Really erasing second hard drive

My Mac Pro won't recognize a second hard drive as a second hard drive. Mac insists on seeing both drives (startup and secondary) as one volume, and then won't list the drives as WD drives in Finder. They are listed in Disk Utility as WD 6400 and WD 5000, correctly. But I want them separated--so that, for instance, Time Machine doesn't object when I try to back-up on the second drive, informing me I'm about to back up on the same volume as the system.
I've tried erasing in Disk Utility, but can't erase without also formatting--either HFS or FAT 32. That is, I can't seem to be rid of the disk. I need a disk that's clean, like new, so the computer will see it that way.
Thanks very much for any suggestion(s),

Well, actually I found what I needed really to erase the drive. Zeroing out in MAC didn't work as even doing that leaves the drive formatted as HFS or FAT. As I noted, there is no choice in Disk Utility. (It took 1 hour, 15 minutes.) It is possible to erase all formatting.
I found a utility at Western Digital that allows for what's called "low-level" formatting, which really erases all formatting. I was able to use the utility in my Bootcamped Windows. When I looked at it afterward in Snow Leopard, Disk Utility showed a disk blanked out--no formatting of any kind, exactly as when shipped from WD. Even though both Mac and Windows recognized the drive and were able to initialize the disk. Disk Utility "saw" the drive regardless of no formatting type. Which was correct. Windows displayed the disk as "unallocated," also correctly. (I couldn't find a way in Windows either to do what I wanted. All that seems to be offered is "Delete Partition," which was useless.)
So I got done what I wanted to do. Alas, that did not help, not even after doing a fresh reinstall of Snow Leopard. I then repartitioned--into four--the disk, using HFS Extended for two and MS-DOS FAT for two. Happily, one can do this in Mac's Disk Utility, since this cannot be done in Windows Disk Manager, which mostly doesn't recognize HFS at all, let alone format a disk with it. But Disk Manager does allow easy conversion of FAT to NTFS, which is what I did with the two partitions formatted FAT in Disk Utility.
These procedures all went smoothly enough, no problems. Two partitions for Time Machine and other Mac files, two for Windows Back-up and other Windows files. Perfect, except that Mac, except in Disk Utility, keeps reporting that two hard drives as one "volume," apparently not unlike in a RAID configuration, so I was told. (I don't have a RAID card nor want one.)
I can still do a Time Machine back-up but don't know what might happen should I ever have to restore from one. It's just very odd that Snow Leopard doesn't recognize two separate hard drives installed in two different bays, though it does in Disk Utility. Very strange!

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Hi, how do I erase my hard drive on a macbook pro?

Hi - can anyone help|? I am trying to erase my hard drive and I have been told to go in to Disk Utility and click Erase, then Erase again but the second "Erase" is greyed out. Any ideas how to ungrey the second "erase" button.
Thanks

cfirebrace wrote:
Thank you for being so helpful. Do I just hold down Alt? It does nothing!!
When starting or restarting the computer, At Boot or ReBoot. And in the Mac World it is really the Option key, Alt is used for PC users that make the switch to Mac.

How to tell if second hard drive is going bad

Back in November added second hard drive to my G4 and installed Leopard on it. In last month incredible amount of app crashes, hangs, "force quit," etc. and the occasional kernel panic.
Did an erase and install and now seems like more of the same.
When I run old 10.3 on the original hard drive, life is just fine. To that end, I'm beginning to suspect the hardware. However, when I put the original Apple Hardware Test CD in and tried to use it (never done that before), it said it wouldn't run on this machine.
Is there a Plan B? Is there something wrong with the CD?
Thanks in advance for the help.
j

SMART - look at the bottom of the screen in DU when you click on the drive.
Lepard may be uncovering faulty or marginal memory. Each OS upgrade has put memory to use more so than previously.
Memtest is your best bet there. Or Rember which people like for GUI.
I tended in the past to wipe a drive with zeroes.
If you aren't using Disk Warrior (or TTPro) then you really don't know if your drive has directory or file errors, sadly, 3rd party is pretty much a given and must.
Intech Speedtools is another. Can do a thorough SMART test (45 minutes), test media, scan and reassign bad blocks, and stress a drive.
Disk Warrior manual hardware test will tell you one thing that helps: whether a drive has used spare blocks and how many left, meaning it might be time to zero a drive. Drives tend to fail early if they will, sometimes off the assembly line. Or down the road.
It would be nice if we could run Memtest from Apple Hardware Test. AHT does spot real obvious problems with memory, but sometimes iTunes seems to do a better job.

How do I partition my second Hard Drive

I am wondering why my second hard drive that apple installed on my mac wont partition for use with windows.
I tried to partition the drive via Boot Camp Assistant and when I tell it to partition it sits there for hours saying its partitioning. I tried restarting and trying again. It just wont complete.
My next step was opening the disc utility and selecting the second hard drive and clicking partition. It still doesn't work. I get an error message saying
"Partition failed with the error: Filesystem resize support required, such as HFS+ with journaling enabled"
I took screen captures of the steps I took that are in these links
http://gallery.me.com/calaberator/100029/Picture-205/web.jpg
http://gallery.me.com/calaberator/100029/Picture-206/web.jpg
http://gallery.me.com/calaberator/100029/Picture-207.jpg?derivative=medium&sourc e=web.jpg&type=medium&ver=12205459000001
It won't let me partition the disc. Does anyone have any recomendations?

Okay!
Disk Utility is... weird ever since Leopard, and BootCamp Assistant... fine for iMac or MacBook but not as flexible as I like.
Sometimes you just have to restart Disk Utility, or at worst, restart. Sometimes after resizing partitions and such, you really do want to restart before using those partitions.
I've seen Disk Utility "lose communication" with a drive.
I don't like to use the last part of a drive.... for anything, it is the slowest inner tracks and less than half the performance.
If you don't have anything on it that you need and that is backed up, I would just go to Partition tab and start over.
Personally, I like to strip a drive of all partition tables and format it in Windows. Or set it as Master Boot Record, then create a couple FAT partitions which works for Vista installs but not for XP.
Vista needs at least 40GB and you want to leave room to add applications, restore points, and room for updates (a 500MB 'update' can unpack, write temp files, and use much more, as much as 7-10GB for Vista SP1 update, which you get back most of afterwards. And 2-3x the amount of RAM for pagefile and hibernation.
Try again, restart if necessary, and it really should.
When a drive is first formatted, it writes partition tables and has to test the first and last 100 sectors plus where the GPT and EFI partitions go, which shouldn't take more than 2 minutes. More than that, just kill it, quit Disk Utility and try again.
If you have never used the drive, consider doing a full zero-all from security options to erase it after you have it partitioned.

I had a second hard drive added to my Mac Pro. How do I format it and not effect my orginal hard drive?

I had a second hard drive added to my Mac Pro. How do I format it and not effect my orginal hard drive?

Just format it with Disk Utility as mentioned above. Select the new disk on the list at the left. Click the erase tab. Specify Mac OS Extended (Journaled) if not already specified and give the disk a name of your choice. Then click the erase button.
That's the simplest way to format a disk with a single partition (volum). If you want to create multiple volume (partitions) then click the Partition tab instead of Erase. You can then use then specify a number of volumes and size each volume by specifying its size or just dragging the slider in the bootm right of each partition. Give each a name as before and again Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Click Apply button to create the partitions.
Since you appear to be new at this just "play" with the erase and partition settings so you can become comfortable with them. So long as you have the new disk selected on the left you can't really hurt anything since it's a new disk and no data to loose. You can always go back and erase it back to a single partition.

How do I properly zero out or erase the hard drives in my early 2009 Mac Pro 4,1 tower?

How do I properly zero out or erase the hard drives in my early 2009 Mac Pro 4,1 tower?
I assume there are already instructions on Apple.com someplace but haven't seen them yet… I have to one terabyte drives one the operating system the other is blank I want to start fresh I want to zero out both drives but I didn't want to make any mistakes
I know I can use disk utility to 0 Out Dr., #2 that means I will have to take out the operating system hard drive out of my 2008 Mac Pro and put it into my 2009 Mac Pro to use the disk utility to zero out drive one the OS drive in my 2009 Mac Pro am my correct
I just need a little bit a help I want to go slow so I don't make any mistakes with the sleds or with the erasing process which journaled to choose encrypted or not etc. etc.
Furthermore is there instructions on the site on how to change the hard drive into a different sled because the sleds and my 2009 are different than my 2008 any advice
Thank you

I'm doing this because my friend told me that zeroing out the drive can nap bad sectors and also later for some kind of diagnostics usage of the drive or something like that he wasn't really clear
My friend was really specific he said choose the option that writes zero's once over the drive that is plenty good enough I was inclined to use the maximum seven write ...I just want to make sure the drive has no bad sectors and that's it's it's zeroed out for possible future diagnostics usage or something that he said was usable later
he also advised me to run a test on it but I don't have the software you mentioned or the software that he has… So I may have to take the drives over to his house unless you have some kind of free software that's easy to use that you could suggest that will not only zero out the drive but test the drive completely
I am completely new to Mac I'm no dummy but at the same time I'm not super technically capable I mean I can surprise myself I'm pretty good but I need a good teacher… How expensive is this lifeguard software?
Thank you

Should I erase my hard drive before updating to Yosemite?

I am planning on updating to OS X 10.10 Yosemite on my late 2009 3GHz 4GB RAM iMac soon from 10.9.5 Mavericks, and I've always heard it is best to erase the hard drive and wipe it clean when installing a new version of the OS. Is this still true?
And since the OS no longer comes on an install CD disc, is it still recommended to erase the HD before installing fresh? If so, how is this best accomplished without such an install CD? Copy the downloaded installer to a flash drive or CD/DVD or external hard disk?
Or has the Mac OS progressed enough that simply using Software Update is now the best and recommended way to upgrade OS X?
Any best practice recommendations would be most appreciated. And as always, I backup all of my important stuff before I perform such an install (though I do not use Time Machine as yet).

You don't say how you are backing up, other than that you don't use Time Machine (which is not a bad thing, given the reports of problems with the reliability of Time Machine backups). I'd suggest that you buy Carbon Copy Cloner and use it to make a complete, bootable backup of your system on a second hard drive.
4GB of RAM is borderline skimpy. You may need to at least double what you have installed now: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/iMac/DDR3_21.5_27
Download DiskmakerX: http://diskmakerx.com/, and get an 8GB flash drive. You can use DiskmakerX to put the Yosemite installer on the flash drive.I'd also suggest that you try to re-download the Mavericks installer before you do any other steps, and store it in a safe location outside of your Applications folder. You may want to revert or re-install at some point. You can also make a flash drive for Mavericks, if you have succeeded in downloading it.
"Install OS X Yosemite.app" (or or any installer later than Snow Leopard) is downloaded to your Applications folder. When the download is complete, the installer application launches. It is at this point that you quit the installer and copy (not move) it to a safe location outside of your Applications folder, perhaps in the folder of backups you (should) maintain for stuff like system updates and installers. You need to do this is because "Install OS X Whatever.app" very unhelpfully deletes itself after the installation is complete.
Make your flash drive installer at this point. When you are done, locate the copy of the Yosemite installer that is still in your Applications folder, launch it, and upgrade the system on your internal drive. With a cloned, bootable backup, you can easily revert to Mavericks if Yosemite doesn't run well.

Installing windows 7 on second hard drive in macbook pro 7

Dear fellow forumers. I am currently having trouble installing windows 7 on my second hard disk as whenever I restart my laptop after the bootcamp assistant has made a partition in the HDD, instead of going into windows installation, my laptop screen shows a blank/black screen with a blinking dash at the top corner. I am currently using a 15" macbook pro 2011, installed an OWC ssd as my primary hard drive where I run my os Lion and windows (in another partition). Due to insufficient disk space with the applications in both OS, i am now attempting to install a second windows 7 in a second hard drive which I split the HDD equally into two partitions (one formatted for windows installation and the other for data storage). Just for the information, I am also installing the windows 7 via an external optical drive.
I have been running out of wits as I have been researching whole night about possible oslution but it seems that my problem is quite a peculiar one. Will really appreciat any help that I could receive.
lastly, is it possible to run parallel desktop from my ssd (Primary hard drive) and then attempt to import the bootcamp from my second hard drive?

Well it's not particularly hard, I just don't see why its necessary. It seems silly that I've got to physically start removing hardware from my computer just to get an OS to install on a specific drive.
I was under the impression the Boot Camp gave the option of where to install Windows, as in other drives from the ones with OSX on them.

Can apple erase a hard drive with filevault 2 turned on and then reinstall OSX?

Can I take my MacBook Pro to an apple store and have them erase the hard drive and reinstall OSX? If so how much will that cost me?

I believe that's pretty much your only recourse if you forget the password and didn't write down the recovery key or choose to store it with Apple.
If you chose to store it with Apple, you can have them retrieve it for you if you answer the three security questions.
Really, with FileVault, the recovery key is crucial. You MUST keep a safe copy of it.
Matt

I need to erase my hard drive and start anew, will time Machine(external drive) and all the discs I got with my computer be enough to restart things

I need to erase my hard drive and start anew, will time Machine(external drive) and all the discs I got with my computer be enough to restart things. And secondly does RAM memory cards go bad. Here's the info on my IMac:
Model Name:          iMac
Model Identifier:          iMac6,1
Processor Name:          Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed:          2.16 GHz
Number Of Processors:          1
Total Number Of Cores:          2
L2 Cache:          4 MB
Memory:          3 GB
Bus Speed:          667 MHz
Boot ROM Version:          IM61.0093.B07
SMC Version (system):          1.10f2

I need to erase my hard drive and start anew
Why do you feel you need to do this? That is such a 'Windows thing' to do!
And secondly does RAM memory cards go bad
Very rarely, but nothing in life is guaranteed (except death and taxes)! If you purchased RAM from a reputable source like Crucial or OWC it will carry a lifetime warranty.

I have erased my hard drive, and now i cant find it on DU

I have erased my hard drive, now when i'm trying to re-install mountain lion i can't see the hard drive in DU. Any ideas on how to restore this?

Try the following document:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
If that doesn't work, this site has a lot of info on hard drive problems:
http://scsc-online.com
I'm personally betting that the first link will fix your problem. The second link has a book you can download that has a lot of reset and troubleshooting information on it.

Installing a second hard drive in a G4 - advice needed please

Hi......
I have a G4 Quicksilver (2002) model and I also have a G4 Digital Audio model as well which is currently surplus to requirements.....
I would like to take out the 20Gb hard drive from the older G4 and put it into the Quicksilver as a second internal hard drive (for extra storage capacity....)
I have seen the instructions regarding installing a second hard drive and it doesn't seem to complicated....
I just want to check because the 20Gb hard drive has the operating system on it for the older G4.....
Do I have to fire up the machine and erase the hard drive and then take it out and put it into the Quicksilver...?
Or am I able to simply take it out, put it in the Quicksilver and erase it when I restart the machine....?
I don't have the original installation discs for the OSX...
I talked to a Mac technician at work and he said I can just take out the 20Gb hard drive and put it in as a 'slave' drive and I have to 'bend some pins' (I think he said) when I install it.........and I can then erase the second hard drive and use it as storage.....
any advice would be greatly appreciated.....
Thanks

Hi, craigkelleigh -
Ony many drives the label showing jumper pins configurations will be on the end of the drive, just above the block of pins; on other drives it may be on the top, rarely on the bottom.
The block of jumper pins is at the same end of the drive where the data cable (wide, flat ribbon cable) and the power connector plug in.
It is best to move the jumpers before installing the hard drive - they're quite small and hard to manipulate in a confined space. Important - do not move jumper pins if the drive is powered up (running).
As far as removing and installing the drive, you can view/download a how-to PDF or movieclip from these pages -
G4 (Digital Audio) - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75313
G4 Quicksilver - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75314
In addition, with regard to specific jumper positions, that depends on the make (and sometimes the model) of the drive. There are some resources available on-line, such as jumper diagrams for specific drives. If you would give us the specific make (manufacturer) and model number of your hard drive (that info should be shown on labels affixed to the drive), we may be able to direct you to a specific website page with that info.

What kind and how to add a second hard drive to my dv7-6157cl?

I want to add a second hard drive, which can be done on this laptop. What type of hdd would I purchase?
Can I add a solid state drive?
Are there instructions on how to do this on this particular model?
Thank you

I would not use a SSD for a second drive, there is really no benefit to this, an SSD would be much better for the primary hard drive where the OS runs from.
Any standard laptop Sata hard drive will work
You would need a hard drive hardware kit, includes bracket, shield, screws, and data cable.
I would contact HP parts to be sure you get the correct part(s) for your specific model
Here is your service manual which has instructions on how to replace hard drives in that model

Pre Purchase Question: Adding a second hard drive on a DV4t

I'm really interested in the DV4T and I was customizing online but can't seem to find any option to add or even where to purchase an internal second hard drive for the SmartBay. Could someone help, Thanks in advance.

futurewave27 wrote:
I'm really interested in the DV4T and I was customizing online but can't seem to find any option to add or even where to purchase an internal second hard drive for the SmartBay. Could someone help, Thanks in advance.
The dv4 series only has 1 hard drive bay, you cannot install a second drive. If you want to have more than one hard drive, try the dv7 series

Encrypt a second hard drive with ecryptfs

Hey folks,
I already encrypted my home directory as describend in the wiki here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/EC … 8simple.29
mount says
/home/.ecryptfs/michael/.Private on /home/michael type ecryptfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,ecryptfs_fnek_sig=11111111111111111111,ecryptfs_sig=aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,ecryptfs_cipher=aes,ecryptfs_key_bytes=16,ecryptfs_unlink_sigs)
MY GOAL IS: Encrypt a Folder "encrypted" on a second hard drive in my pc, that gets autodecrypted when i login with my login password on gdm. the partition on that hard drive is sdb1, just for future references
Long story short: I tried several ways to adapt the encryption of the home folder to the folder on sdb1. the wiki did not help me much with this (encryption was working but nothing like automaticaly decrypt on logon or smthg(.
then i found the ecryptfs readme file: http://ecryptfs.sourceforge.net/README and read the PAM MODULE section.
it points that i had to add my passphrase for the encrypted folder in sdb1 to the session keyring using ecryptfs-manager.
Then, log in as the regular
user. Manually add your passphrase to the user session keyring via the
ecryptfs-manager utility.
i also added the line in my fstab:
/run/media/michael/Seagate/.encrypted /run/media/michael/Seagate/encrypted ecryptfs user,noauto,rw,relatime,ecryptfs_sig=bbbbbbbbbbbbbbb,ecryptfs_cipher=aes,ecryptfs_key_bytes=16,ecryptfs_unlink_sigs
after that, i could easily mount the folder through nautilus or with the `mount -i /run/media/michael/Seagate/encrypted` command.
the bad thing is: after loging off and on again, the mount again didnt work until i added the passphrase for the sdb1 folder again to the ecryptfs-manager.
Before adding the passphrase:
michael@tyron ~ (@ ✹master)$ keyctl show
Session Keyring
18821945 --alswrv 1000 -1 keyring: _uid_ses.1000
980991344 --alswrv 1000 -1 \_ keyring: _uid.1000
809041303 --alswrv 1000 100 \_ user: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
1033993612 --alswrv 1000 100 \_ user: ?????????????
after adding the passphrase
michael@tyron ~ (@ ✹master)$ keyctl show
Session Keyring
18821945 --alswrv 1000 -1 keyring: _uid_ses.1000
980991344 --alswrv 1000 -1 \_ keyring: _uid.1000
809041303 --alswrv 1000 100 \_ user: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
1033993612 --alswrv 1000 100 \_ user: ???????????????
367799740 --alswrv 1000 100 \_ user: bbbbbbbbbbbbbb
Where aaaaa.. is the key for my home dir and bbbbb... the key for the folder on sdb1 These keys are identical to the keys listed in fstab/mount.
(Phrases are both the same but the key differs, i think because of a salt or something)
The ecryptfs readmy also pointed, that i have to insert
auth required pam_ecryptfs etc.
in pam.d/gdm-password, login and system-auth (like its documented in the arch wiki), what i already did for encrypting my home folder. but i double checked it.
now i'm lost - i thought with these pam modules, the decryption works automaticaly on system logon. it doesnt, but gives me a strange error message until i reenter my passphrase for sdb1 to the ecryptfs-manager
Can you tell me how to manage my problem or where my mistake is?
Tank you for reading this wall of text i really hope for any answers!
Kind regards,
--michael

A couple of questions which I wonder about:
1. What is your fstab line for sdb1?
2. Did you try to let PAM automount it on login via ~/.bash_profile as described in the readme? I am not sure it works, if you login and only mount manually afterwards.
3. Which PAM mount options did you use? The ones from the wiki link directly or which one from this section? 6b?

Really erasing second hard drive

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