Problems formatting new seagate 1tb external hdd

hi,
new here as... well... I've not had problems with my mac prior to this.
I did have a buffalo 1tb drive, but earlier in the week I got a warning that this was unstable and I should copy data from it. saved my itunes library, and attempted to re-format the drive, but disk utility was unable to do so. I was getting errors stating it was unable to verify the drive, or re-format it.
I've just got a new seagate 1tb drive and I'm having similar/identical problems: I can't verify the drive and I'm unable to format it either.
I have been able to format the drive as an ms-dos (fat) drive, but if memory serves itunes/mac ran into problems when there was more than 200gb on the disc (and my itunes library's already past that!)
any and all help gratefully received.
cheers!
Leo.

Try erasing the drive and reformatting it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using disk Utility from your install disk. First mount the drive on your desktop then
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. select the drive you want to format, and see if that works.

Similar Messages

  • Problem with using Seagate 1tb external hdd with my macbook!

    Hi... I just bought online Seagate 1tb external HDD without knowing that it's not MacOSx compatible...
    I heard that I can format it to fat32 to make it mac compatible...
    Would it work? Or what else can I do except returning it back?
    Thank you in advance for any help...

    Hi laundry beach... Thanks...
    here is the seagate's page about the 1tb EHD:
    http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/freeagent/freeagent_go/#tTabC ontentSpecifications
    And this is the link by seagate for how to format the drive for mac:
    http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=how-to-reformat-your-dri ve-dn&vgnextoid=da3bd85104b51210VgnVCM1000001a48090aRCRD
    it says PC compatible but not mac compatible... that's why I think that it's not mac compatible...
    So does that make sense to use it by formating it to some mac compatible state?
    Or would it work without seams?

  • New Seagate 1TB external hard drive is not being selected by MacBook Pro

    My new Seagate 1TB external HD is not being identified by the MacBook Pro (10.7.5 Mac OSX). Whereas the same being recognized by a WIN8 OS based PC. I need a format wherby the external HD should be recognised by both Mac OS and Win.
    Kindly help.
    Pls note my system is being run on safe mode, as there is a problem in the left shif key. Hence, while booting, it is automatically being shifted to the safe mode. I need to format the external HD, so that I can transfer to store my data.

    If you want the drive to be able to both read and write on OS X and a Windows machine, you should format the drive as exFAT on the Windows machine. As to why the drive is not recognized when you boot into Safe Mode, that may be because the drive is formatted for another OS and it MAY BE that it's disabled when you run in Safe Mode (which disables a long list of things: see -> http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564?viewlocale=en_US).
    If you format it as exFAT on the Windows machine, you MAY BE able to have it mount on your Mac. No guarantees, though.
    Good luck,
    Clinton

  • K8N Neo 2 Platinum: having problems formatting NEW SEAGATE 200 GB SATA Drive.

    Ok..
    I can see the SATA drive during Windows Installation and in Windows XP... but I can't format it.
    It freezes up at 20% when I do quick format.. and when I did a normal format it Windows gave me a error saying something about drive may be damage or installed wrong..
    Right now I'm running IDE0 Master (Western Digital 200 GB HD) IDE1 Master (Toshiba DVDROM), then the Seagate drive in SATA0.
    I see the drive in bios, windows, and windows install...
    I've disconnecting my ide drive completly & disabled ide in bios... still won't format properly
    i've also tried the f6 and loaded the 'nforce 3 SATA RAID Driver' disc that came with the motherboard and it still froze..
    right now i am on my normal bootup (ide wd hd), windows xp detects the hard drive in windows.. i see it in disk management.. i can delete/make partitions.. but i just can't format it.. gaaaaaaah
    any help would be much appreciated.

    Quote
    Originally posted by cfeedback
    In years past I was able to install XP w/o a SP on a large drive without any problems. The process I believe I had to take was use the manufacturer's utility to format (in this case MaxBlast from Maxtor) the drive, install Windows, immediately install SP1, and then enable 48-bit LBA via the utility (you can find a .reg file that will enable it as well). While I wouldn't recommend it I never had any problems.
    Ah, you just got lucky that Windows didn't try to write something past the 137 GB point.    I've always known about this, but coincidentally, this just happened to me the other day where Windows told me I had a 200 GB (186 GB really) installed and ready to go, but then a few days later I kept getting a ton of "Write Delayed" errors.  I was so distracted at the time (with other issues), that it didn't occur to me what the problem was, and I ended up losing a lot of data.  
    Anyway, for anyone really interested in the full scoop, you can read about here in Microsoft's knowlege base.

  • Lacie 1TB external HDD recently stopped doing Time Machine backups. Disk Utility recommends that the disk needs to be repaired.

    I've been using my Lacie 1TB external HDD for my Time Machine backups for quite sometime. Its never given me any problems until now.
    It recently stopped doing the backups, so I checked Disk Utility and it recommended that I repair the disk. How long does it take for Disk Utility to repair a 1TB external HDD?
    Other things to consider:
    - Cant find the disk in the Finder, I used to be able to do that before.
    - When I tried to go a Time Machine backup, it said the disk was not available.
    Upon using disk utiliy, I successfully verified the disk. Then I initiated the disk repair process.
    The current status:
    - checking file system
    - Volume repair complete
    - Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
    The progress bar says "Verify and Repair volume "LaCie"" - the progress bar does not indicate how much has been done or how long it will take.
    Capacity: 1 TB (1,000,204,476,416 Bytes)
    Mount Point: Not Mounted
    Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
    All other status fields blank.
    Any one know how long it will take for Disk Utility to repair the external HDD? Any other ideas as to how I can get the Lacie HDD to reconnect with the Macbook and resume normal operations? i.e. Time Machine backups, accessing contents through the Finder.

    purduegrad_macguy wrote:
    I've been using my Lacie 1TB external HDD for my Time Machine backups for quite sometime. Its never given me any problems until now.
    Mine Failed after 3 years and 4 months of using it as a Dedicated TM Backup drive...
    When I used Disk Utility for repairs... it went from 7 minutes to 4 hours and after about 10 minutes it was saying 40 hours...
    So I just replace it with a New EHD...

  • I upgraded my imac to OS Mountain Lion and now the Seagate Goflex external HDD is not recognised

    I upgraded the iMac to Mountain Lion and it does not recognize the Seagate Goflex External HDD that I was working from earlier. I do not want to buy a special program since the Goflex HDD was working on both mac and Windows without any problems before the upgrade. The Goflex HDD is still working on my Macbook pro so there is no problem in the HDD. Is there something that needs to be activated... Please help

    A bit more info for those of you reading this.... the problem seemed to be in iTunes. For each connected device , if I clicked on the Photo option I could no longer select the second radio button for limiting the photos by Events, Albums, etc.  It was an all or nothing deal. But selecting all would cause the error.
    So I had read the other forum posts about the "&" symbol being the cause of the problem.  I went through iPhoto and made all of the changes. It did not work. I then looked at iTunes, using the AlbumData2.xml file listed in the other forums as a reference.  I found one album with the "&". I edited that one.  Still would not work.  So then I spent 3 hours on the phone with AppleCare last week. I talked with 4 different advisors. None of them had heard about the "&" error from the forums. We tried everything in iPhoto including repair and rebuild.  Finally we created a whole new library and reimported my master photos from my original one.  Using this option would allow me to now check off that radio button in iTunes.  BUT... I now lost all of my albums and events and would need to rebuid them.  I was not happy. They agreed and we set up time to talk this week.
    So today I talked with AppleCare again. They now have more info and said the problem has to do with iTunes and the new iPhoto 9.4. It does not like the "&" symbol anywhere in either iPhoto or iTunes. So they now have me going through everything in my iTunes library. Genre is OK but any other item cannot have " & ". I have several dozen to edit and will do it over the weekend and then restore my original iPhoto Library and see if I can finally get it all to sync. I will let you know how I make out, but apparently you need to eliminate " & " from every entry in iTunes and iPhoto.
    Quality control is not up to par with Apple these days. 

  • Lacie 1TB External HDD just went ghost

    I was using my computer this afternoon and ejected my harddrives to take the MBP to another room. When I mounted everything back, my Lacie 1TB USB 3.0 HDD just didn't mount. I have 2x of the same HDD and a WD 2TB. All of them are Mac Journaled, one Lacie is configured as Time Capsule and the other is just backup for music, FCP files, etc.
    I've switched USB ports, USB Cables, everything. It doesnt show up on Disk Utility either.
    It always asked to Force Eject as Spotlight was forever indexing this HD.
    Any thoughts?

    purduegrad_macguy wrote:
    I've been using my Lacie 1TB external HDD for my Time Machine backups for quite sometime. Its never given me any problems until now.
    Mine Failed after 3 years and 4 months of using it as a Dedicated TM Backup drive...
    When I used Disk Utility for repairs... it went from 7 minutes to 4 hours and after about 10 minutes it was saying 40 hours...
    So I just replace it with a New EHD...

  • I have purchased a Seagate 1Tb external hard drive.  Will not connect to imac

    Seagate 1TB external hardrive

    We're missing a ton of information. How are you connecting it? Is it new (with warranty)? Give us more info.

  • On Seagate 1TB external drive for W8.1 system image backup

    System image attempt using W8.1 on a Seagate 1Tb external drive stalls and advises "Insufficient space" etc. I've tried expanding the volume, decreasing the volume, renaming the drive.  What I've read on this site requires using non-Microsoft
    programs to solve a Microsoft issue.  As this is  a W8.1 issue (no problems with backups in W7) surely you Microsoft experts out there can come up with a simple solution for computer illerates lilke I am.  

    Hi Jamesg46,
    What was the exact full error message?
    Also,please check your System Reserved partition space to see if it has a large USN journa.
    If so,please try to clear and disable the USN journal on the System Reserved partition:
    You can refer to the following thread:
    http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/error-code-0x80780119-not-enough-disk-space-to/865fbd74-06bc-4cc3-b054-d3d56b60eeff
    Please perform the steps as Mancer provided to check the result.
    Regards,
    Kelvin Xu
    TechNet Community Support

  • Seagate 1TB External Desktop Drive

    I just paid $130 for a nifty little Seagate 1TB external drive to work with my '08 Macbook. But the MacBook won't recognize the drive, nor will it let me repartition it. Help!

    There is no partition size constraint, but there are 1 TB Seagate drives that have bad firmware that needs updating. Updaters are available from Seagate. Be sure you are prepping drive correctly:
    Extended Hard 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. 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. Set the number of partitions from the drop down menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel 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.
    Repeat Steps 4-6 for each volume if you made more than one.

  • 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.

  • Toshiba 1TB external HDD

    I purchesed one of these about amonth ago, to day when I plugged the machine into the mains an turned it on nothing happend. i have left it for about an hour and tried again, still nothing happens, what could be the problem and how would i go about fixing this.
    Cheers in advance.

    I had a similar problem with my Toshiba 320GB external HDD. It would work when connected to by Dynadock, but not when connected to any of the USB ports on my Qosmio G50. I tried removing all the USB drivers and restarting without luck.
    It turned out to be the fact I wasn't using the original USB cable that came with the HDD, but a stock stadard USB cable. The original cable that came with the carries 5volts whereas a std USB may not. And the reason the Dynadock worked is that it has a mains power source.

  • Problems with 1TB external HDD

    I have two external HDD, one a LaCie 2TB and one a Maxtor Basics 1.5TB. Both devices come formatted as FAT32. I have tried reformatting using Disk Utility to Mac OS Extended but the process fails on both devices, whichever of my iMac I use. The only thing I can then do is re-partition them as FAT32 again.
    Equally frustrating, the devices are not visible when I try to access them from other machines on the network whereas other drives connected to the same machine are fully visible.
    Is there a size limit for formatting using Mac OS Extended or something?
    Any suggestions of how I might at least get them visible for sharing across the network - even if they have to stay as FAT32 drives?

    Hi Brian
    Connect the External HD directly up to one of the iMac's and follow the Formatting and Partitioning instructions in Ken's article: (but note that doing so will erase the data on the drive)
    Ken Stone's article: http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/partitioningtiger.html
    It's sounding more like your trouble is with network sharing than format, if so have a look
    at: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1549
    and: http://db.tidbits.com/article/9261
    Dennis

  • Big problem with new WD Caviar Green HDD, please advise!

    I bought a new Western Digital Caviar Green HDD 1TB, ( WD10EADS ) it is a SATA 3Gb/s interface HDD, 3.5-inch form factor. the RPM = IntelliPower (NOT 7200 RPM or 5400 RPM which means Rotate automatically depends on the needs of fetching data I suppose?)
    I acknowledged that this series of HDD which three of 6 have the same Power Management which Read/Write = 4.9W / Idle = 2.8W / Standby = 0.4 W / Sleep = 0.4W
    They are differ from the other 3, which 500GB one is 4.1W / 2.2W / 0.8W / 0.8W and 1.5TB is 4.73W 2.75W / 0.72W / 0.72W; 2TB is 6W 3.7W 0.8W 0.8W
    Which mean the Standby and Sleep mode are the same state.
    Now my big problem is, I bought an external dock SI-7908UI for this WD Caviar Green HDD.
    ( http://www.ssi.com.tw/product_content.aspx?id=92 )
    So I first put the HDD into the SI-7908UI Dock ( USB 2.0 / eSATA / Firewire 400 /800 )
    I tried many way of sequence of who power on first? WD Caviar Power on first? or Mac mini Power on first? I found that the best way is Mac mini Power on first, then Power on the external HDD.
    OK, before I address my big problem, I should let you know, I found that there is NO S.M.A.R.T. working when you put a S.M.A.R.T. HDD outside the Mac or PC. In Dock, the S.M.A.R.T. won't work, That's how I saw in System Profiler, the FireWire tab says " S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported "
    and I did test a Non-Green Maxtor HDD, the S.M.A.R.T. doesn't show either. You'll need this info before the real problem I'm gonna say in the following.
    NOW, about 10~15 minutes after my Mac mini boot, if I didn't fetch anything from my external HDD, it would goes to sleep itself, that confirmed that the Specification Sheet was true, the Idle = 2.8W and I believe it goes to Idle, NOT Standby or Sleep, which I also believe the Standby or Sleep signal is supposed to be given by Mac OS, but it sounds like Standby or Sleep, BECAUSE the WD HDD suddenly not rotate and the sound it appears that it goes to SLEEP, am I right? I keep Mac awake by browsing the web so Mac mini won't go to sleep (I set 10 minutes in Energy Saver and I checked Put the HDD to sleep when possible)
    Well, That is my big problem when WD Green HDD goes to sleep, because I CAN'T wake it up, NOT eject or Shut down the Mac mini. (OK, I'm NOT sure if it goes to Sleep or Idle)
    First I thought it freezes the whole Mac OS, then I found I still can move many things, such as I am doing right now, post this big problem here. but I am sure the others are freeze! and no matter how many time I click Shut Down or Restart or Force Quit, the Mac mini didn't respond.
    I tried to figure it out because I don't want to Shut Down by force.(5 seconds Press the Power button)
    then I found that if I power down the external dock 7908-UI when Mac fail to shut down/restart/or eject the external HDD, It worked.
    And the Mac OS will appear a window says that "I shouldn't unplug an external device without Ejecting it first" something like that. and suddenly it shuts down very quickly, everything back to normal, it shut down successfully.
    What am I gonna do with this? Am I going to power down my external HDD first every time I want to shut down/eject/restart? Because the Eject the external HDD will cause freeze too! Freeze Finder I suppose.
    Is it caused by 7908-UI ? or Caused by WD Caviar's Green Power management?
    Because I don't trust 7908-UI, it doesn't look like a trusted brand, I've never heard of this SSI company anyway.
    What am I gonna do? Please advise.
    Thanks in advance.

    Please realise that I am not the right person to be asking. I pointed you to a thread where, as a Moderator at the Bombich forums, I felt the need to warn users of CCC that a WD drive might cause problems. The thread mainly just copies what WD have said.
    Obviously your drive will respond/awake/spin up when you access it manually. Some of the problems are...
    •  Most users want to be in control of whether and/or when a drive sleeps -- WD's auto-sleep cannot be disabled and so precludes that.
    •  Most users want their drive to obey settings in Energy Saver -- the WD auto-sleep mechanism doesn't allow that.
    •  Most users want a scheduled cloning/backup to take place during the night. The cloning app starting the backup process should cause the target drive, if sleeping, to wake/spin up so that the process can take place -- it does for all drives except WD drives where the auto-sleep mechanism used doesn't allow it. LaCie drives, for instance, have auto-sleep +as an option+, during which the drive will respond to Energy Saver settings and to software such as a cloning app.
    Please, Mauricette, put you questions/concerns/problems to the reseller or to WD, both of whom took your money without warning you. I am NOT a WD expert! ...or lover! ( )   I became more than disenchanted when I saw that a) WD do not point out the limitations of their external drives at point of sale, and b) WD put the blame for these inadequacies/problems/limitations onto Apple, ignoring the fact that no drives other than WD drives have them. 
    Andreas

  • Can't mount 1tb External HDD - error message

    Hello,
    First of all, I wasn't sure exactly where to post this, so please let me know if it should be moved.
    Als, I have done pretty extensive searches on this problem ad error message but all the results were about 2 years old - i'm posting now in the hope that someone has some new answers!
    I have a Macbook August 2007 model, and I have been using a Iomega 1TB external hardrive with no problems for the last year, until yesterday..
    I can only think that I might have been too quick to take out the usb cable after ejecting it or the mac was too slow responding after I clicked to eject - I was running iMovie HD at the same time, which seems to slow things down. Now it will not mount, though I can see it in Disk Utility. I'm gutted if this is what caused it because I am so meticulous about ejecting it properly!!
    When I tried to verify and repair, I got the following error code:
    Verify and Repair disk “ABBY'S 1TB”
    ** /dev/disk2s1
    ** Phase 1 - Read FAT
    Unable to read FAT (Input/output error)
    Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
    1 non HFS volume checked
    1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
    I'm not technical enough to know which way it has been formatted, sorry.. but I just looked on Disk Utility and it says 'MS-DOS File System (FAT32)' .. I don't know what FAT and HFS mean...
    I heard that if i try to mount it on a PC, it might work and then I could copy everything to dvds and try to reformat it.. is this a good option? I don't actually have a pc, I have used Macs for years, but I could wait til next week and find one to use..
    But if anyone has any tips on how I can try to repair it or recover the lost data, I'd be really happy to hear from you.
    Thanks,
    Abby
    Message was edited by: Abigail Lawson

    Hey there Shaun7036,
    It sounds like you are unable to mount your external USB drive when you connect it to your Mac and you have already reformatted, and repaired it. I would next reset your SMC and then your PRAM.
    Shut down the computer.
    Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected.
    On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
    Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
    Press the power button to turn on the computer. 
    Note: The LED on the MagSafe power adapter may change states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC.
    Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964
    Then:
    Shut down your Mac.
    Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
    Turn on the computer.
    Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys before the gray screen appears.
    Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
    Release the keys.
    After resetting NVRAM or PRAM, you may need to reconfigure your settings for speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, and time zone information.
    About NVRAM and PRAM
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
    Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
    Take care,
    Sterling

Maybe you are looking for