WD My Passport----Unable to see files!!!!

[aledoux4]

Hi. I have a WD passport. I had saved many pictures and videos from my Windows PC. A few years ago I bought a Mac. I plugged the Passport into my Mac and it would not let me add or change anything on the Passport, but I could see the files. Now, a couple years later, I plugged it in to try to find a picture and there are no files in the Passport. All it does is open WD SmartWare and has files to set up the external hard drive, as if it were new. Also, when I click on get info it says the WD SmartWare only has 237.5MB capacity? I have no idea what is going on.

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there aledoux4,

Sorry that you are facing some issues with your WD My Passport. 🙁
How did you transfer the files over to the external drive? Simple drag and drop or using WD SmartWare?

Most probably, your drive's file system is "read only" for your Mac.(NTFS for example) This is why, I would advise you to attach the drive to a windows machine and see whether the drive will get recognized. You can go to Disk Management and see how the drive appears over there.(Whether it has letter assigned, file system, healthy partitions).
In case the drive appears under My Computer, but you can't see any files over there, you can try using some data recovery tool and see whether it will find something: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1644496/lost-data-recovery.html (In case you have transferred the files with simple drag and dropping)
If you have backed up your data with WD's SmartWare, you can check this link out on how to retrieve a backup: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=h59PPa

If you manage to retrieve your data, I would advise you to format the drive to a file system that is compatible with both Windows and Mac: http://www.macyourself.com/2012/03/11/how-to-format-a-drive-for-mac-and-pc-compatibility/

It will not hurt to test the drive with WD's Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tool in order to check the drive's status out: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=qurC7v (Windows only)

Let me know how this goes,
D_Know_WD