External firwire hard disk gone down

Hi, I have been using a Glyph GT050 external firewire drive with 2 different iBooks without any problems till yesterday, when I daisy chained it with a MOTU Traveller audio interface. Using the Traveller as the first item in the chain, neither the Glyph or my Lacie drive could be seen by the iBook.here I reconnected without the Traveller and the Lacie was there, but not the Glyph. After looking through advice I have tried zapping the PRAM, connecting it to another mac (a mac mini) and changing the cable. Nothings working; in System Profiler the Ibook can't see that theres anything there so I cant run any sort of software restorer on it. All other firewire devices are running fine, unfortunately the Glyph is the one I need!
Is there any way I can get it running again and are there dangers about daisy chaining firewire devices that Im not aware of?

Sometimes if insufficient power is getting to the bus, or the bus needs resetting, or a firmware update, you can only connect the drive directly to the computer, or worse, you might have to use Prosoft Data Rescue, or Alsoft Disk Warrior to fix the drive. Prosoft Data Rescue can bypass a bad bus sometimes and recover data, but won't make a difference if your directory is bad. If your directory is bad, Alsoft Disk Warrior can help.
I strongly recommend in my FAQ that you always backup your data:
http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html

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Disk Utility Unable to Repair External FireWire Hard Disk

Hello all.
This is the External FireWire Hard Disk that has been giving me problems for days, it is a Backup/Clone Disk of my sis's Mac mini Core Duo, and may explain why it was so hard and took so much pain to copy some of the data out, at times it failed to mount, and I manage to rescue some data after using Disk Warrior, but Disk Warrior was also unable to replace it with a new directory.
Anyway, so I (was able to) mount the hard disk, and I was successful in erase and reformating it.
But when I (try to) repair it with Disk Utility's First Aid, this report is what I get:
(The usual 'Checking...' text lines, text in BOLD indicates RED colour text)
Checking HFS Plus volume
Checking Extents Overflow file
Checking Catalog file
Checking Catalog hierarchy
Checking volume bitmap
Volume Bit Map needs minor repair
Checking volume information
The volume Untitled could not be repaired after 3 attempts
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
Repair attempted on 1 volume
1 volume could not be repaired
Then a window dropped down from the top says:
First Aid failed
Disk Utility stopped repairing "Untitled" because the following error was encountered:
The underlying task reported failure on exit
(OK Button)
I guess this hard disk is really a gone case?? I am quite OK just to replace it with a brand new one... maybe all the trouble I had in the beginning is because I may already have a faulty backup drive to begin with???
Thanks and cheers

Hi Kappy,
I knew there was something about "not mixing" PPC and Intel versions of dealing with the external drive.
The drive was originally prepared on an Intel Mac mini Core Duo. But it should also mount normally on a PPC mac as an external hard drive right?
Here's the sequence of events:
1. Tried to boot from the Back Up/Clone Drive of the Mac mini Core Duo, through my MacBook Core 2 Duo, but failed to boot up
I had to shut down the MacBook (prolonged Bluescreen)
2. When I reboot the MacBook, and tried to mount the ext drive as normal, nothing happens, I knew something was wrong
3. Able to reach the vendor, use the Mac mini again to erase and reformat the drive, then check with DU, everything is OK
Clone with SuperDuper
After that check again with DU, not everything is alright, there are errors.
4. Brought the drive home, try to mount on my iMac G5, nothing happens.
I did a check on this forum, and the reply was that I should be able to use Disk Warrior 4 (Universal) on a PPC to fix an Intel-based ext drive. I was very specific and detail in my post/question
5. So anyway, I have no other option, I ran Disk Warrior 4 from my PPC iMac G5 and scan the ext drive, trying to fix it.
It reported the drive is too damaged to be replace with a new Directory, but gave me a Preview Mode. I use this to copy some data out.
But not sure if the data is OK or not.
6. After that, I was able to mount the drive in my iMac G5, so I just use DU and erase and reformat the drive, with Zero Data
7. Ran DU again, and that's where I am now, at the very first post, getting error messages that I cannot fix the drive
Thanks and cheers

Connection failed when trying to connect to external Lacie hard disk

I have an external Lacie hard disk which sits under and is connected to my Airport Extreme base station. I access that volume by using the 'Connect to Server' option in the finder, and I can see the Lacie drive when I get to the stage where I click to 'browse' and then click the Network icon.
However, today instead of connecting as usual (after asking for password authorisation, etc.) I now get a temporary window message saying:
"Looking up, "x1-6........local..." I guess the IP address?
After 3 minutes I then get the following error message:
CONNECTION FAILED
The server may not exist or it is not operational at this time. Check the server name or IP address and try again.
Yesterday I had a problem with my MacPro while trying to access info on the Lacie volume and with no response from the MacPro to shut down, I had to hold the start button down to get it to shut down. I then turned the Airport Express and Lacie disk off at the main plug powerpoint (I forgot to dismount the Lacie volume from another Mac running!). Hoping this would reset everything, but now this problem has happened!
Any help or advice on this would be much appreciated as I hold some key financial and business info on the Lacie volume and I can't access it now!!!
Thanks

Hi Rick
That's worked!
I did reboot Airport Extreme initially (had to switch off power to AEBS and Lacie disk as looks like there is no power switch on the AEBS?...and tried, but same problem. But then tried this again and all now works as before.
Thanks for your advice and the direct connection tip, which I was considering doing anyway if the conventional route didn't work.
Phew!

The finder window for an external USB hard disk suddenly started separating files by time (today, yesterday, etc.) and stopped allowing me to change column width, order, etc. Also the header bar shifted to flat white from gray.

The finder window for an external USB hard disk suddenly started separating files by time (today, yesterday, etc.) and stopped allowing me to change column width, order, etc. Also the header bar shifted to flat white from gray.
All was normal until the icon for the disk stopped showing up on the desktop when I would plug it in. I rebooted the computer, and the disk icon now shows up but this new look to the finder window started as a result. The hard disk does not have this problem when I use it on another Mac running Snow leopard. Also, two other external hard disks that I use on this computer running lion 7.4 still have the normal header bars with columns that can be reordered, etc.
I have tried looking in preferences and other places but have not seen this discussed.

Well duh - I finally figured out that somehow in the View options for the hard drive, the "arrange by" option had been changed to "by date" from "none". Not sure how that happened, I had never used the "view options" menu tem before. Changing "arrange by" back to "none" gets the gray column headers and the collapsible folder icons back.

Arch: Install to & run from External USB Hard Disk Drive (HDD)

I wanted to play with ArchLinux 2009.02, but replacing the existing Debian-Lenny on the laptop's HDD wasn't an option. So I experimented with installing Arch on an external USB Hard Disk Drive.
I have tried to make this "newbie-friendly", so I hope the more experienced will forgive the detail.
Materials:
Three year old Dell Inspiron 6000
CPU = 2.0 GHz Pentium
RAM = 2.0 GB
Internal HDD = 80 GB
Internal CD/DVD R/RW
External USB HDD = Freecom FHD-2 Pro 80 GB
Archlinux 2009.02 install CD
Steps to install:
1. I put the Archlinux install CD in the drive and connected the external 80 GB HDD in the USB port.
2. When the Dell laptop was booted, I pressed F2 to enter the BIOS setup. I edited the boot sequence to the following:
Internal CD/DVD
External USB device
Internal HDD
On the Dell, you can also press F12 to select the preferred boot device for that boot.
3. I started the laptop and the Archlinux installation menu came up and I proceeded with installation following the "Official Arch Linux Install Guide" and the "Beginners Guide".
4. Used km to change to UK keyboard layout and then began the installer script (/arch/setup). I was installing from the core CD so I skipped the network steps.
5. HDD preparation.
This was fairly straightforward with two cautions:
(a) Make very sure that the external HDD (sdb) is selected for the operations.
(b) Remember to set the Bootable Flag for the first (/) partition on the HDD.
I chose 20 GB for /, 2 GB for swap and the remainder for /home.
6. The package selection and installation was fairly straightforward.
7. Configuration of System
This was section was straightforward with one warning:
USB had to be added to the HOOKS in the /etc/mkinitcpio.conf file!
I found this to be essential for my external USB HDD to function as a bootable device. Otherwise I got the same sorts of errors relating to unrecognisable file system types that other people have reported in the forum.
The relevant line from the end of the edited /etc/mkinitcpio.conf file is below:
HOOKS="base udev autodetect pata scsi sata usb filesystems"
8. Installation of GRUB was the other point where caution and/or correction was necessary.
When it asked where GRUB should be installed, I had to select sdb (my external USB HDD) and not any of the particular partitions on sdb. If the root partition sdb1 was selected then the laptop won't boot from the external USB HDD.
The GRUB /boot/grub/menu.lst as written by the installation routine specifies hd(1,0) which doesn't work when you try to reboot from the external USB HDD. When you boot Arch from the external USB HDD, as far as Arch is concerned - at that point in time - the external USB HDD is the first drive in the system. To fix this:
(a) When the Arch boot menu comes up, press e to edit the grub entries.
(b) Change the first line to hd(0,0)
(c) To the end of the kernel line add rootdelay=8
(d) Press b to boot the system with these temporary corrections.
(e) Once your Arch system has booted, edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst to make the above changes permanent.
The relevant portion of my /boot/grub/menu.lst looks like the following:
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/... ro rootdelay=8
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
# (1) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/... ro rootdelay=8
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img
9. The laptop happily and consistently boots Arch Linux from the external USB HDD when it's plugged in before startup/booting.
Running Arch from the external USB HDD seems as quick as running Debian from the internal HDD.
So if there is a performance penalty associated with using an external USB HDD, my wife and I haven't noticed.
In summary, the three essential points to address during installation to an external USB HDD are:
Remember to set the bootable flag for the first partition.
Add USB to the HOOKS for /etc/mkinitcpio.conf file.
Correct the /etc/grub/menu.lst file.
I hope this is helpful.
Ted

Hi Rookie,
As you say, it is worth remembering the rootfstype= option for the kernel line just in case someone still has problems with GRUB after making all the other changes.
I was working with the most recent Arch 2009.2 release.
I only got messages about unrecognisable file system type when I tried booting with the "stock" or "as-installed" GRUB (before I edited /boot/grub/menu.lst). After editing /boot/grub/menu.lst to identify the drive correctly and add rootdelay, GRUB was able to do the rest and everything worked OK without any error messages.
Best wishes,
Ted

HT4889 Migration Assistant to update my new Mountain Lion iMac from an external USB hard disk drive, it is constantly saying that it is "looking for other computers". It doesn't find the external drive. Why is it looking for other computers?

I'm trying to use Migration Assistant to update my new Mountain Lion iMac from an external USB hard disk drive. I told it to look for a drive, yet it is constantly saying that it is "looking for other computers". It doesn't find the external drive ... it just endlessly looks for other computers. Why is it looking for other computers at all, when I told it not to?

Wow, the wording in Migration Assistant is misleading. I've never used it before, so I thought I would try to copy my files from the external drive ... my old iMac died, but I managed to get everything I need off it, using the 'cp' command in single-user mode. So I guess I'll just have to manually copy the files from the external drive to the new machine. I was hoping that Migration Assistant might help somehow, but obviously not.
Thanks for the quick reply!

How to setup external 500GB Hard disk drive in enclosure

How easy is it too setup an external 500GB Hard disk drive (HDD) in enclosure? HDD is a brand new Western Digital 500GB HDD in an enclosure which has FireWire ports. The drive is not formatted.

Plug it in and use the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder to format it as a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) disk.
(46625)

Recovering lost GarageBand files from failed external backup hard disk

For years, I've used SuperDuper's "Back-up - All files" function to regularly backup my computer's hard disk to an external firewire hard disk. On the day I initialized my computer's hard disk to install Leopard, wouldn't you just know, my external hard disk failed. I immediately stopped using it. I've used Data Rescue II on this external hard disk but can't find my GarageBand files. These were in a hard disk subfolder, not in the GarageBand folder or in the User > Music folder. I'm trying to find eight "projects" (some are GarageBand 2 files, others are GarageBand 2008 files), each of which including a voice recording (found a few of those, .aiff files) and software instrument tracks (some imports from Band-in-a-Box, which also can't be found -- but that's for a different forum). First off, what am I looking for, what would those files look like? Data Rescue II's Fast Scan doesn't see any .band file. Searching by name, using a part of the song's name, doesn't bring up anything. This doesn't seem entirely trustworthy as lyrics files using the same name (.doc files) were later found. I've only found two threads related to this on the Web, and they seem to indicate that DRII would be unable to rescue "packaged" files, which my guru husband says is nonsense. So I'm back to the original question: what is it I should be looking for on the external hard disk? Any suggestion gratefully received.

This is for people who would come to this thread searching an answer for the same kind of problem. I had much better success with FileSalvage. I was able to find the majority of my GarageBand files, with MIDI tracks. Audio tracks were not always included but could be found among .aif files. I have not yet searched for the Band-in-a-Box files.
HD

Possible to attach external Esata hard disk on the Imac Quadcore 27?

Is it possible to attach external Esata hard disk on the Imac Quadcore 27? Or any other Imac? The purpose is for video editing, but maybe Firewire 800 is good enough for hd video in Final Cut Pro?

Hi Simen,
The iMac series do not have an ESATA connection and there isn't a way to make a connection inside. The only possible way is to perform surgery on the iMac which
1. probably will not work and
2. almost for sure Invalidate the warranty
This is a fairly common questions however there just isn't a way to do it. If your external drive also has a Firewire or Firewire 800 connection that is your best bet. As you probably know your iMac has a Firewire 800 port and you can daisy chain Firewire devices.
Regards,
Roger

WRT160NL: Automatic spin-down of external USB hard disks?

Hello,
do external hard disks automatically spin down after a period with no access/use when connected with the USB port of the WRT160NL?

In reference to your post could you please let me know that when you say "spin down" do you mean that does the hard drive goes into sleep mode when it is not in use?
Did you try to connect another hard drive and check whether it is the same case or not?

How to delete files from external ntfs hard disk [Solved]

Hi guys
first, sorry for my bad English.
I have an external hard disk ( WD 500GB ) with ntfs file system and i have installed ntfs-3g package.
3 days ago, when i wanted to delete some files, i get a problem with it,
look the output :
[jahangir@Arch New Metal]$ sudo rm *
[sudo] password for jahangir:
rm: cannot remove '02 - Korn - Love and Meth.mp3': No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove '30Seconds To Mars': No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove '30Seconds To Mars 1': Is a directory
rm: cannot remove 'Avantasia': No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove 'Avantasia 1': Is a directory
rm: cannot remove 'Avantasia 2': Is a directory
rm: cannot remove 'Behemoth': No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove 'Behemoth 1': Is a directory
rm: cannot remove 'Hanging Garden - At Every Door - 2013': No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove 'Hanging Garden - At Every Door - 2014': No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove 'Rosetta': No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove 'Rosetta 1': No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove 'Sepultura': No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove 'Sepultura 1': No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove 'Slipknot': No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove 'Slipknot 1': No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove 'Tokio Hotel': No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove 'Tokio Hotel 1': No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove 'T\303\275r': No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove 'neww': No such file or directory
[jahangir@Arch New Metal]$
Who can help me ?
I wanted to delete .trash-1000 file from my main directory hard dist and i confront with this error :
[jahangir@Arch My Passport]$ sudo rm .Trash-1000
[sudo] password for jahangir:
rm: cannot remove '.Trash-1000': No such file or directory
[jahangir@Arch My Passport]$
In the event that it is there.
also in main directory of my hard disk i have 1 mp3 file that i can't view it in file manager and it will be displayed in Windows OS and with ls command in terminal :
[jahangir@Arch My Passport]$ ls
ls: cannot access 01 - Lost.mp3: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access 02 - Surrendered To The Decadence.mp3: No such file or directory
01 - Lost.mp3 In The Name Of God Videos ZzZ - IMAN winold
02 - Surrendered To The Decadence.mp3 New Metal World of Warcraft Cataclysm 4.3.4 enGB navid wow wrath
[jahangir@Arch My Passport]$
what is this file and how can i delete .Trash-1000 and this files and content of "New Metal" directory ?
Last edited by jiros (2013-12-23 20:57:05)

I believe you used ntfs for a reason. As far as I know, Windows isn't friendly with hdd filesystems others than fat or ntfs, so once you format your external harddrive to ext4, windows won't talk to it at all, unless you install some additional driver or software.
You have several possibilities to do:
1) You could use FAT32, it's kind of a dumb filesystem, linux, mac and windows can read and write to it, there are some limitations like file permisions or 4GB file size limit.
2) You could make multiple partitions on your external harddrive, one with ntfs (for windows) and the other with some fs that is support natively in Linux and Mac, I believe only option would be HFS+. I'm not an expert, maybe somebody will correct me. Anyway, if you aren't going to connect your disk to Mac, than ext4 would be a good choice. But this approach with two different partions is kind of dumb, because usually you need the same data available on whatever platform.
3) If I were you, I would continue using NTFS or FAT32. It's not ideal, but it's a price you have to pay for dealing with Windows systems.
4) If there is any other smarter solution, I believe somebody will add it to responses bellow.
Anyway, it's weird that your problem persists. There has to be something wrong with your filesystem, otherwise ls wouldn't show you question marks in its output. Did you perform chkdisk via GUI? It has to say that either there wasn't any error with your fs, or that there was some error. We live (unfortunatelly) in binary computer world. I mean you can perform that command from shell, or however microsoft calls it, and if you run it in a proper configuration, it will tell you whether your fs is bad or not and perform needed repairs.
And how to format disk to ext4?
Backup your data, run as root fdisk /dev/yourexthdd (fdisk /dev/sdd), delete all partitions, create new ones, once you are done, write changes down. fdisk is pretty easy to use, don't be afraid of it. Then you have to create filesystem on each partition you created with fdisk, so if you created only one, run mkfs.ext4 /dev/yourexthddwithpartnumber (mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdd1). There are nice articles about doing these things on Arch Wiki (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/File_Systems), don't be worried to read them

Internal Hard Disk spin down - Mac locks up

Hi.
Recently my iMac has started to occasionally lock up. The other evening it was quiet and I heard the hard drive spin down. Following this any action results in the beach ball, and eventually everything locks up, because it cannot read from or write to the disk.
I have tried disabling hard drive sleep. Reseting the SMC and PRAM.
Not sure if it is related, but I also noticed that the system profiler reports that the last hardware test was run in 4008 (I'm sure it used to say 2008). So I ran a hardware test, no problems. The last hardware test date is now reported as 28th June 4010. Hmmmm.
Any thoughts on this, or help as to the next step will be very happily received.

It is normal to see the spinning beach ball cursor while the drive spins up, but obviously it should go away once the drive is spun up & the iMac should not eventually lock up.
Also, not every drive honors the spin-down command from the OS -- some spin down automatically according to their own internal timer regardless of the system preference -- but AFAIK no drive Apple ships in any Mac does this.
So just to cover all the possibilities, can you confirm that your iMac has the original internal drive it shipped with, & that there are no external drive(s) attached to it? If you do have any external drives, does the issue persist if they are unattached?
You might want to run Disk Utility's Verify/Repair Disk step on each drive you use to make sure a file system issue is not involved, & the Apple Hardware Test (which will require removing any non-essential peripherals like external drives & thus not test them) to see if a hardware issue is causing this.

Ipod plugged to external hub / Hard disk = system crashed !!

Hello I have an external disk with a hub (minipartner from Macway) it seems that it isn't possible to plugged it & using Itunes (in despite that under the explorer I can see my ipod)
I tried few times & windows crased down each time, it's boring because I have only a 4 pins firewire used for that external disk, otherwise I have a pc card as well but it put extra wire again on my desk which contains already many things so anybody have a good experience with that configuration. Otherwise i had no success as well to put my the itunes library on the external disk, i have some errors messages each times during synchronisation......
Thanks for any suggestion !
toshiba Windows XP Ipod 2 g (still working ...)

Any hooks in particular? I don't know which hook to add other then the 'blocks' hook, which is there already:
HOOKS="base udev autodetect modconf block filesystems keyboard fsck"
Also, I don't think that could be the problem since loading the initramfs image takes place after choosing something from the Grub Menu. That menu never appears, I just get "welcome to grub!" with a blinking cursor underneath.
I did add "insmod usbms" in grub.cfg, but that didn't change anything.
What strikes me as odd is that in grub.cfg, the disk is referred to as "hd1", where I think it could just as well be "hd0" if that's the first hard disk the BIOS boots from. But I'm not sure if that really matters since the search is done with the UUID.
Another thing I tested earlier: I dd 'd the Arch Live image to the external usb HDD, and then it boots fine...

Booting MBP from SATA external drive/hard disk

I have an external SATA HD 120GB portioned in to 4 partitions. It is in an ICY BOX SATA house. Connected direct to the MBP via an USB cable. No external power supply.
I have cloned the OS from the MBP to one partition on the external disk (using SuperDuper!).
I can see the external device in the System preference window ‘Start-up Disk’ I can select it, but it refuses to start up from it. When I do a restart it starts up from my internal HD.
If I hold down the Alt key at start-up I do not see the external HD.
I also have an other non SATA disks connected via FireWire with a cloned version of my OS and here I have no problems.
Any suggestions as to how to be able to boot form the external SATA disk?
Thnaks

In Disk Utility/Partition/Options we can read:
- GUID Partition Table (GPT) "to use the disk to start up an Intel-based Mac".
- Apple partition Map (APM) "to use the disk to start up a PowerPC-based Mac or to use the disk as non startup disk with any Mac".
At http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2006/tn2166.html we have very important secrets of the GPT:
- Any Mac running Mac OS X 10.4 and later can mount GPT-partitioned disks.
_ Intel Macs can boot from GPT. By default, the internal hard disk is formatted as GPT.
- While Intel Macs can boot from GPT and APM, Apple only supports booting Mac OS X on these machines from GPT. Apple's GUI tools, like the Installer, will prevent you installing Mac OS X for an Intel-based Mac on non-GPT disks.
Many posts In this forum telling ius that it is mandatory to format disks GUID partitioned to boot MBP.
But, in other forums there are some opinions about APM too:
. http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2006061610374449
. http://www.macfixitforums.com/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=Forum38 "How to make a triple-boot service drive"
. http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&Itemid=42&func=view&cat id=7&id=786
We are discuss the boot capability of external drives and I wish someone can clarify this question to isolate software (include cloning software) or hardware problems.
MacBook Pro 2 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Unable to boot MBA from external USB hard disk

I'm trying to boot an Air from an external hard disk, but the partition is not being recognized when I boot up and hold down the OPTION key. I've tried making bootable clones with Disk Utility (Restore), Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper and none of the three pop up as an available boot partition. The external drive was properly partitioned as a GUID disk. Any ideas what the problem could be?

Did you also format the drive Mac OS X Extended, Journaled? As follows:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must 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 Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
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. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
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.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

External firwire hard disk gone down

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