- Right click Windows Start menu and choose Device Manager from the list.
Step 2. Start reinstalling USB controller.
1. On the main interface of Device Manager, expand the category of Universal Serial Bus controllers.
2. Find the controller through which the external hard drive is connected.
3. Right-click on it and select Uninstall.
4. Restart your computer and check if the WD My Passport not recognized issue has been solved.
If this fix doesn't work, try the next solution.
Solution 5. Update WD Device Driver
Corrupted or outdated driver could lead to the WD My Passport not detected or recognized issue. And some users reported that updating device drivers resolved their WD My Passport Ultra not detected issue. So if you have the same issue, why not have a try?
You can follow the detailed steps as below to update the WD device driver and fix WD My Passport not recognized Windows 10 issue.
Step 1. Open Device Manager in Windows 10.
- Press Windows + R, type msc in the dialogue box and press Enter.
- Right click Windows Start menu and choose Device Manager from the list.
Step 2. Find the Unknown device in Device Manager.
- To find it, you can expand the Disk Drives, Universal Serial Bus controllers, Other devices, or Portable Devices to check.
- Right-click on it and select Properties.
Step 3. Update driver software.
1. Click on the tab Details.
2. Click on the drop-down menu and choose Hardware Ids.
3. Right-click the first code and choose Copy to copy the code.
4. Paste it into the search engine to download the drivers.
![Passport Passport](https://mactakeawaydata.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/WDMyPassportDiskUtilityFormattingPage.png)
5. After downloading the drivers, right-click on the drive again and choose “Update driver”.
6. Choose the Browse my computer for driver software from the pop-up window. Now navigate to the driver you downloaded and saved on your computer. Then install it.
If you find this complicated, you might need a piece of driver updater software. This kind of software will scan for and list drivers that need updating or replacing. So you don't need to find it manually, which is very convenient.
There is a great amount of driver management software on the Internet. You download one by yourself. Be sure to choose a reliable one.
Solution 6. Run Anti-virus Software
You may find it weird but it is true that some time malware or viruses can give rise to WD My Passport Ultra not detected issue.
You may perform a virus check on your computer and run anti-virus software to kill virus firstly.
If your WD hard drive still doesn't show up or cannot be detected after trying the above fixes, you may check if there are physical issues on your WD My Passport drive. You can also send it to hard drive repair center to check some physical errors may have occurred to your device.
If your disk is under warranty, you may contact the Western Digital for replacing it.
About WD My Passport Ultra
WD My Passport Ultra is a kind of external hard drive. With its sophisticated design and large capacity, it grabs people’s attention.
There are three kinds of capacities for WD My Passport Ultra. They are WD My Passport Ultra 1TB, 2TB and 4 TB. So, you have enough disk space to backup and store various files like photos, videos, music and documents if you are using the WD My Passport Ultra drive.
Besides, WD My Passport Ultra is formatted for Windows 10, Windows 8.1 or Windows 7 operating systems. You don't need to reformat it unless you want to use it on other operating systems.
My Passport Ultra Drive is manufactured with proven real WD components, which is durable and of assured quality. And with up to 4TB of storage and a 3-year limited warranty, you can use the storage for years to come.
Bottom Line
After trying the above fixes in this post, have you fixed the WD My Passport Ultra not detected Windows 10 issue? If you come across WD external hard drive not recognized Windows 7/8/10 issue, try the above fixes.
If you have better solution toward how to resolve WD Passport not recognized or detected issue or if you have any question, you can leave a message in the following comment zone and we will reply as soon as possible. If you need any help when using MiniTool software, you can contact us via [email protected].
Summary :
WD Easystore and My Passport are two hard drives from Western Digital. Which one should you buy to use? This post focuses on WD Easystore vs My Passport and you can know the difference between them, as well as which is better for you to choose. Now, let’s go to see the detailed guide.
Quick Navigation :
As for computer storage, hard drives, SD cards, USB flash drives, and more are common storage devices. To store some large files including documents, music files, photos, videos, etc., hard drives are good options. Usually, you use portable hard drives to store some important data for backup to keep it safe.
If you are WD users, you may don’t know use which one, WD Easystore or My Passport. Today, we will introduce you to some information on WD Easystore vs My Passport and you can know the answer from this post on the MiniTool website.
Overview of WD Easystore and My Passport
Before introducing something on WD Easystore vs My Passport, let’s see an overview of these two hard drives.
WD Easystore
Easystore is an easy, portable backup and storage device that provides plenty of storage space for storing documents, photos, music, and more. It offers up to 5TB capacity (plenty of storage space).
It is equipped with WD Backup and WD Discovery. It offers an easy-to-use connection to devices and it is backward-compatible with USB 2.0 for simple connection to your computer.
WD My Passport
WD My Passport is a trusted and portable hard drive that can store, organize, and share your music, photos, videos, and documents. It also comes with WD Backup and WD Recovery. Password protection with hardware encryption is supported by this portable disk to keep your data safe. Also, it is USB 2.0 compatible.
Western Digital has announced the travel SSD – My Passport Go SSD. And this post will show some specifications of this My Passport Go SSD.
WD Easystore VS My Passport: Similarities
After having a direct impression of these two portable hard drives, you may find they have some similarities.
Capacity
Each hard drive can offer up to 5TB of storage capacity. It is hard to imagine what you can store on the drive. Perhaps 1250000 music files, 1 million pictures, or 600 hours of HD movies, can be saved on the hard drive. Of course, this may vary based on the file format and size.
USB Connectivity
Both of the hard drives support USB 3.0 and USB 2.0. The average transfer speeds for USB 3.0 and 2.0 are respectively 625MB/s and 60MB/s.
WD Software
WD Easystore and My Passport come with WD Backup and WD Recovery. WD Backup allows you to automatically back up your files by setting the schedule, for example, hourly, daily, or monthly.
WD Recovery allows you to connect to popular social media and cloud storage services like Google Drive, Dropbox, and Facebook. And you can seamlessly import, organize, and share your documents, videos, and photos to the hard drive for backup. Besides, you can manage your drive, for example, reformatting, LED control, and more.
Power Supply
Also, both of them support a USB power supply. That is, you can directly connect them to your computer via a USB cable.
WD Easystore VS WD My Passport: What’s Difference
My Wd Passport Format
In this part, we will show you 4 major differences – appearance, password protection, compatibility, and value for money.
Wd My Passport Format For Mac And Pc
WD Easystore VS My Passport Appearance
Generally, hard drives look very similar – a small box with USB ports. Usually, most disks are black but some brands offer different colors based on the hard drive models.
WD Easystore
This hard drive only has a color – black. And its dimensions are 4.33' x 3.21' x 0.62' – a bit large and heavy (about 8.2 ounces).
WD Passport
This portable hard drive comes in 4 different colors including black, blue, red, and white. This indicates that you can easily distinguish your disks if it is going to be your second drive.
As for the surface of this hard drive, half is smooth and the other half has small ridges. Its dimensions are 4.22' x 2.95' x 0.44' and it weighs about 7.4 ounces. It is small enough so that you can put it in your hand.
In conclusion, as for My Passport vs Easystore in appearance, My Passport is a winner.
WD Easystore vs Passport: Password Protection
Today making sure data security is an important thing especially when you need to store your significant personal files and documents on an external hard drive. This is because files always are lost or deleted accidentally due to mistaken operations, theft, etc. If your hard drive offers password protection, your vital data can be protected to a certain degree.
Related article: 5 Operations to Keep Your Digital Data Secure Effectively
WD My Passport allows you to set up your own password with password protection. Most importantly, the hard drive comes with +256bit AES hardware encryption, which protects your data safety in a better way.
Unfortunately, WD Easystore doesn’t support password protection or hardware encryption. In this aspect, My Passport is also a winner.
WD Easystore VS My Passport: Compatibility
When choosing a portable hard drive, the compatibility issue should be what you should consider. That is, you should know which operating system the drive can be used in.
WD Easystore can be used in Windows 10/8/7 and macOS while WD My Passport is only compatible with Windows 10/8/7. But now Western Digital has released My Passport for Mac (with 3 capacities – 2, 4, 5TB). Find image url on website.
It can be seen that WD Easystore wins My Passport in compatibility.
WD Easystore VS Passport: Value for Money
Price is another important factor you should take into account. When comparing these two portable hard drives, which one has a high-performance cost ratio? Let’s see an analysis.
WD My Passport offers 4 capacities, for example, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 5TB. The prices are reasonable and are respectively $59.99, $69.99, $114.99, and $119.99 on the website shop.westerndigital.com, sitting towards the lower end of average. It provides a 3-year limited warranty.
While WD Easystore has 5 capacities – 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB and 5TB. The prices are less than My Passport and the warranty is 2 years.
In this aspect, WD Easystore is more economic.
My Passport VS Easystore: Which One Is Better?
After having an understanding of Western Digital Easystore and My Passport, here comes a question: which one is better for you to choose?
WD Easystore is a winner in compatibility and value for money while My Passport wins in appearance and password protection.
To be specific, if you are using a Mac, you can choose WD Easystore or use WD My Passport for Mac. If you need to store any type of personal information including financial papers, medical documents, contracts, etc. and worry about security, WD My Passport is a good choice since you can use password protection and hardware encryption.
All in all, in our opinion, WD My Passport is a better option since it is compact & lightweight and the colors can help you distinguish it from other drives. Besides, password protection is an important factor.
But WD Easystore is also an excellent hard drive with large capacity and reasonable prices. Just choose one based on your actual situations.
How to Back up Data to WD Easystore or My Passport
As mentioned above, WD Backup is an automatic software for Windows 10/8/7/Vista to back up your files to a Western Digital hard drive for data protection. So, you may wonder about how to do this work.
Step 1: You can run this backup software that comes with your hard drive. Or go to download WD Backup from the official website, unzip the file and click the .exe file to install. Then, run it on your computer.
Step 2: If there is a created backup, click Back up Files to start.
Step 3: Choose your WD hard drive, WD Easystore or My Passport as the backup destination and click Next.
Step 4: You can see the default setup. To change the backup schedule (hourly), click Edit Schedule to automatically back up files daily or monthly.
To change the backup source (By default, this software will back up the files and folder for the User who is signed in to the computer), click Edit Files to go to choose what you want to back up.
Step 5: Click Start Backup to back up your files.
This backup software can only be used to back up your important files. If you need to back up the Windows system, it cannot help. Besides, according to users, WD Backup often fails to work.
Related article:What to Do If WD Backup Is Not Working Windows 10/8.1/7
To backup up your computer well to WD Easystore or WD My Passport, we recommend using a professional and third-party free backup software – MiniTool ShadowMaker.
Use MiniTool ShadowMaker to Back up Your Computer
MiniTool ShadowMaker is designed to back up your files or folders automatically, create a system image, backup disks, and partitions. Besides, you can use this software to clone disk to another hard drive and sync files to other locations.
Also, you can create a bootable drive with MiniTool Media Builder. Once the system cannot boot, you can run the PC from the drive and perform a recovery via the created image backup.
How to use MinTool ShadowMaker to back up your files or system? Just get it and follow the guide below.
Step 1: Launch the backup software to its main interface.
Step 2: Navigate to the Backup window, you can find MiniTool ShadowMaker will back up the Windows operating system by default. If you want to back up files, choose Source > Folders and Files and then choose files you want to back up.
Step 3: Then, choose your WD hard drive as the storage path.
Step 4: To back up files automatically, click Schedule to make a setting. You can back up data daily, weekly, monthly, etc.
Step 5: Click Back up Now to start the backup immediately.
Want to create automatic file backups in Windows 10? This post shows you how to automatically back up files to an external hard drive with ease.
Bottom Line
WD Easystore vs My Passport: which one is better or which one should you choose? After reading this post, you know some similarities and differences between these two portable hard drives and know which one is your good choice.
Besides, you can use the built-in WD Backup software to back up files for data protection. Also, an alternative to WD Backup – MiniTool ShadowMaker can back up the computer well.
If you have any suggestions for these two hard drives or questions about computer backup, you can contact us by leaving a comment below or sending an email to [email protected].
WD Easystore vs My Passport FAQ
What is the difference between WD My Passport and Easystore?
They are different in four major aspects, for example, appearance, password protection, compatibility, and value for money. My Passport has four colors and comes with the password protection feature but Easystore is only in black, doesn’t offer password protection but it is compatible with Mac.
What is the difference between WD Easystore and my book?
WD Easystore is always for backup, cloud share, and streaming while My Book is used for work files as well as storage and portability of school.
What is the difference between WD My Passport and My Book?
My Book relies on external power and it is designed to be used in a primary location (Desktop). Normally, it cannot be moved around. My Passport is designed for portability and it can be connected to the PC via the USB port.
WD Easystore is also an excellent portable hard drive. But compared to My Passport, its advantage is not obvious since it doesn’t support password protection.