Disk ejecting when trying to format

I inherited an older iMac that dates back to 2004 which will not boot up correctly. When I tried to format it with OS X 10.4 (PPC), the disk ejects while holding 'C'. If I press/hold alt/opt during boot-up, it only shows me the Macintosh HD and not the optical drive. Could it be that the optical drive is bad? ...or might this be happening if it's an Intel that I mistook for a PPC?

Here's an update -- I put in an older O/S install disk for Leopard 10.3 (PPC) and the optical drive recognized it; however, the setup screen was hardly viewable. Is this possibly an Intel imac?

Similar Messages

External USB Drive hangs Disk Utility when trying to Format

Hello Everyone,
I have a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300gig hard drive in an enclosure connected to my iMAC via USB. The drive was previously used on an Win XP pc and worked fine. I want to format it and use it as a backup for my MAC. When I plug in the drive, OS X says that it can't read the drive and asks if I want to initalize it. I go ahead and select 1 partition Extended Journaled and hit go. The Maxtor spins up for a few mins and then the colour wheel shows up and the Disk Utility shows not responding and the light on the Maxtor goes off. I have to force quit to get the Disk Utility to shutdown. I can format and parition the drive no problem on the XP pc. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Rem

I also had a problem initializing and partitioning a new Seagate Barracuda 400GB drive with the NexStar GX (NST-370GX) external USB enclosure as described above. Neither my G4 MacBook Pro or my Mac Mini Dual core could initialize or partition the enclosure/drive. I could however hook the enclosure up to my XP machine, format it using NTFS, and access (read) the drive on my Mac Mini just fine. I didn't check it on the laptop though after formatting it using XP. This still was unacceptable.
After doing some searching online, I discovered this post on 123macmini.com:
http://www.123macmini.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2629
where the post points out that the NexStar GX enclosure is a rebranded Macpower M9-LX. Then I discovered on the Macpower site:
http://www.macpower.com.tw/products/hdd3/m9/m9lx
that the enclosure is not compatible with any Seagate Barracuda drive greater than 160GB. Doh!
After swapping out the Barracuda drive for a 300GB Western Digital drive I could then initialize, partition, and use the enclosure on my Mac Mini without any problem.
I was using OSX 10.4.7
I hope this helps others out there with the same configuration.
Ctut

Disk utility reports "Device could not be opened" - error when trying to format a new drive in a Mac Pro 1,1

MacPro 1,1 Quadcore 3 GHz (2006 "Woodcrest")
32 GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 5770
OS X 10.7.5 Lion
I have encountered the following behavior when trying to format a new drive with disk utility. This description has also been send via the Mac Pro feedback as a bug report to Apple.
On searching the web and forums with this particular error message and behaviour I could not find any usful results. So maybe the following description may be helpful for some users.
Best regards.
1. Drive Bay 1 contains the original 250 GB Startupdisk. It works without errors.
2. Drive Bays 3 and 4 contain each a WD Caviar Black 2 TB SATA 3 HDD. They work without errors.
3. I have purchased a third WD Caviar Black 2 TB HDD.
4. In Drive Bay 2 there has been a Seagate 750 GB HDD, which worked in conjunction with all the other drives without error.
5. I exchanged the Seagate HDD in Drive Bay 2 with the new WD Caviar Black 2 TB HDD.
6. On starting the system, it will report to initialize the new drive.
7. On trying to initialize the new drive with disk utility it reports the error [translated from German] "Erasing of the volume has failed. The device could not be opened."
8. I thought that the drive is faulty. Thus I created an RMA-Case at WD. They exchanged the drive without problems.
9. On getting the exchanged WD Caviar Black 2 TB drive I put it in Drive Bay 2 as before.
10. On trying to erase and format the exchange drive I got the same error message "Drive could not be opened."
10.1 On selecting the physical drive in the devices list, disk utility reports all information in the bottom area of its window as usual, e. g. hard disk description, connection bus, type and place, capacity, write status, SMART-status, partition scheme.
10.1 On leaving that drive selected in the devices list and clicking the info-button, disk utility will also report additional information as usual, e. g. Name, Type, partition scheme, media-identification, media name, media type, device tree, … , number of relocated sectors, etc.. All this information appears to be valid, as can be compared to the other devices information inside the other Drive Bays. Also the disk numbering scheme appears to be standard - 4 HDDs give the numbering disk0, disk1, disk2, disk3.
10.2 From that information I conclude that the SATA-bus and connectors electrically work properly, the drive has spun up and can be accessed by the system normally.
11. I powered down the computer, took out the HDDs from Drive Bays 3 and 4 and put the caddy with the new exchange drive in Drive Bay 4 [Maybe, I could have also just left it alone in Drive Bay 2, or 3].
12. After powering on the system, disk utility will quick format the exchange drive without any error message. Also, when erasing again by selecting the option to write zeros to the drive, disk utility will finish without error.
13. After disk utility finished formatting, I put back the original drives into Drive Bay 3 and 4 and put the now newly formatted drive back into Drive Bay 2.
14. After switching on the computer the system start and login proceeds without any error message. All drives appear as expected on the desktop.

If anyone is reading this still looking for what caused the issue and how to fix it here is what I discovered.
The antivirus program our company uses, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, was causing some of the PDF files not to open. After troubleshooting the different modules and settings the culprit was..
Scan SSL in Privacy Control Settings. Turning it OFF solved the problem and all the PDF files that previously would not open now open just fine. This issue has been sent to Bitdefender for them to review. If you use a different antivirus program and are having this issue try locating the Scan SSL setting and see if turning it off solves the problem.

I am having trouble trying to boot from my lion osx install disk on a 2007 macbook. The disk ejects when I start up with the option key depressed. Anyone have any ideas?

I am having trouble trying to boot from my lion osx install disk on a 2007 macbook. The disk ejects when I start up with the option key depressed. Anyone have any ideas?
Thank you.

How did you get a Lion OSX install disc? They don't exist. Do you mean the gray disks that came with your 2007 MacBook?
If you mean the gray disks, try starting up with the "c" key held down.
What version of OSX is on your MacBook now? Have you tried booting from the Recovery partition?

How do I erase my hard drive? My initial operating system was Snow Leopard but I have upgraded to Mavericks OS. My Snow Leopard install disk ejects when I try and use it.

How do I erase my hard drive? My initial operating system was Snow Leopard but I have upgraded to Mavericks OS. My Snow Leopard install disk ejects when I try and use it.

Do a backup, preferable 2 separate ones on 2 drives. Boot to the Recovery Volume (command - R on a restart or hold down the option/alt key during a restart and select Recovery Volume). Run Disk Utility Verify/Repair and Repair Permissions until you get no errors. Reformat the drive using Disk Utility/Erase Mac OS Extended (Journaled), then click the Option button and select GUID. Then re-install the OS.
OS X Recovery
OS X Recovery (2)
When you reboot, use Setup Assistant to restore your data.

When trying to update Acrobat XI I get a 1328 error each time. I have uninstalled XI and reinstalled it from disk. When trying to update the newly installed XI I still get the 1328 error. I have searched my C: drive for the file C:\config\Msi\PTA082.tmp b

When trying to update Acrobat XI I get a 1328 error each time. I have uninstalled XI and reinstalled it from disk. When trying to update the newly installed XI I still get the 1328 error. I have searched my C: drive for the file C:\config\Msi\PTA082.tmp but with no sucess. Any suggestions?

Hi Berriedale,
Please try the below steps and check.
Turn off any antivirus or software security program.
Download the update patch 11.0.10 manually from the below link and run it.
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=5859
Regards,
Anand

HT2905 can someone please tell me why I do not get the delete from disk option when trying to delete duplicate items

can someone please tell me why I do not get the delete from disk option when trying to delete duplicate items

The content must be in the iTunes directory structure for that option to appear.

Got an error when installing SocialMiner "An error occurred when trying to format sda6"

Hi,
I got an error "an error occurred when trying to format sda6", when trying to install SocialMiner 8.5.1 on VMWare. Then it stopped installing with blank screen.
Could anyone please let me know what is this error and what could be the resolution for this.
Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Sudheer

Bjornno11 please utilize the steps listed in Error "Failed to Install" Creative Cloud Desktop application - http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/failed-install-creative-cloud-desktop.html to resolve the current error.

When trying to format my internal hard drive, it's greyed out in Disk utility?

I'm trying ot format my computer and wipe everything off before giving it away, but Disk Utility has everything greyed out and won't let me choose my hard drive. I have the original CD and everything that came with the computer. How do I fix this fast?

Clean Install of Snow Leopard
Be sure to make a backup first because the following procedure will erase
the drive and everything on it.
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
         with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
         After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see
         a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
     2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue
         button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
         After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
         and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
         (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
         username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
         Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
         install of OS X. You can now begin the update process by opening Software
         Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

Errors in dmesg when trying to format a usb flash drive

I'm trying to format it using `mkfs.ntfs /dev/sdb1`, the progress freezes after some seconds and dmesg starts to print a bunch of errors. Aparently at a certain point the device gets removed from the system (not listed in /dev anymore).
Here is dmesg log from the point where I plug the flash drive and start the command up to when /dev/sdb disappears:
http://pastie.org/9932469
I tried this: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=149384 but it didn't help.

File formats aren't compatible based on filesystem. It's just data to the filesystem. Compatibility is at the application level, which is where the files are opened and read. Any file can be put onto any drive, assuming it is within the filesystems limitations (i.e. FAT32's 4GB size limit).

I get a disk error when trying to upgrade to mountain lion on my mac book pro that also runs bootcamp

I recently tried to upgrade my macbook pro OSX to mountain lion via the app store. When it tried to install it gives me a disk error. I have run disk utilities and repaired, verified etc. but it makes no difference. I am running bootcamp as well and have tried to modifiy the partition sizes in disk utilities, but it says for both that they cannot be modified. I can switch my startup disk and reboot in windows, no problem, so getting my files off isnt the issue. I have also tried to recover the hard disk using time machine which i was lucky enough to backup the day before it all went wrong. However, time machine runs fine until it asks me which disk to recover and it gives me an option of the time machine disk or bootcamp, but no option for my mac partition. So, I have tried everything that makes snese, but getting errors with disks lock, cant repartition, disk error needs repair (which i know is not true, its only because of the Mountain Lion OSX that its messed up). Any ideas?

You have some other problem with your boot drive that has corrupted data backed up to the TimeMacine drive.
My advice is to boot into each operating system and manually backup just your Users files each to separate regular external drives (no Timemachine or backup software) and disconnect.
Make a note of any serial numbers, emails, address book contacts, export bookmarks etc. that isn't typically in your users folders data.
You might be able to Winclone 3 the Windows as a whole thing as it's appearing not to have issues but it's your MacintoshHD partition that is so that will have to be rebuilt from scratch.
Most commonly used backup methods
If your OS X parititon doesn't boot, you can use this to recover files.
Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
Without any further detail about your machine I can't advise specifically what to do, but it involves using Disk Utility to Zero Erase (move slider one spot to the right or in 10.6 using Security Option) the ENTIRE boot drive and reformatting, then installing OSX fresh and then setting up BootCamp again.
If you wish to switch your boot drive for something better, this is a good time to do this.
Install/upgrade RAM or storage drive in Mac's
If your machine is capable of Internet Recovery, then use that, then upgrade.
If your machine came with 10.6 or earlier, then use the 10.6 install disks and work up from there.
Erase, formatting, OS X installs on Mac's

Error when trying to format my 22GB SSD

The SSD originally came partitioned into two volumes. One of them was about 8GB and I have no idea what it was originally used for. The other partition was about 14GB and was used by ExpressCache.
After formatting the primary partition on the other drive and reinstalling Windows 8.1, I decided to delete the two partitions on the SSD and to instead create a single 22GB partition to be used by ExpressCache.
ExpressCache was working perfectly until I enabled bitlocker.
Then the machine started playing up and I later learned that bitlocker was incompatible with ExpressCache. So rolled back the encryption on the main drive and uninstalled ExpressCache. Since I am not going to be able to use ExpressCache with bitlocker, I would now like to format the 22GB SSD with NTFS and assign it a drive letter.
This is where I have started running into problems.
Even though I do not have ExpressCache installed or running and I do not yet have bitlocker enabled, windows keeps failing when I try to format the drive.
I have tried to use a variety of tools to format the drive. All of them get stuck at 0%.
Tools I have tried include: diskpart, windows format, EaseUS partition manager and MiniTool Partition Wizard
Various tools I have tried report that the disk is healthy.
I have used diskpart to remove the partition and create a new primary one.
When I try to format the partition using diskpart, I get the message:
"DiskPart has encountered an error: The parameter is incorrect. See the System Event Log for more information."
The event log reports the following warning as a result of attempting to format the drive:
Event ID: 129
Source: storahci
Message: Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort0, was issued.
Event ID: 153
Source: disk
Message: The IO operation at logical block address d8 for Disk 1 (PDO name: \Device\00000036) was retried.
Event ID: 129
Source: storahci
Message: Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort0, was issued.
(This last warning will appear four times - roughly 30 seconds apart)
Is this a driver issue?
I have tried installing the "Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver" and then formatting the drive, but it still gets stuck at 0% (this time however it doesn't report any warning in the event log) so I have resorted back to the Standard SATA AHCI Controller
Does anybody have any suggestions for how I can get some use out of my 22GB SSD?
It is a Toshiba THNSNX024GMNT
Much appreciated!
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Check this forum out: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/X240-SSD-Cache-M-2/td-p/1361827/page/2
I had a co-worker subscribed to the feed and had someone actually locate the SSD drive...We took it off and we are starting to image as normal now....HAPPINESS once again!

SD card won't import into Aperture, auto-ejects when trying to load preview

Tonight, after installing Leopard, I tried to import photos from an SD card through my SanDisk reader, just as I always have, and as soon as Aperture tries to display previews of what's on the card it causes the card/reader to auto-eject, and I get the message stating that the disk was not removed properly...
So, how do I get my images in Aperture now?

Yes. The card mounts on the desktop.
There may be mixed formats on the card, not sure.
Definitely 1080/24fps
Maybe a few 1080/30fps.
If I use ClipWrap or Media Converter will the files remain at the same level of compression?
No loss of quality from original file?

"No disk detected" when trying to restore Server Backup Image to a virtual hard disk

hello,
I have a server 2012 running hyper-v
I've created a new VHD and started the process of a windows restore.
The restore process picks up the backup drive and can see the backup that i want to restore.
The backup is of a Windows installation taken from a phsyical server. My intention is to restore to virtual.
When i get to this page:
I cannot get the option to not be greyed out. However, if i click exclude disks it shows me the virtual disk.
If i press to continue i get this:
Any help would be appreciated.

Hi Simon,
"How is best to do this on a live environment?"
Not sure I understood " live environment" correctly , but Disk2vhd can run on a system that’s online.
For details please refer to following link:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-in/sysinternals/ee656415.aspx
Hope this helps
Best Regards
Elton Ji
We
are trying to better understand customer views on social support experience, so your participation in this
interview project would be greatly appreciated if you have time.
Thanks for helping make community forums a great place.

In Flash Builder: "No Disk" Error when trying to switch to Design View

Just had Flash Builder Beta 1 uninstalled and Beta 2 installed instead.
When I try to switch to Design View or open a link from Start Page in Flash Builder Beta 2, the application freezes and "No Disk" error message pops up.

You have some other problem with your boot drive that has corrupted data backed up to the TimeMacine drive.
My advice is to boot into each operating system and manually backup just your Users files each to separate regular external drives (no Timemachine or backup software) and disconnect.
Make a note of any serial numbers, emails, address book contacts, export bookmarks etc. that isn't typically in your users folders data.
You might be able to Winclone 3 the Windows as a whole thing as it's appearing not to have issues but it's your MacintoshHD partition that is so that will have to be rebuilt from scratch.
Most commonly used backup methods
If your OS X parititon doesn't boot, you can use this to recover files.
Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
Without any further detail about your machine I can't advise specifically what to do, but it involves using Disk Utility to Zero Erase (move slider one spot to the right or in 10.6 using Security Option) the ENTIRE boot drive and reformatting, then installing OSX fresh and then setting up BootCamp again.
If you wish to switch your boot drive for something better, this is a good time to do this.
Install/upgrade RAM or storage drive in Mac's
If your machine is capable of Internet Recovery, then use that, then upgrade.
If your machine came with 10.6 or earlier, then use the 10.6 install disks and work up from there.
Erase, formatting, OS X installs on Mac's

Disk ejecting when trying to format

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for