Passport not recognized in my F-150

[jb3218]

My 2016 F-150 does not respond when plugged into my vehicle's usb port. it is recognized when plugged into my computer.

 

[greens]

Your external hard drive is formatted to NTFS.
Your F150 can't read NTFS drives for sure.

It can read FAT32 drives for sure, and probably EXT3, or even exFAT. I'd just go with FAT32 which is still readable by the vast majority of devices, including your computer.

Formatting deletes everything on the drive, so make sure to back it up before formatting it to another file type.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to Tom's Hardware, @jb3218!

Unfortunately, I'm afraid that @greens is totally right on this one! You will need to re-format the WD My Passport external in exFAT or FAT32 in order to be able to use it in the vehicle. In order to do that you should back up any data that you might have already stored on the external HDD and copy it safely to your computer. The reformatting procedure will erase all the data you have currently stored on the drive. Here is a helpful tutorial from our knowledge base about Formatting a WD drive in exFAT or FAT32.

I'd also suggest you read through some of File & Partition size limitations that come with teh FAT32 file system.
Make sure you always back up your files from the WD My Passport onto a computer or another storage device. Using it in your vehicle is definitely not save for the files you have on the HDD. Mechanical hard drives are pretty sensitive, so be careful when losing power to the drive or dropping it. All these things could physically corrupt the HDD inside which would make it unusable. 🙁

Hope this helps you.
SuperSoph_WD