DIsk Utility Hangs When Formatting USB flash drive

I have a 4gb USB drive (Jetflash by Transcend) that's been usable formatted as FAT. I'd read that i/o would be a lot faster if I formatted as Mac OS Extended instead. In fact, I've done this with previous USB drives with success. When I try to reformat the drive in Disk Utility, it stalls at "Preparing to Erase." I've also tried going through Partition instead, but again, just stalls at the beginning. This is not a freeze or hang or spinning ball moment, but it will just sit there not doing anything. I can quit out of DU at any time. I've left DU alone, thinking this just may take a while, but it has stayed this way up to 3 hours. Suspiciously, there are no blinking lights on the usb drive during this process. I realize every USB flash drive must have different firmware that reacts differently to Macs and I may just be unable to Mac-format this. I've also taken the drive to other Macs all running 10.4.7 with the same results. Any ideas or workarounds will be appreciated. Thanks.

Update: I've tried on a 3rd mac, my g5/1.8 at home and plugged the USB flash drive to a powered usb hub. Now Disk Utility doesn't stall, but instead immediately states that it can't access the partition map. As the drive has public/private partition capability and also security features, I'm going to assume that's the reason for it to be only formattable as FAT. So now I'm looking for large capacity flash drives that are mac-formattable or find information that throughput is the same on a USB drive no matter how it's formatted.

Similar Messages

Disk Utility Hangs during format

Yes, I've seen a hundred other posts on this but all have been archived with no solution.
It seems very likely there is a 10.4 problem. When I try to format a 160GB drive connected via USB Disk Utility hangs and never completes. I have tried to partition it as well with no luck.
Is there a fix? Is Apple working on the problem? Is there a workaround? Even a commandline fix would be acceptable.

This is ridiculous. I have tried 4 different physical drives in 4 different physical enclosures (3 different brands) and it still hangs Disk Utility.
I know I'm not the only one with this problem. What the **** is going on? I can't format a disk and therefore I can't use it. This is absolutely unacceptable.
Sometimes my machine hangs in such a way that I can't even reboot it, it requires a physical power down.
I have been forced to format these on a Windows machine with FAT32 (using a 3rd party app to get past the GB limitation MS sets). I don't want FAT32, I want HFS+. But I can find no other way to do this in Tiger as it ALWAYS hangs regardless of drive, enclosure, filesystem type, size, number of partitions, etc, etc.
Is OS X truly this bad that it can't even format a drive properly? Am I really going to have to rely on Windows and FAT32 whenever I want to format?

Disk Utility hangs when erasing external disk

In Time Machine I wasn't able to figure out how to attach an external drive via USB. I guessed that it probably wouldn't work on a MS-DOS filesystem, so I started Disk Utility, which I never have used before. I have formatted disks before on Linux and on Windows, so it's nice to see a great app for this.
In the Time Machine brief help text, there is not mentioned what kind of filesystem that is required or if it work with any filesystem. So I searched, and it seems as if HFS+ journaled case-insensitive is the filesystem that one should choose. Can anyone confirm this?
When I click erase then the Disk Utility program hangs and I see the spinning beachball. The Activity Monitor program shows that disk activity stops after a few seconds. There is no more activity, so after 5 minutes I stop the program.
I have tried several times, and I see the same behavior. I even tried restarting the computer. But no luck.
Now my external disk no longer shows that it's a MS-DOS filesystem, but shows that it's HFS+ journaled case-insensitive. Probably not ok so far. I try creating a single patition, with format: HFS+ journaled case-insensitive, without OS 9 drivers installed. When I click apply then spinning beachball again and diskactivity stops after a few seconds, and I stop the program after some minutes where it has been inactive.
My guess is that the disk-erasing task failed and has left the disk in a broken state. During this task Disk Utility began to hang for a reason that I don't know.
My second guess to why the create-partition task failed, is that the disk is in a broken state, and thus the partition cannot be created, and Disk Utility hangs.
How do I format the external disk from the command line?

In Disk Utility, select the drive mechanism (not the volume on it) and click the Partition button. Use the Options button to choose the GUID partition scheme, then make one HFS+ (Journaled) volume.
There is no point in using the command line for this task, because if Disk Utility cannot deal properly with the disk, Mac OS X will not either. Disk Utility is using diskutil to do the partitioning and formatting.

How to format USB flash drive?

I recently received a USB flash drive at a traveling covention. It has two partitions and one is unwritable and is filled with travel brochurs etc etc. I was wondering if it was possible to reformat the whole thing back into 1 partition. I already tried disk utility. Thanks!

Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

Missing disk space after inserting a USB flash drive

Hello everyone..
I had a little problem with my Aluminum Macbook recently
It started on last sunday, when i pluged in a USB flash drive into my macbook, all of sudden my Macintosh disk free space is gone, from about 50gb left to about 1.5gb...
I ran the disk utility check and repair it fixed the problem, but then again whenever i plug in any usb flash drive(i tried several), it "steals" my free disk space and i have to run th repair programme again..
Any idea of this problem? is it any kind of virus or something else?
thanks

Hi,
*"a restart message."* If it looks like this...
That is called a kernel panic. Sounds like the USB card software/hardware is incompatible with your Mac.
Go here for help to Resolve Kernel Panics
Carolyn
Message was edited by: Carolyn Samit

Receiving fibre channel activity log email when unplugging usb flash drive

I found this to be very interesting.... I get the email from the log of the machine I am on.... this happens EVERY time I unplug my SanDisk CRUZER GATOR 8GB Flash Drive. I have a couple other non-sandisk drives and it doesnt seem to cause the same thing.
this really doesnt effect our xsan or anything, but its annoying and it worries me that it could screw something up potentially.....so I am just wondering if anyone else is experiencing this?? or would know why this happens with just the sandisk...
This is on a MacPro 2 x 3ghz dual core xeons, 4gb memory. xsan 1.4.2
contents of the email:
Fibre channel activity and failures:
16:03:53: LUN 00:00:00:00:00:00:00:001 is no longer available
16:03:53: LUN 00:00:00:00:00:00:00:000 is no longer avail...
Message was edited by: RoyMan

We received this alert also:
Fibre channel activity and failures:
14:27:05: LUN 00:00:00:00:00:00:00:001 is no longer available
14:27:05: LUN 00:00:00:00:00:00:00:000 is no longer avail...
And we were using a SanDisk 8GB Cruzer USB flash drive as well.
Client is Mac Pro / Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon / 2BG RAM / Xsan 1.4.2.

Disk Utility fails when formatting a drive

Hi, I have been having problem with Disk Utility when formatting a drive. Every time I format a drive, regarding of what volume format I choose, it will start the format and then fail shortly after.
The drives are then no longer mountable and Disk Utility will not be able to see the drive any more.
Can some one tell me why this is failing? I have only ever experienced this problem on my Mac Pro.
Thanks

Thanks, The Hatter. Sorry I didn't include the internal drive information because so far, I have been using disk utility to format external drives and every time I tried to use it to format, it will fail (have not tried to format an internal drive as I only have one internal).
This is the detail of my internal drive.
Capacity: 298.09 GB
Model: WDC WD3200AAJS-41VWA0
Revision: 58.01D01
Serial Number: WD-WCARW3484394
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Bay Name: "Bay 1"
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
I have tried connecting external drives via, USB and Firewire. Have tried formatting drive to MS-DOS (Fat 32) or MacOS Extended and nothing works.
Please let me know if you need any more info.

Disk Utility Hangs When Creating a New Partition

Hello,
I recently purchased a Late 2005 Power Mac G5. My problem is, that the hard drive is 250 MB and only one partition appears in the disk utility of 37 GB. I try to add a new partition, but it hangs on "modifying partition map". Any Help?
Additional info -
Main Disk
Name : WDC WD2500JD-41HBC0
Type : Disk
Partition Map Scheme : Apple Partition Map
Disk Identifier : disk0
Media Name : WDC WD2500JD-41HBC0 WDC WD2500JD-41HBC0
Media Type : Generic
Connection Bus : Serial ATA
Connection ID : Device 0, "A (upper)"
Device Tree : first-boot/@0:0
Bay : "A (upper)"
Writable : Yes
Ejectable : No
Mac OS 9 Drivers Installed : No
Location : Internal
Total Capacity : 232.9 GB (250,059,350,016 Bytes)
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Verified
Disk Number : 0
Partition Number : 0
Partition -
Name : Mac OSX 10.5
Type : Volume
Disk Identifier : disk0s3
Mount Point : /
File System : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Connection Bus : ATA
Device Tree : first-boot/@0:3
Writable : Yes
Universal Unique Identifier : 989D8CCE-3C5D-3ECC-9A12-C025D2DF23F2
Capacity : 37.1 GB (39,873,503,232 Bytes)
Free Space : 24.5 GB (26,274,824,192 Bytes)
Used : 12.7 GB (13,598,679,040 Bytes)
Number of Files : 484,775
Number of Folders : 110,579
Owners Enabled : Yes
Can Turn Owners Off : Yes
Can Repair Permissions : Yes
Can Be Verified : Yes
Can Be Repaired : Yes
Can Be Formatted : Yes
Bootable : Yes
Supports Journaling : Yes
Journaled : Yes
Disk Number : 0
Partition Number : 3
Thanks

Have you tried doing this first:
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. 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 your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
If there are no errors reported then try the routine I suggested rather than trying to expand the existing partition just try to Add a second partition as you have tried before.
If this still gets you nowhere, then I'm afraid you're left with having to repartition from scratch. You'll want to backup the existing files if you don't wish to lose them. I would then do this:
Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. 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.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
When the above is completed quit DU and return to the installer. Complete the OS X installation.

Disk Utility error when verifying DIY fusion drive

Hi,
It has been a while since I had to post a problem, but I need others advice on this if you can help. When 10.8.3 came out I installed an M4 512gb ssd in my main drive bay of 2008 unibody aluminium macbook and put a 1tb spinner in the optibay. Created a fusion drive, migrated data and all has been great. Decided to run disk utility today to check for any errors as I had a sleep issue with the 10.8.4 update which I ended up solving by changing the sleep settings in terminal - the issue had caused a few forced shutdowns. I have Disk Utitliy Version 13 (450). The Fusion drive is shown as the logical volume group followed by the volume disk. When I run a verify disk on the volume itself it is all ok:
Verifying volume “Cybernet”
Checking storage systemChecking volume.
disk0s2: Scan for Volume Headers
disk1s2: Scan for Volume Headers
disk0s2: Scan for Disk Labels
disk1s2: Scan for Disk Labels
Logical Volume Group 0DAE76E1-A325-4925-902F-1015B270B84C spans 2 devices
disk0s2+disk1s2: Scan for Metadata Volume
Logical Volume Group has a 2170 MB Metadata Volume with double redundancy
Start scanning metadata for a valid checkpoint
Load and verify Segment Headers
Load and verify Checkpoint Payload
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Incorporate 6 newer non-checkpoint transactions
Load and verify Virtual Address Table
Load and verify Segment Usage Table
Load and verify Metadata Superblock
Load and verify Logical Volumes B-Trees
Logical Volume Group contains 1 Logical Volume
Load and verify 309877EC-EA53-443C-A75C-63C159B04EF3
Load and verify 5388E543-6974-4251-BDBD-FA850C121897
Load and verify Freespace Summary
Load and verify Block Accounting
Load and verify Live Virtual Addresses
Newest transaction commit checkpoint is valid
Load and verify Segment Cleaning
The volume 0DAE76E1-A325-4925-902F-1015B270B84C appears to be OK.
Checking file systemPerforming live verification.
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking catalog hierarchy.
Checking extended attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Cybernet appears to be OK.
When I run it on the LVG it comes up as:
Verifying partition map for “M4-CT512M4SSD2 Media”
Checking prerequisites
Checking the partition list
Checking for an EFI system partition
Checking the EFI system partition’s size
Checking the EFI system partition’s file system
Checking all HFS data partition loader spaces
Checking Core Storage Physical Volume partitions
Checking storage system
Checking volume.
disk0s2: Scan for Volume Headers
disk1s2: Scan for Volume Headers
disk0s2: Scan for Disk Labels
disk1s2: Scan for Disk Labels
Logical Volume Group 0DAE76E1-A325-4925-902F-1015B270B84C spans 2 devices
disk0s2+disk1s2: Scan for Metadata Volume
Logical Volume Group has a 2170 MB Metadata Volume with double redundancy
Start scanning metadata for a valid checkpoint
Load and verify Segment Headers
Load and verify Checkpoint Payload
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Incorporate 40 newer non-checkpoint transactions
Load and verify Virtual Address Table
Load and verify Segment Usage Table
Load and verify Metadata Superblock
Load and verify Logical Volumes B-Trees
Logical Volume Group contains 1 Logical Volume
Load and verify 309877EC-EA53-443C-A75C-63C159B04EF3
Load and verify 5388E543-6974-4251-BDBD-FA850C121897
Load and verify Freespace Summary
Load and verify Block Accounting
Load and verify Live Virtual Addresses
Newest transaction commit checkpoint is valid
Load and verify Segment Cleaning
The volume 0DAE76E1-A325-4925-902F-1015B270B84C appears to be OK.
Incorrect size for volume “Cybernet”
Problems were found with the partition map which might prevent booting
Error: Incorrect size for logical volume.
Verifying partition map for “WDC WD10JPVT-00A1YT0 Media”
Checking prerequisites
Checking the partition list
Checking for an EFI system partition
Checking the EFI system partition’s size
Checking the EFI system partition’s file system
Checking all HFS data partition loader spaces
Checking Core Storage Physical Volume partitions
Checking storage system
Checking volume.
disk0s2: Scan for Volume Headers
disk1s2: Scan for Volume Headers
disk0s2: Scan for Disk Labels
disk1s2: Scan for Disk Labels
Logical Volume Group 0DAE76E1-A325-4925-902F-1015B270B84C spans 2 devices
disk0s2+disk1s2: Scan for Metadata Volume
Logical Volume Group has a 2170 MB Metadata Volume with double redundancy
Start scanning metadata for a valid checkpoint
Load and verify Segment Headers
Load and verify Checkpoint Payload
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Incorporate 43 newer non-checkpoint transactions
Load and verify Virtual Address Table
Load and verify Segment Usage Table
Load and verify Metadata Superblock
Load and verify Logical Volumes B-Trees
Logical Volume Group contains 1 Logical Volume
Load and verify 309877EC-EA53-443C-A75C-63C159B04EF3
Load and verify 5388E543-6974-4251-BDBD-FA850C121897
Load and verify Freespace Summary
Load and verify Block Accounting
Load and verify Live Virtual Addresses
Newest transaction commit checkpoint is valid
Load and verify Segment Cleaning
The volume 0DAE76E1-A325-4925-902F-1015B270B84C appears to be OK.
Incorrect size for volume “Cybernet”
Problems were found with the partition map which might prevent booting
Error: Incorrect size for logical volume.
I got the same when I did a safe boot and when rebooted from the recovery partition.y question is, do I repair or could it damage my setup? eg is Disk Utility being accurate and it can repair the error, or is it a phantom issue that should be ignored bearing in mind it's a DIY fusion drive and it could end up getting mashed?
Thanks!

Hi,
The computer's running fine since I sorted the sleep issue. No issues as far as I can tell, which is why I was surprised to see the error. What does the error actually mean - is it saying that the volume is a different size than the computer thinks it should be and therefore it'll just change a few values? In which case I suppose a repair is harmless? I just don't want to repair and then reboot to find the volume corrupted.

Disk Utility hangs ("not responding") when attempting to Repair Disk on Time Capsule sparsebundle. Help.

I am trying to improve the performance of my Time Machine backup and retrievals via my 2nd Gen. Time Capsule from my iMac Core 2 Duo hard drive with SL 10.6.8. The incremental backups generally take 20 - 40 minutes each hour generally with fewer than 100 MB of data being backed up. I have read through numerous threads on these forums about Time Capsule and Time Machine issues as well as the very helpful Pondini site (http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Home.html) and have tried many other suggestions (listed below), but have been unable to attempt a Disk Utility repair disk on the Time Capsule sparsebundle file.
After locating the sparsebundle 'file' in the finder under Shared/TC/Data, I am only sometimes able to drag the sparsebundle into the Disk Utility volumes and disk window. About fifty percent of the time, Disk Utility hangs when attempting to drag in the sparsebundle. If I am able to get it listed and click on "repair disk", then the beach ball begins to spin and nothing happens. This occurs whether or not I first use AirPort Utility to "Disconnect All Users" from the Time Capsule. I have given it over one hour to attempt the repair disk, but nothing happens, i.e., not a single message shows up in the detail window. The beach ball just spins, and Disk Utility shows up in red as "not responding" under the Force Quit menu.
Also note that on my new Macbook Air, Time Machine runs quite quickly via this same Time Capsule from my new Macbook Air using OS X Lion (which seems to indicate that the Time Capsule drive itself is OK).
I would appreciate any tips on getting Disk Utility to run "repair disk" on my sparsebundle, as I seem to have exhausted most other options (see below) for improving Time Capsule performance -- aside of course, from wiping the Time Capsule clean and starting all over.... (which I really don't want to do, and from what I've read, has not helped some people who've tried this anyway).
Many thanks!
Although I would like to focus this thread on the Disk Utility / sparsebundle "Repair Disk" problem, I should mention that I have tried the following other things:
1. Repaired disk permissions on my hard drive
2. Used Disk Utility to run "repair disk" on my hard drive after starting up from a SuperDuper external backup
3. Run DiskWarrior on my hard drive, again, from a separate startup disk
4. Did the "full reset of Time Machine", a la Pondini Troubleshooting #A4
5. Changed my computer and Time Capsule names to simple short names with only alphanumeric characters and no spaces
6. Ensured that my Time Capsule is being accessed only via ethernet
7. Relaunched the finder
8. And finally, attempting to use Disk Utility to repair the sparsebundle - thus the nature of this post

OK, no takers out there, but I answered my own question (sort of).
The answer is that even though Disk Utility shows up as "not responding" under the Force Quit menu and appears to hang, it is actually still working. A bit of patience shows that after about an hour, my Disk Utility was able to show the 1.44 TB Time Machine sparsebundle from Time Capsule in the disk window on the left hand side. Once this appeared, I was able to click on "Repair Disk" (note that prior to doing this, I had to "Disconnect All Users" from my Time Capsule using the Airport Utility program; otherwise you will get a "could not unmount disk" error). Again, the Repair Disk function appeared to hang Disk Utility as it showed up as "not responding" under the Force Quit menu. However, after about 8 hours, Disk Utility did run the entire Repair Disk protocol on the sparsebundle. The results DO NOT show up in the Disk Utility details window - so even if you are patient enough to let it complete, you will not see anything and may think that nothing happened. However, you can find the familiar results of the Repair Disk function by looking on Console - find the "DiskUtility.log" under Files: ˜/Library/Logs.
Unfortunately, I was hoping to find a problem that would have been subsequently repaired which would result in dramatically increased Time Capsule speed, but this was not the case. Disk Utility showed everything to be "OK" and I am stuck with a very slow Time Capsule....
(And of note, my new Macbook Air (OS Lion) Time Machine functions blazingly fast on both backup and retrieval to and from the very same Time Capsule - even though, these are occuring wirelessly via AirPort -- granted the size of this sparsebundle is an order of magnitude smaller at this point, i.e., only 10 GB right now)
Would still be happy to hear of any similar experiences or tips on getting Time Capsule to work more quickly.

IMac Dropping Firewire Disks & USB Flash Drive

I have a 3TB 800mb WD Firewire Disk daisy chained to a 1TB 800mb WD Firewire Disk on my iMac along with a 3.95GB USB Flash Drive.
All my stuff is kept on these disks so the iMac runs light.
After awakening from sleep, I often find that one of the Firewire Disks or the USB Flash Drive has gone AWOL and it's a real pain to get the Firewire Disk working again. The USB Flash Drive requiring to be plugged in again.
Removing the Firewire Disks power lead sometimes fixes it, sometimes an iMac restart does the trick.
The problem with restarting the IMac is the length of time it takes in restarting. The USB drive's default appears to be to go AWOL every time the iMac restarts.
Does anyone know of a fix to cure this issue of Disks going AWOL and the abnormal time it takes to restart the iMac?
Regards to all,
iPentax
2.93 GHz Intel Core i7 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 Memory OS X 10.8.2

Hi Mike,
Tried all that, doesn't solve the issue.
Incidentally, I have Arcana Startuo Sound installed, this mutes the AWFULL Apple Diagnostic Startup Sound that some Apple Idiot devised.
Surely an on-screen message after startup, warning that something is amiss would be the sensible alternative?
Apple have more than their fair share of the number of idiots they employ, witness the Wireless Keyboard, a Keyboard without Page up/down keys and Calculator keys? I admit the Wireless Keyboard does comes in useful for iPad!
The problem with resetting the Pram is that it trashes Arcana, then I have to Restore OS X or reformat and install Snow Leopard>Mountain Lion etc.
Arcana isn't available for Mountain Lion, my Arcana copy only works with Mountain Lion through a legacy process.
Regards,
iPentax

How to reformat a USB flash drive?

I have 1.33 GB available on my Buffalo USB 2.0 GB Flash Drive that is formatted as MS-DOS File System (FAT 16).
Suddenly, every time I try to copy a MS Word document from my iMac to the flash drive I get the following message.
+"The item cannot be copied because there is not enough free space."+
I reported this to the Buffalo customer service and they responded with,
+"When you look at the files in the USB flash drive, do you see a lot of temporary files? Please delete these. If there is no other solution, I would like you to copy your good files onto your computer hard drive, reformat the USB drive, and copy the good files back onto the USB drive. "+
I did not see any temporary files, so I'm thinking that I have to reformat the flash drive.
But how do I do this?
I've backed up the files on the flash drive to my iMac.
I insert the flash drive and click on Disk Utility.
I select the flash drive icon and...
What do I do now?
The choices at the top are First Aid, Erase, RAID, Restore.
BTW, I am running on a iMac 2GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, OS 10.4.10.
As is evident, I have no idea about computers.
Please advise on a step-by-step basis.
I thank you in advance for your assistance.

Select Erase. Volume Format: MS DOS System.

USB Flash Drive Problems

Hi
I have found 2 problems when using USB flash drives. I have a 1GB USB drive that works fine on my iMac running OS X 10.4.7. However, when I delete files on the drive, my USB space capacity does not free up. I realised that what happens is the files deleted get moved into a ".trash" folder which is invisible. I try to delete this folder, but do not have access rights to do so. My only solution is to remove the USB drive and plug into a PC to delete the files. Is there any other way around this?
Second problem. I have another 4GB USB flash drive. Once plugged into my iMac, nothing is detected. In System Profiler, I can see the device listed, yet it cannot detect the device as a USB mass storage device thus I can't open the drive in Finder to perform any file transfers. I'm sure i have the latest software drivers updated. Again, when this device is plugged into a PC, it works perfectly fine. What can I do?
Thanks
G.

Sorry, I meant if it was seen under system profiler that you could mount it under disk utility.
Open disk utility up and if the drive is listed on the left source list, highlight it and click "mount" near the top of the disk utility window.
You should not have to do this and I do not know why the drive is not mounting by itself, but this is a possible workaround.

USB Flash Drive issues, FAT and Windows, Help!

Here's the deal:
I have a flash drive, I formatted it in FAT because it needs to be used on my Mac (Snow Leopard) and Windows. When I format it, it adds 2 or 3 other partitions like 200MB. BUT does not show it in Disk Manager or in Finder. I can read and write to the drive on my Mac, and it works (Mac thinks it's FAT). When I go to Windows it says it needs to be formatted. So after a leg-breaking experience in XP to reformat it as FAT, I can't just drag and drop folders into it. If I drag a folder to it it gives me an error code -36. HOWEVER, I can make a new folder on the drive (CommandShiftN) and drag files into the new folder. What the heck? Never had these issues in Leopard. What is the issue? Is this just Snow Leopard or is something screwed and I need to reinstall? Help. Thanks in advance.

1) Open Disk Utility.
2) Click your flash drive.
3) Click "Partition" tab.
4) Change "Volume Scheme" drop down box to 1 partition.
5) Change format to FAT.
6) Click "Options" button.
7) Change partition table from GUID to Master Boot Record.
8) Click Apply.
All done.

Error code -36 with FAT 32 USB Flash Drive

When copying files from my hard drive to a FAT32 formatted USB flash drive I keep getting error code -36 errors. I reformatted the flash drive to Mac OS Extended and the files copied fine. I formatted it back to FAT32 and the error returned. I need to use this drive with PC computers at school and can't leave it in the Mac format. Anyone know of a solution to this problem. It didn't do it with my G4 powermac and OS 10.4 but does with the mac mini with 10.6.

This is a problem I've been dealing with since getting a new Macbook for christmas. In my case I use a Macbook with 10.6.2 at home, networked to a winxp computer, also use FAT formatted USB sticks for backups and taking files to work....and at work I use a mix of winxp machines and older macs running 10.3 and 10.4. I move files around between them all the time, and have had this annoying error -36 file copying problem with the 10.6.2 macbook since day 1.
I did read about the dot_clean solution, and it does seem to work....sometimes. But the problem ISN'T just when copying a folder full of files. I also have the situation where I work on files in InDesign, and then export a PDF directly to the desktop. I then try to copy that ONE pdf file from the desktop to a FAT USB stick OR to an internet-accessed Appleshare volume, and I will get the dreaded error -36. MOST of the time when I get the error on a single file like this, it did actually copy and is useable on the USB stick / Appleshare volume and I can ignore the error. But sometimes not. Either way, it does show that the problem isn't just with folders of files, or even with the situation of copying a file from mac to windows to mac and then getting the error the next time you try to copy it to a win formatted volume.....you CAN get the error with an individual, just-created file in 10.6.2.
I sure wish Apple would fix this already!

DIsk Utility Hangs When Formatting USB flash drive

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