Failed formatting of new hard drive

I installed a new Caviar SE 120Gbyte SATA II hard drive in my PowerMacG5. This will serve as a back-up to the start-up HD. When I started up the computer, it was not recognized. I used the "erase" and "partition" options in disk utility to no avail ("error" on each attempt). Any clues as to why I cannot format the second hard drive?
Thanks,
Joe

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/resources/DriveCompatibilityguide.asp

Similar Messages

How do i format a new hard drive without using an external drive

My hard drive crashed so i bought a new hard drive and have already placed it inside the macbook pro. i tried to use my install disks but nothing happens. i realized that i never formatted the new hard drive and started researching. i can not use my old hard drive since it is damaged so is there a way to format the new drive without using the old drive or an external hard drive?

Formatting, Partitioning Erasing a Hard Disk Drive
Warning! This procedure will destroy all data on your Hard Disk Drive. Be sure you have an up-to-date, tested backup of at least your Users folder and any third party applications you do not want to re-install before attempting this procedure.
• With compute rshut down insert install disk in optical drive.
• Hit Power buttonand immediately after chime hold down the "C" key.
• Select language
• Go to the Utilities menu and launch Disk Utility.
• Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in left side bar.
• Select Partition tab in main panel. (You are about to create asingle partition volume.)
• Click on Options button
• Select GUID Partition Table(Intel Macs)
• Click OK
• Select number of partition in pull-down menu above Volumediagram.
(Note 1: One partition is normally preferable for an internalHDD.)
• Type in name in Name field (usually Macintosh HD)
• Select Volume Format as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
• Click Partition button at bottom of panel.
• Select Erase tab
• Select the sub-volume (indented) under Manufacturer ID (usuallyMacintosh HD).
• Check to be sure your Volume Name and Volume Format are correct.
• Click Erase button
• Quit Disk Utility.
Open installer and begin installation process.
cornelius

Input/output errors on trying to format a new hard drive

I just installed a Western Digital 160 GB hard drive to replace the original 80 GB drive in my 1.67 Hi-res G4 PB. I can boot from an external FW hard drive that has a copy of the original made with SuperDuper - seems to run fine.
The new 160 GB drive shows up in System Profiler and in the Disk Utility list of drives on the left side of the window - which make me think that I did the hardware installation correctly as the drive can be seen by the system. Maybe this isn't so.
When I use Disk Utility to try to format the new hard drive I get "input/output errors" and can not proceed with the formatting.
The computer ran fine with the old 80 GB hard drive - no sign of any problems - I just need the space.
Has anyone had experience with this or thoughts on how to get to a resolution?

Hi, I installed a 160GB HD WDC (WD1600BEVE-00UYT0) for the previous one didn't work anymore.
After a month it began to freeze and I had to reset the pb, After a few days (and a lot of resetting) I had to reset the PB and the PRAM. After some more days (and a lot of PB and PRAM resettings) I had to reset the PMU, the PRAM, and the PB. After some more days (and ALL the resettings) I had to open the pb, disconnect the HD, re-connect it, and it did work again fine.
ALAS... in two weeks I was through the same procedure again.
It's the second 160GB HD that works in the same identical way (I thought the first one was broken)
I've just disconnected and re-connected the HD.
Have you discovered a simpler way to make it work fine? (I'm a little distressed...)

Formatting a new hard drive for mac

Hi,
In a previous post I asked about running Snow Leopard on my mac after a hard drive fail. I'm having issues with formatting a new hard drie in my mac. I have a 2007 black macbook and I'm trying to run a 160gb SATA seagate hard drive.
After replacing this hard drive, I booted my mac up from cd, ran through setup fine until I got to the 'select a devide to install to' - the point where my hard drive should be visible. Nothing there at all. Nothing to click on in the box....
My question is, is there a process I need to undertake to format the hard drive or is this an indicator of a much bigger problem?
Thanks
HC

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. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) 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.
You can install OS X once formatting is complete by quitting DU and returning to the installer.

Formatting a new Hard Drive

I have a brand new Hard Drive .
I've erased / Formatted it immediately after connecting to the iMac .
Why there is 852.4 MB left on the disc ?
Thanks.

Yes. You can connect this drive using one of the faster connections.
Use this drive with either a USB 3 cable or a FireWire 800 cable using a FW800 to Thunderbolt adapter.
If you partition the drive,
You can install/copy/clone your version of OS X onto this drive to have a backup emergency bootable drive.
Plus, use this drive for additonal data storage and also use for Time Machine backups.
Good Luck!

Can't install(format?) new hard drive

I recently purchased a Wetern Digital Scorpio 250GB PATA HD for my Toshiba M35X-S114. This was the drive recommened on the Toshiba Laptop Accessories page. I physically instaled the new drive but can't figure out how to get it started. I used the System Recovery DVD for my computer thinking I could install the original software on the new hard drive. The guy on the tech support phoneline said I could. When I tried to use the recovery disc I got all the wall to the message where it prompts me to "press C for continue or A to abort". When I press C, the cursor moves right below the prompt and just blinks. The tech support line said the process may take several hours but I let it do this for for 3.5 hours and the cursor was still just blinking below the continue/abort message. Is this normal? Do I just need to be patient? When I used the recovery disk on the old, original hard drive my computer was completely recovered in 45 minutes. Oh, BIOS reads "none" next to hard disk. I hope this helps.

I emailed Hitachi support and got this response.
It works. Just a pain!!
Hard drives of SATA type interface does not have jumpers to configure. You
can still use a SATA 3.0Gb/s drive (set to 3.0Gb/s) in your system, but it
will only work at 1.5Gb/s.
If your have a PC system, you can temporarily install the drive internally
and use our utility called Feature Tool that'll allow you to change various
ATA settings. This utility has the diskette and CD version. If you do not
have a floppy drive and are unable to create a Feature Tool diskette, you
can select the Feature Tool CD image. The fourth download link is for the
image file. This file will allow you to create a bootable CD version of
Feature Tool when a floppy diskette drive is unavailable. For instructions
on how to properly use this file, please refer to the documentation
included with your CD burning software.
If you have any questions regarding the usage of Feature Tool, please refer
to the User's Guide (see page 17 on how to change the drive capacity). The
Feature Tool and User's Guide can be downloaded from the following URL:
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#FeatureTool
Before running Feature Tool, ensure that your system boot sequence (in your
system BIOS) is set to boot to your CD ROM drive as the first device.
Insert the bootable Feature Tool diskette or CD that you created and let
the system boot to this CD.

Do I need to format a New hard drive before Recovery & Apps/Drivers DVD? A15

Greetings:
I just installed a new 80GB hard drive in my A15-S157 (Old I know, but works great for what I need it for).
I tried formating the new drive in an external enclosure on a different machine, but it always failed after noting format was 99%, even seemingly 100%, complete.
I downloaded and ran Western Digital (drive manufacturer) Data Lifeguard quick and extended tests, both came back no errors.
I used the "Toshiba Recovery and Application/Driver DVD, Satellite A15" disc that came w/the machine... everything seemsed to install just fine and XP boots right up. BUT, I'm concerned that the format failure will come back to haunt me...
The questions seem to be:
--Is there a problem with using the Recovery DVD WITHOUT first formatting the drive (or not having a successful format)? Other posts seem to indicate the DVD might do a quick format itself (it was a very quick install)?
--Is it even possible to format a new HD in a USB external enclosure? Perhaps this was the issue? (it was on an older Compaq desktop (XP), if it matters)
Thank you!

Only OEM drives come that way. Actual Retail drives come in a box with instructions, warranty card, installation disk, etc.
But that has nothing to do with this. You only need to be concerned with what the instructions that came with the Recovery Disks or Installation disks say. When you run Windows Install from an actual Windows Install Disk Windows will always bring up a partitioning and formatting option prior to the actual installation whether the drive is unpartitoned and unformatted or not. This has been the case since the first Self Contained Windows came out (Windows 95). It's been at least 15 years since one needed to partition and format a drive PRIOR to starting the actual Windows installation process.
Recovery Disks work in several different ways depending on the manufacturer. One thing they have in common is that they are designed to work on new disks (unpartitioned and/or unformatted) as well as drives that already have an existing OS installed.
If you don't post your COMPLETE model number it's very difficult to assist you. Please try to post in complete sentences with punctuation, capitals, and correct spelling. Toshiba does NOT provide any direct support in these forums. All support is User to User in their spare time.

Mac Pro: How do I format a new hard drive?

Hello,
About to open and install a new Samsung 3.5" SATA internal hard drive into slot 2. This drive will only be used for audio and I was told to format the drive in Mac OS Extended with journaling disabled and a single partition.
I am not quite sure how to do this, and since I am already suffering from the frequent computer crashing firewire debacle, I want to make sure that I get this right.
So, any advice before I start this next project would be extremely helpful. I simply can not afford any more problems.
Thanks!
-delton

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. 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.

S.M.A.R.T fail on brand new hard drive

I recently had complete hard drive failure on my iMac and got it replaced this week.
Everything is now running perfectly but just now I was checking the system profile and noticed the drive is reporting s.m.a.r.t failure. I checked in Disk Utility and i have the message telling me to back up everything immediately.
Can new drives report failure so soon after being used for the first time. It seems bad luck for 2 drives to fail within 2 weeks.....
The machine is out of warranty/apple care.

HI,
I think the chances are extremely remote that a second drive could fail that fast.
Did you have the drive replaced by an Apple certified repair provider? If so, take it back.
Carolyn

Formating a new hard drive

Just bought a new 500gig hard drive. If I am going to use it as an external drive, do I need to format it? I f I use it to replace the smaller drive in my pavilion dv6910 and install the OS, do I need to format it first?
Also, I just purchased an HP 2000-2b10nr and am thinking about putting the 500gig drive in it. The problem I have is, unlike my pavilion, there are no screws on the bottom of the case to easily get to the internal drive. How do I open the case?
This question was solved.
View Solution.

Hi:
The only service manual I could find for your HP 2000 model series is this one.
Chapter 4 provides procedures to remove the hard drive but it shows there is a panel with screws you need to remove (see page 46).
http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c03329336/c03329336.pdf
In reference to your other questions, if you use the drive as an external drive in an enclosure, you can easily format it using the disk management tool in windows. You probably would have to format it.
If you use it as an internal hard drive, and intend to install an OS on it, the drive is normally automatically formatted by the OS during the install process.
Paul

Installing and formatting a new hard drive for MacBook

My hard drive died last week on my MacBook and I failed to back up anything forever the last couple of months. Learned my lesson there...
Anyway, I took it to the genius bar and they confirmed its death, and showed me how to replace it. I decided to go ahead and do so on my own, and also upgraded the memory while I was in there. I also decided to upgrade to lion since my DVD drive was giving me trouble and it'd be easier to use the USB - and yes the computer meets the requirements for Lion.
The problem is that when I try to boot up to format the HD, I only get a black screen. No disk utility when holding option, nothing. What am I doing wrong?

Try to boot with your original system disc.
Your mb didn't come with Lion when you bought it. So, use your original disc that came with your MB then install from there. After that, then use Lion to upgrade you os.
The above is you last resort if Lion won't boot on your usb port.

Need to format a new hard drive for T61

Hi all hope you can help, bought a T61 from a liquidation sale with out a hard drive and was just going to put one in, but before the sale no one unlocked the bios and i found out that there is partitioning and such like for the thinkvantage stuff.
any ideas about the best way to start partitioning a new drive from scratch or are there any tools anywhere to aid this
thnaks in advance...
Message Edited by November12 on 07-23-2008 09:31 AM

November12, welcome to the forum,
It's not clear exactly what you are looking for, could you maybe explain a little more clearly in a new thread
Also, please note;
November12 wrote:
.....snip..
but before the sale no one unlocked the bios
..snip
If you are looking for help on unlocking the BIOS, this cannot be discussed here as per forum rules
No posts shall include instructions or directions intended to subvert security measures, including passwords, locking mechanisms, fingerprint scans, etc, nor shall any posts provide descriptions to the location of, nor direct links to content related to these topics.
As said, please by all means start a new thread for you other question(s). - Thread Locked
Andy ______________________________________
Please remember to come back and mark the post that you feel solved your question as the solution, it earns the member + points
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Formatting a new hard drive and installing os in it. Help!

hi mi name is john.
i recently bought an i book (its an ibook, it only says that on the front screen) on ebay came with a crack screen which i replaced when i started it a folder with a flashing question mark appeared. i researched and found out i it was a hard drive problem. i thought. i replaced it with a 120 GB hard drive. when i started it again the same happened. i also have a macbook pro woking fine i try to use the remote install it didn't worked over the airport i haven't try the fire wire to usb. i also bought original install and restore cd with 10.4.9 os for it. but it doesn't boot from it,
i looked on the support forum i tryed everything in this forum http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570 even Reset the NVRAM / PRAM, except for the erase and install because i cant use the start up disk as i told you it doesn't boot from cd. i press the c key and nothing happens it just keeps flashing. by the way the ram is 250 mb i don't know if thats a problem because the drive is 120 GB, it also doesn't strat up with the cd of my mac book pro 10.6.6
it just doesn't start up from the cd. i know i have to prepare the drive to formatted as HFS+ (Extended), but how i do that now. if i have everything put together.

Welcome to Apple Discussions.
Lots of issues here.
when i started it a folder with a flashing question mark appeared. i researched and found out i it was a hard drive problem.
Not so much a hard drive problem as a case of no valid operating system found. The underlying reason could be a hard drive issue but maybe somebody just wiped it and didn't put one on.
i replaced it with a 120 GB hard drive. when i started it again the same happened.
Still no operating system until you format the drive and put an OS on.
i also have a macbook pro woking fine i try to use the remote install it didn't worked over the airport i haven't try the fire wire to usb.
A system from an Intel MBP, especially 10.6, will not run a G3 PPC computer.
i also bought original install and restore cd with 10.4.9 os for it. but it doesn't boot from it,
If this is a grey disc that is only intended to work on the computer model with which it was supplied. You need retail version discs which are black in color and harder to find (and more pricey).
i looked on the support forum i tryed everything in this forum http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570 even Reset the NVRAM / PRAM, except for the erase and install because i cant use the start up disk as i told you it doesn't boot from cd. i press the c key and nothing happens it just keeps flashing.
Because it's the wrong kind of disc.
by the way the ram is 250 mb
Tiger minimum RAM requirement is 256MB, but that really is a minimum.
i know i have to prepare the drive to formatted as HFS+ (Extended), but how i do that now.
You need to find a retail version (black) set of discs. Tiger would be better, but you need more RAM. Panther would be okay but there's definitely limitations in terms of available software.
Operating systems you'll have to find on the used market. Expect to pay nearly $100 for Tiger, probably less for Panther.

How do I format a new hard drive?

how do I format a hard disk drive from windows (ntsf) to mac os?

Launch the Disk Utility application. Select the icon of the drive -- it will usually be labeled with the manufacturer's name and the capacity. Select the "Partition" tab. From the menu labeled "Partition Layout," select "1 partition." From the Format menu, select "Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)." Click "Apply."
This operation will destroy all previously existing data on the drive.

New hard drive - format and install OS X

My old hard drive crashed and I replaced it with a new one on my IMac 27" (EMC no 2374). Now I am trying to install it OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard threw a flash drive because I don't have the cd but it freezes. When pressing Option at startup I get the the choice to install Max OS X but when I press enter it freezes with the Apple logo on the screen. The keyboard (wired) dies, also the mouse.
Must I have the cd to format a new hard drive or is there any other way?

You'll need to contact Apple and order a set of Original System Discs for your model iMac for a small fee.
Not sure where you got the USB of Snow Leopard but USB sticks of Snow Leopard only came with the Air model Mac computers and that won't work on a iMac. It is Model Specific as are the discs that come with all Mac computer when Mac computers came with DVD discs or thumb drives.
You'll need them anyway to reinstall the included iLife Apps. Those aren't included with OS X.

Failed formatting of new hard drive

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