HP HD3200 2tb external hdd reformatting itself

I bought the HP HD3200 2tb external hdd just about a year ago and it has worked famously until very recently. Starting about a week ago the drive would randomly stop being read by my computer and after going into disk management the space on the drive has somehow transformed into unallocated. The only option I have at that point is to reformat the drive and start over. On top of that if I reformat the drive I then have to run a test disk to adjust the aprtition table otherwise it becomes formatted but simply does not show up in the browser. This has happened 3 times now and I would like to find a permanent solution before I lose something I can't replace. Any thoughts on why this has started to happen or how i might fix it would be greatly appreciated.

Take the drive to a Windows PC and install Data Rescue ($100) and let it work on reading the 1's and 0's of the files themselves, outputing the recovered files to another large external hard drive (formatted exFaT on the PC, not on the Mac and not NTFS!)
This is going to take hours to complete, so buy the software upfront and get it over with.
Once it's finished you can hook up the drive to the Mac and it will read it, no NTFS reading/writing software required.
If the PC your using is a Windows XP machine and there is no exFAT, then install the free exFAT for XP from Microsoft first.
Take a second to learn about drives and formatting, it's not wise to use NTFS software as you see now the problem.
Drives, partitions, formatting w/Mac's + PC's

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Add Seagate 2TB External HDD to Oracle VM /OVS

Hello guys,
I have got a empty Seagate 2TB External HDD with NTFS partition And I want to add this as addition storage to my Oracle VM Server in OVS partition.
Also this 2TB USB HDD is solely dedicated to Oracle VM so I am not bothering about Any other operating systems.
To accomplish my this purpose I have gone through so many online forum to convert Seagate ntfs partition to Linux partition. But I couldn't find success.
So Here my questions are :
1) Is it possible to convert USB HDD ntfs partition to Oracle VM Server supported partition that can run VM Machine on it ?
2) If Answer is Yes, then Could you explain me how do I do that ?
Many Thanks
Hemesh

Hi Herbert,
Thanks for your reply,
So it means I have to create OCFS2 file system on external Hard drive.
Thanks
Hemesh.

External HDD renames itself to ALL CAPS/adds "1" to name

Hey all. I'd like to consider myself an expert, but every expert runs into a new problem that they've never seen before. Ha.
Anyways, my cat renamed one of my external HDDs while I was at work to nothing (space bar I guess). So I see the issue when I get back home and rename it back. I try to name it back to "My Book" but after I do it renames itself to "MY BOOK." Upon further investigation it is actually naming itself to "My Book 1" but only showing the end user "MY BOOK."
Normally this wouldn't be an issue I could just name it something else and move on. But I have BackBlaze and it's already backed up at least 700GB of about 1000ishGB. If it's not named exactly back to "My Book" I will have to start my online backup all over again, and it's been backing up for MONTHS now, and it's not even done.
I checked permissions, I tried verify/repair, nothing. I was thinking some program had the hdd "in-use." but there really isn't. And I've relaunched Finder and rebooted the machine.
Thanks for any insight, I really appreciate it. I hope this was the best forum to post this topic in. Lettme know if I need to repost it. Thanks.

Enthwar wrote:
Hey all. I'd like to consider myself an expert, but every expert runs into a new problem that they've never seen before. Ha.
Anyways, my cat renamed one of my external HDDs while I was at work to nothing (space bar I guess). So I see the issue when I get back home and rename it back. I try to name it back to "My Book" but after I do it renames itself to "MY BOOK." Upon further investigation it is actually naming itself to "My Book 1" but only showing the end user "MY BOOK."
Normally this wouldn't be an issue I could just name it something else and move on. But I have BackBlaze and it's already backed up at least 700GB of about 1000ishGB. If it's not named exactly back to "My Book" I will have to start my online backup all over again, and it's been backing up for MONTHS now, and it's not even done.
I checked permissions, I tried verify/repair, nothing. I was thinking some program had the hdd "in-use." but there really isn't. And I've relaunched Finder and rebooted the machine.
Welcome to Apple's discussion groups. I'd say this is as good a section for your post as any.
This thread may explain your problem:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10813505
If so, dismount your external drive, then use the Finder menu item Go -> Go to Folder to visit "/Volumes" (without the quotes). Delete anything you see there with a name resembling your external drive.

Malware Detected: Canvio Connect 2TB External HDD

I purchased a Canvio Connect 2TB external hard drive yesterday (20 July, 2014). Upon connecting to my Mac the antivirus software ClamXav alerted me that there was malware in the file "autorun.new" in the NTI folder of the external hard drive. The malware is called "INF.Autorun-32". I further tested the "autorun.new" file using VirusTotal, resulting in the file being flagged by the ClamAV (definition: INF.Autorun-32) and McAfee (definition: Generic!atr.b) engines.
Does anyone know if this is a false positive, or malware loaded onto the drive by some unscrupulous vendor?

For fastest, most efficient answers to questions such as this visit the ClamXav Forum.
greyag wrote:
I got a warning from ClamXav that a malware called "INF.autorun-32" was detected in the setup.exe in a folder called "NTI" -- I believe the .exe to be the installer of some backup software.
A quick answer is that the "autorun.new" file will automatically run something (probably setup.exe) when you plug that drive into a Windows machine. It won't run at all under OS X.
The definition has been in the database since early 2009.
The Microsoft malware encyclopedia says this about such malware:
VirTool:INF/Autorun
Description: This is a detection for a file, called autorun.inf, that can be used by worms when they spread to local, network, or removable drives. The file has instructions to launch the malware automatically when the removable drive is...
Published Date: Oct 10, 2013
Alert level: Severe
Checking VirusTotal I could only find one submitted file (from Toshiba) as being infected with this and ClamXav was the only scanner to detect it.
is it worth trying to use the hard drive? Should I reformat the drive and would that be sufficient to wipe off any possible malware?
Bottom line is that even if an actual infection, it cannot harm your Mac in any way.
Erasing the drive will permanently eliminate it and you should alway reformat any disk you receive purchase for use with your Mac as they are almost all formatted for Windows and this obviously is.
Partition the drive using Disk Utility with one or more partitions with a GUID Partition Table using the "Options..." button and a Format of Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

How Best to Partition a 2Tb External HDD

I've built a 2Tb external hard drive that supports both Firewire and USB. I want to be able to use it with my MacBook, as well as a Windows 7 Desktop. Would it be best to split to drive into two equal partitions and format each partition to the respective OS file systems? The Disk Utility in 10.4 seems to prevent me from doing this. I am expecting all the parts and SW soon to upgrade this machine to 10.6. Is the DIsk Utility in Snow Leopard different than the one in Tiger? Thanks for any help you might offer.

Tiger on Intel Macs will support such a configuration. See the following:
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 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.
7. After the formatting has completed re-select the main drive entry in the left sidebar and click on the Partition tab in DU's main window. Use the Partition Scheme dropdown menu to create two partitions. Resize the partitions to your liking. The second partition should be the one you will use with Windows. Select that partition and set the Format Type to MSDOS then click on the Erase button.
You should now have two volumes. The first is for use on the Mac. The second is for Windows. When you boot into Windows you may want to reformat the Windows volume to use NTFS instead of FAT32. Note that NTFS is a read-only filesystem in OS X.

IMac keep ejecting my 2TB external HDD but in safe boot mode it is totally fine. How to resolve the problem?

Hi,
I have WD 2 TB external HDD. It has two partitions, one I use for my time machiine backup and one for my personal files and documents. Recently the iMac keeps ejecting the external HDD as soon as it gets connected to the iMac. I tried to reboot the computer in safe boot mode (by holding down the shift key at startup) and found out that problem is not there anymore. I can access my external HDD there and it never ejects the HDD.
It seems like the HDD is fine, the problem is with the iMac. Can anybody please give any solution to this problem?
Thanks!

Thanks Allan for your reply!
It makes sence that there must be some log in /start up item which is causing this problem. I went System Preference>Users & Groups> Login items> disabled all the items there to make sure, and restarted the computer but the problem is still there
Is there any other way to stop/configure the log in items?
Thanks again!

External Drive Reformatted Itself

I have an external drive that used to be a 3TB USB 2.0 WD MyBook. A while ago I upgraded my MBP to a 2012 model that has USB 3 so I bough an USB 3 external drive case, took apart the MyBook and swapped the drive to the new case. It worked flawlessly for months. About a week ago I updated OS X to Mavericks and I tried and used the 3TB drive for the first time with Mavericks today. I plugged it in, it mounted for a second with the correct volume name "Goliath". Then after about a second or two it disappeared - unmounted itself, presumably - and then it mounted itself again after another two seconds as a blank 3TB volume named "MyBook" and that's it. My 2,5TB of data are gone....or so it seems. I tried to restart the drive, the computer, PRAM reset, nothing worked....any suggestions? Not sure if the issue is Mavericks-related, but it's suspicious at least.
I found only this in the Console, but it does not tell me anything...:
2013-11-06 21:37:18.871 HazelHelper[290] Received unmount notification from unknown filesystem at /Volumes/Goliath.
2013-11-06 21:38:52.428 HazelHelper[290] Deregistering...
2013-11-06 21:38:52.429 HazelHelper[290] Done

Western Digital said that their apps have got a bug that causes the lose of data from their external drives in Mavericks, so you are one of the affected users.
Now, the only thing you can do is to try to use file recovery services or applications, but they might be expensive and it's possible that they don't work.
Before upgrading Mac OS X, always check that there won't be any compatibility issue, because things like this may happen. At the moment, what you can do is to uninstall the Western Digital applications

Canvio Connect 2TB External HDD Disconnect

I have a new Canvio Connect. I have been trying to move a large amount of data to it. When I have it hooked up to my laptop PC running Windows 7 and USB 3, after copying for a while, it disconnects and opens the autorun window. I try again, it disconnects again not immediately but an hour or two into the copying. When I moved it to my desktop PC running Windows Vista Ultimate and USB 2, I try copying the same data but it doesn't disconnect not once. Is this something wrong with the drive? A setting in Windows? An issue with USB 3?
Any help would be appreciated. I really want the speed of USB 3.

I have a new Canvio Connect. I have been trying to move a large amount of data to it. When I have it hooked up to my laptop PC running Windows 7 and USB 3, after copying for a while, it disconnects and opens the autorun window. I try again, it disconnects again not immediately but an hour or two into the copying. When I moved it to my desktop PC running Windows Vista Ultimate and USB 2, I try copying the same data but it doesn't disconnect not once. Is this something wrong with the drive? A setting in Windows? An issue with USB 3?
Any help would be appreciated. I really want the speed of USB 3.

WD External HDD My Book Studio 2TB doesn't mount

Hello there
I was using the My Book Studio 2TB External HDD. It works fine until now. The External Drive just keep blinking light but not mounting on the os. I just wonder what is going on with my drive? Is there any method i can retrieve my data?
thanks very much

I have WD My Book Studio Edition II. The only way I can format it is via WD software (WD Drive Manager), since my model is the 2TB RAID. That's maybe one of the way you can do it.
On other note, I did experienced some issue with my new Hitachi XL2000 2TB HD. It won't format with disk utility under Mac OS Extended Journal. The only format I can use via disk utility is FAT-32 and some other windows format. But I managed to solve it by going to the partition tab and select option. From there I select GUID option.
Hope this will help to solve your problem
Message was edited by: Suzaidee

Mac can't find my partitioned external HDD

My previous setup was:
1 WD 2TB external HDD with own power supply, formatted as MacOS Extended (Journaled).
But I wanted to split this HDD up into two partitions, Archive and Library. I also wanted to have a Time Machine backup of this disk. So I bought another WD 2TB external HDD with own power supply. On this one, I made two partitions, Archive and Library, both as MacOS Extended (Journaled). Then I copied all the files of my first HDD to their specific location.
So my new setup was:
My new WD 2TB external HDD with own power supply, with two partitions, both formatted as MacOs Extended (Journaled).
My old WD 2TB external HDD was still holding a copy of the files on the new one, but I wanted to use this one for backup.
Now I just had to format the old WD 2TB, so I could use it as Time Machine backup. I knew this was a critical point. Because if something would go wrong I didn't have any backup. But what are the chances that things would have gone bad just right now???
As you can guess it did go wrong. My new HDD (the one with the partitions) could no longer be recognized by my Mac. My Time Machine backup was still indexing all the files, so didn't get an actual backup of them yet. A disaster!!!
When connected the new HDD I had a prompt window telling me that my computer couldn't find the disk, with the options 'Initialise...', 'Ignore' and 'Remove'. Choosing 'Intialise' I got into Disk Utility, it does detect the 'mother' HDD, but not the 'children' (= the partitions).
Is there a way to get my data back? I have everything on it: my files for work (important files for my business), but also my personal files (pictures, complete iTunes library with music and movies...).
I must say that I had this problem before. Same situation: I partitioned a disk and after a bit, my Mac couldn't find it anymore. Back then I thought it was the HDD, and as the files were not that important, I just forgot about it... until I found it back one day and discovered that I could restore the HDD, but I had to re-format it, meaning that all the files were lost.
This situation is different as lost files would mean a disaster. :-(
I hope there's someone out here that can help me.
Thanks in advance!
I use a MacBook Pro mid 2007. I currently use Mac OS Mountain Lion (up to date).

Thank you! That information was definitely helpful.
I haven't tried since my post to get our printer to work (ended up sending my doc to Staples, in the interest of time, and haven't had to print anything since).
Anyway, this morning I replaced our ink and tried printing something. It still wasn't working (but this time, all it said was the printer wasn't connected). I reconnected the printer to the network, then turned it off, restarted our computer, and once the computer was back up, I turned the printer back on.
The printer appeared in our network, again, and my printing job was successful. Yay! I LOVE when technology works. =)

IMac with external HDD backup to Time Machine

I have an iMac with a 1TB internal HDD and have run out of space due to the number of photos in my library. I want to move the photos to a 1TB external HDD, then add a new 2TB external HDD to serve as the new Time Machine backup drive. So my setup will include the iMac and two connected external HDDs. What is the best way to set this up so the new Time Machine backup drive captures both the internal iMac HDD and the external photos HDD? Any tips or tricks would be appreciated. Thanks!

First of all, note that Time Machine can only make backups of drives formatted in HFS+ (known as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"), so your 1 TB external drive has to use that format before moving your photos to it. As you are using it to make Time Machine backups, it is already using that format.
There are two possibilities in order to start using a different external drive for Time Machine:
Move your old Time Machine backups made in your 1 TB external drive to your 2 TB external drive.
Start a completely new backup, deleting the old ones.
In the first possibility, you only have to follow these steps -> Time Machine: How to transfer backups from a current backup drive to a new backup drive - Soporte técnico de Apple After moving your Time Machine backups to the 2 TB external drive, remember to format the 1 TB drive with Disk Utility in order to store your photos there.
In the second possibility, just go to System Preferences -> Time Machine, and choose your 2 TB external drive as your Time Machine drive. Then, format the 1 TB external drive.
In both cases, Time Machine does not make backups of external drives by default, so after moving your photos to the 1 TB external drive, you have to go to System Preferences -> Time Machine -> Options, and remove the 1 TB external drive from the excluded items list. By doing that, the next backup will also include your 1 TB drive.

How to reformat external HDD?

Hi,
I'm using a 1TB Hitachi external HDD. It has been working fine for a long time, but somehow it doesn't mount anymore. I opened Disk Utility and tried to repair it, but that didn't work. It showed me this message:
Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
How do I back up the files on a disk I can't open and how do I reformat it?
Regards,
Chris Wijland

One of the misconceptions that circulate on ASC is the idea that a journaled HFS volume can be corrupted by a forced unmount, as for example in a system crash or a power failure. That idea is false.
With filesystem journaling, when the volume is remounted after a forced unmount, the directory is automatically repaired, and files are restored to their previous state, using redundant information (the journal) stored on the drive. This is very well established technology, and for all practical purposes, it always works—unless the journal itself is corrupt due to a hardware failure in the drive or elsewhere in the data path. So if the directory of a journaled volume is found to be corrupt, the storage device hosting the volume has thrown at least one unrecoverable hardware error.
People who don't understand journaling will tell you to repair the corrupt volume with Disk Utility (if possible), or with Disk Warrior otherwise, and then go on using the drive as if everything is fine. That might have been good advice years ago, before the introduction of HFS journaling, when it was common for volumes to be corrupted as the result of forced unmounting. Today, because forced unmounts no longer cause that kind of corruption, it's relatively rare—or should be—and when it does happen, the implications are different.
My opinion is that when a drive throws such a severe error that a volume directory not only can't be restored by journal replay, but also can't be repaired by Disk Utility, that drive should no longer be trusted with data. It should be taken to a recycling center.
Deric Horn, the head of filesystem engineering at Apple, gave a presentation at WWDC 2012 in which he stated, with regard to journaled HFS (starting at offset 3:18 in the recording):
The journal means that you can pull power at any time, and your filesystem is still intact. There shouldn't be any data corruption or any volume corruption on that disk.
You can hear the presentation by registering for a free developer account with Apple and going to this page. (Eventually the link will break; if that's already happened, you'll just have to take my word for it.) Look for "What's New In The Filesystem" near the bottom.
If a poster on this site knows more about HFS than the Apple software engineer in charge of it, then the latter should be fired, and the former should get his job. Until that happens, I suggest you believe what Horn says.

My disconnected external HDD is somehow writing itself to my internal HDD!

Ok, so the other night I got a notification from OS X that I was almost out of disk space, which I found very odd, because the last time this happened was when I had my external hard drive connected, and it was somehow writing itself onto my internal hard drive (it is formatted so that I can use it for both my MBP and the Windows machine at home). You can understand my puzzlement when I got the message, as I did not have my external connected at the time, and had not had it connected since the day before. I had, however, noticed some significant lagging in Safari and Adium, which I found very odd as being the only things affected. As of writing this, I will have cleaned off what has been written to my hard drive twice now (each time 50+ GB!), and I am starting to get very frustrated, with finals and projects coming due very fast now. It appears that the writing starts after I leave Safari/Adium idle for a while, which is very odd, as I can't imagine why either of these programs being idle would initiate this unexplained writing.
I have, however, noticed that there seems to be something invisible in the trash folder that will simply not delete, and has been there since I had the initial problem of my external writing to the internal drive. The Trash constantly tells me there is "1 item" in the trash, but nothing shows up. When I go to Secure Empty I get the little window that tells you the completion status on the emptying, and it always says "4 Items to delete." Even after showing all hidden files and folders, nothing shows up in the trash, despite there always being "1 Item" in there. My guess is that this could be what is causing the writes. What I don't understand is how in the world it managed to store my 100+ GB of stuff on my external in an invisible file that is taking up next to no space on my system, because when I do a scan using Grand Perspective, it doesn't show anything out of the ordinary files and folders that I know should be there. Certainly not 100+ GB of what I have on my external, as I know what I have where, and what are duplicates, and duplicates only show up after the external files have written themselves.
Some additional details for consideration:
Bootcamped hard drive, 15GB for my Windows partition, have only used it to play Roller Coaster Tycoon, and have only connected to the internet on Windows a total of 3 times, each time to download Firefox, iTunes, and Safari, no additional browsing.
External HDD is a LaCie Firewire 400 drive, 320GB formatted for both Windows and Mac (HFS+, right?), haven't connected it in at least two days. Last time this happened it was actually connected, but this time has not been connected when the files have magically appeared on my internal HDD.
There is an invisible file (or multiple files) somehow not showing up AT ALL that is hanging around in the trash. I believe this invisible file(s) to be the culprit, though I'm puzzled as to how. Each time the mysterious writes have happened, Safari/Adium have been idle and open.
If you're wondering how in the world this is happening, don't worry. The first time this happened when my drive was actually connected, I took my MBP to the Apple Store in Indianapolis and totally stumped three employees, including the store manager. If he thought that was odd, wait until I tell him its now writing to my HDD without being connected!

Each time the problem is in the /Volumes/LaCie folder, which is hidden. This leads me to believe its a ghost from my external HDD, rather than from my Bootcamp partition. The 50+ GB that it has written so far has not been duplicates of less than 10GB of information on my Windows partition, it is all files and folders from my approx. 130+GB of information on my external.
In talking with a friend on my floor last night, he thinks it might be a ghost image, as some people have evidently gotten this problem in their email accounts here at the school lately. This ghost image is on my OS X partition, and I'm almost 100% certain it isn't a problem with my Bootcamp partition, as nothing appears in my trash on the Windows side. I have also never used my external with my Windows partition. Like I said, everything being written is from my external hard drive.
Thanks for the link, checking it out now.

How to handle data whilst reformatting HDD and external HDD

Hi folks,
I'd like to reformat my external HDD (200GB) back to one partition from two. I'd also like to reformat my Mini's HDD (160GB) back to one partition (I don't want the windows partition).
My personal data on the Mini HDD is about 2.7GB, so that's easily put to a DVD for reinstallation afterwards, and I'm sure an archive installation will be relatively idiot proof.
The data on the external HDD is all my music and photos, plus data backups, some software, and some installers etc. In total, it's around 136GB.
With the windows partition on my Mini taking up 16GB, I have available space on the Mac formatted partition of 104GB.
I had the idea to borrow a friend's new and unused external HDD, with the thought simply to drag my data there, but it was with the promise that I reformat it back to Windows NFTS for him, which I think I find is not supported from OSX 10.4, so I can't use his kit.
Can anyone see a trick I'm missing, before I go and burn onto twenty-odd DVDs, and whilst on that subject, is there an inbuilt Mac OSX process for burning my data - I can't see a burn option from within the windows when I'm navigating to the external HDD?
Many thanks,
Matt

Thanks for the suggestions.
My friend already had to return the first drive, which his PC wouldn't recognise, and this unit is the replacement, straight from its sealed box, so I can't put him anywhere near that dark place again after he's done me a favour...
Unfortunately, the computer disk space isn't sufficient: I have 136GB of data held externally, and only 120GB available locally, plus at near 100% capacity, I wouldn't want to trust the OS not to fall over.
I can see that I can copy a large proportion of it over to the Mini, which reduces DVD burn, but again, is there a quick DVD burn from external HDD? Can't see much of use in Disk Utility.

Trying to Reformat External HDD, but too many options!

I want to reformat my External Hard Drive to Mac (It's currently in FAT32 from my PC days a few months ago and I was told it would run smoother if I reformatted it) but when I try to "erase" the External HDD it gives me for options:
Extended (Journaled)
Extended
Extended (case-sensitive journaled)
Extended (case -sensitive)
So which do I choose?

Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in 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. 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 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 will take 30 minutes to an hour or more 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.

HP HD3200 2tb external hdd reformatting itself

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