Reformat external drive

After the electricity in my office went out unexpectedly, my iMac tells me that it cannot save new items to my 3TB eSeagate GoFlex Desk Media external hardrive. I downloaded the important files and now want to re-format the drive so that I can continue using it to make daily/weekly backups with MacKeeper. Computer: 27-inch, Mid 2011 iMac running os x 10.7.5 Lion.
Processor 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5;
Memory 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3;
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6770M 512 MB; and
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 (11G63).
Can anyone advise what settings they recommend for formatting (I believe I can partition the drive with Disk Utility into One partition, which will essentially re-format the drive—so I can start anew.
I forget what the best settings are to use. For example, setting the format to Mac OS Extended with a GUID Partition.
Thanks in advance for the help.

Launch Disk Utility, select the drive, select the Erase tab, make sure that the format selected is Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and click the Erase button.
For more information, search for "erase" in your Mac Help.
Regards.

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Reformat external drive from mac os to windows

the windows partition on my mac book pro is close to full.
i would like to use an external drive formatted for windows for my growing number of pc games (gw,tdu,fsx,dirt - which run great on the mac book pro windows partition btw).
i tried to reformat a mac formatted external drive using disc utility, erase, format volume, but only choices were mac os extended and unix - no fat32, dos, or windows choices.
if i start up my mac book pro using windows, the drive does not show up in the 'hard drives' section of 'my computer'
please let me know how to reformat this mac formatted external drive so i can use it when the mac book pro is running windows.
thanks

Hi Stefan, Turns out my old ext hd was corrupt. Bought a new 300G G-Drive and got a brand new problem which you may have heard of - the dreaded hal.dll crash. My windows partition crashed and after much effort I finally have everything working.
Had to go to the mac store to get a boot camp 1.4 disk (mine was the original) was able to save files from the corrupt windows partition to my mac partition. next i used boot camp to revert to a single partition on my internal drive, saving my mac system and files. next used boot camp to partition the internal drive into big mac and 31G windows. reinstalled windows. next using disk utility i split my 300G external into 10 30G partitions using your GUID suggestion and formatting in ms-dos(fat32) so my mac could read/write to it. dragged the files i saved to the 30G partitions and they work fine. loaded more games into the 30G partitions and they also are working fine.
could not have done it without your pointing out the GUID option.
vielen dank, john

Reformatting external drive to Mac OS Extended but maintaining RAID setup

Hi again,
I am considering taking the leap finance-wise and purchasing [this external drive|http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-WDH2Q20000N-Studio-Interface/dp/B00 16P7H3Q/ref=cmcr_pr_producttop]. It comes pre-formatted to HFS+ or something, so I guess I will need to reformat it to Mac OS Extended to use it with FCE.
So here are the questions:
*1. Would it make more sense to use it in RAID 0 mode for faster speed, or RAID 1 mode to keep a safer backup of my files?*
*2. Would reformatting it to Mac OS Extended for use with FCE still allow it to use normal RAID abilities?*
I realize this is not the right forum for posting this, but I thought someone here might be knowledgable about backup in general and how to best format an external drive for use with FCE, while maintaining the ability to have a "mirrored" RAID setup. Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance,
Sasha
Message was edited by: skalicki`

So just one more question because I'm pretty new to this whole RAID thing:
Say I formatted the drive to RAID 1 so in theory I have 1TB of space that is "mirrored" over to the other external drive.
*When I ingest my footage, will copies be stored to both drives, so if one fails, I will still have my media?*
I gathered this was the idea but didn't know how it works with FCE.

Reformatting external drive to work on windows machine

Hi All
I have a 500GB Maxtor external drive that i have been using on my mac to store my photos, i have now out grown it and wish to hand it to my daughter to use but her windows laptop isnt recognising the drive can i reformat it on my mac to be recognised by windows machines or do i have to get it done elsewhere
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eon

You can format it in your Mac if you want to.
Both PCs and Macs write in FAT32 and exFAT devices, so you have to format the external drive in one of those formats. I recommend you to choose FAT32, although note that you will not be able to use your external drive with files bigger than 4 GB.
First of all, copy the files on the external drive to your iMac's hard drive. Open Finder, choose the external drive in the sidebar and move all your files to a different folder.
Then, use Disk Utility to format the external drive in "MS-DOS (FAT)" > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU2.html Now your daughter can use your external drive. You can copy your files to the external drive again if you want to

Reformatting external drives for qt export

need reformat a fat16 external drive to export qt's from fcp. got up to disc utility but for volume format do i want mac os extended or mac os extended (journaled). checked an iomega drive that i use with fcp and it's formated mac os extended (journaled). also what's the difference? thanks.

Journaling a drive creates a log of all changes made to the drive, which slightly increases the chance of recovering data from the drive while slightly decreasing performance and capacity. A drive which isn't journaled can be changed to a journaled drive without erasing it.
(45582)

External drive icon not appearing on desktop

Hi - I have also posted this in the Time Machine forum as this is where my problem started. New iMac yesterday - replacement for faulty iMac which I had backed up using Time Machine. Reinstall from Time Machine effortless - no problem. Downloaded available software updates and 10.5.7 onto new iMac. No problem until I go to do another backup. Time Machine does not recognise external drive and I get "volume could not be found" message. At this point in time the external drive icon is showing on the desktop. Give up and go to bed thinking I will reformat external drive in the morning and start again
This morning, I boot up the machine but the external drive icon has disappeared from the desktop. Unplug external HD from usb and plug in again. No icon on desktop although it shows in Finder and Time Machine.
Anyway - I turned Time Machine off and then pointed it at the Ext. HD - went to back up now and magic - did complete backup and has done a second subsequently. Seems to have created a second backup folder separate from the one created by previous machine from which I reinstalled. Still no desktop icon! Switch iMac off and on again - still no desktop icon. So why - the Ext. drive is recognised and works so why isn't an icon for it appearing on the desktop?
Please help - I need answers to these weird happenings
Thanks
Ann
.

Problem solved and it was so simple - just had to go to Finder, Preferences, General and tick the box that says external devices. Desktop icon has returned:-) Don't know why it became unticked but everything now is working absolutely fine (as far as I know lol) Hope this is the start of a good relationship between me and my new Mac!
Ann

Re Time Machine I have an external hard drive with files I backed up manually over the past 2 years 1TB of memory. I am finally taking the leap to use Time machine to back everything. will I have to reformat that drive, thus wiping my previous bac

Re Time Machine
I have an external hard drive with files I backed up manually over the past 2 years 1TB of memory.
I am finally taking the leap to use Time machine to back everything.
will I have to reformat that drive, thus wiping my previous back ups?
can I split it the drive in two partitions?
Also
as I have two separate Macbook Pro's- one older than the other.
OSX 10.68
the other is
OSX 10.75
can I back them up separately?
or even synch and merge files and folders etc? between the two?

You CAN use a drive with files already on it to store Time Machine backups. But long term, that is not recommended. You do not need to reformat or re-partition the drive to do this. Once Time Machine Backups are established, you could remove the old files.
But do not delete Time Machines files with the Finder -- that can cause it to lose its place and lose everything.
With the cost of backup drives under US$100, it might be a better idea in the long run to get another drive. Best results from Time Machine is a drive about 3 times larger than the drive(s) you are backing up.

How to reformat an external drive?

I have a 1 TB Lacie external drive. it was originally formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted). It also might have been formatted as a bootable drive, but I am not certain. Today I mounted the drive, entered the decrypt key and want to re-format the drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I am using Disk Utility to do this. When I click on Erase within Disk Utility, I get this error:
I am using Mac OS X Mavericks. Anyone know how to fix this so that I can re-format the drive?

Still struggling to solve this. I tried booting from another external drive as suggested, but once booted I still could not reformat the Lacie drive. Same error.
I also tried the following Terminal command: diskutil erasevolume HFS+ UntitledHFS /Volumes/Lacie But I get this error in Terminal:
Who would have thought that simply re-formatting an external drive could be so hard? Any other ideas?

External drives will not reformat to Mac OS Extended

I just moved several external drives from a PC to a Mac permanently and want to reformat them to Mac OS Extended. However, when I attempt to do it, I receive an error message saying that the formatting was unsuccessful after the disk is already erased. I am able to reformat them to DOS on the mac and the drives do work for some functions, but I need them formatted to Mac OS Extended in order to back them up with Time Machine.
The drives are fairly new; one is a Western Digital "My Book" 1TB only a few months old; the other two are LaCie "Big" 650 GB drives about two years old. They work fine, except for this one problem.
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

You need to do the following:
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. 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 (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC 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.

How do I reformat my external drive for Time Machine?

I think I might have messed up My Passport (external hard drive) when I disconnected my iMac to take it to the Apple Store to have the screen repaired (was replaced). I turned Time Machine off before I disconnected the external hard drive but didn't eject it. I reconnected everything Monday morning and it was backing up fine until this afternoon but suddenly stopped and gave me warning messages about it not being able to back up. The message directed me to Repair Disk which I tried but that didn't work. and I was "told" to reformat the drive. But when I reconnect it to my mac, the mac doesn't recognize that its there. I don't know if its worth trying to fix, or if I should just get a new one. (I have an on line back up service so all my data is safe and backed up elsewhere). I've only had the drive for maybe 6 mts, or a little longer and I know it was far from full. I have Time Machine turned off now and the drive disconnected . Is it worth repairing. If there is something wrong with it a new one might make more sense. I hope I have explained this okay. Thanks for any suggestions. It is a Western Digital external drive.
laverne's mom

WD drives are not all that reliable according to some reports going around.
And BUS powered drives are not good choices for backups if it's drawing too much current, Apple can cut if off in a update, use self powered drives instead.
You can use the drive, but as a transport drive, not as a vital backup.
TM drive isn't quite as good as a backup as it could be, and online storage is slow to upload and can be compromised or lost (it's happened before) so you should diversify more with clones and storage drives in addition to TM drives.
Read my backup, bootable clones, troubleshooting, performance, wifi security and restore info/advice here
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16276201#16276201

Inherit Time Machine History on Reformatted External Hard Drive?

A few days ago the external hard drive I use to store all my data got corrupted. This external drive is also the location of my home folder (I moved it off the primary disk to have more space). The main OS system disk is fine and I was able to login to the guest account, but couldn't log in to my primary account since the drive wasn't working properly.
From the guest account I ran disk utility on the external drive and it was unable to fix it and it required reformatting. I reformatted the drive and restored the data to it from the my Time Machine backup. I then was able to log back in to my primary account. As far as I can tell all my files are there. However now when I open Time Machine there is no history.
Based on other info I've found on these forums and others, by reformatting the drive (even with the same name), Time Machine treats this as a new drive and wants to start a new Time Machine history for it. I've learned about the inherit history commands that I can run but before I do that I had a couple questions:
1. If the history is still available, should I be able to see that when I manually browse the contents of the Time Machine drive? There is a folder with a "full sized" backup but I don't see any subfolders with incremental backups.
2. If the command fails to link history, is there an alternative to get it back - or should I just format the Time Machine drive and start a new full backup. It seems like everything restored ok, but I'm nervous about reformatting the backup.
3. Might there be a better configuration for my home folder storage for day to day use and backup purposes? With this issue, it was unsettling being effectively locked out of the machine since the home folder is on the external drive. Also it seemed doing a "system" restore could only restore the system drive and not the "complete system" including the external drive. It would be nice if I could just restore everything from Time Machine in one shot without having to shuffle things around, reformat manually etc.
I'm running Mavericks on a Mac Mini if that helps. My external drive is 2TB with about 1.25TB of data currently and my Time Machine disk is 1.5TB. System disk is 1TB.
Thanks!

Your best option is to start another backup on a new hard drive. You should do that anyway, as one backup is not enough to be safe. Put the old drive aside until you're sure you'll no longer need the data on it, then erase it and start over.

Reformatting an external drive for sharing over airport

I have an external hard drive that I would like to share across my network plugged into an airport extreme router. I will be using both MAC and Windows computers. Do I have to reformat the drive before using it and if so do I use Mac or Windows for reformatting.
Thanks

You can use either Mac OS Exended (Journaled).....recommended....or FAT16 or FAT 32 to format the hard drive prior to connecting it to the AirPort Extreme.
See this Apple support document for details:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2426
Keep in mind that the USB port on the AirPort Extreme is under powered, so it may be necessary to use a powered USB hub with the hard drive.....even if he hard drive has its own power supply.

Reformatting an External Drive to make it Bootable in OSX

I want to buy a 1TB Desk External Hard Drive to store all of my images and video etc. I could buy a LaCie formatted for the mac but they are 1/3 more in price so I 'd prefer to buy any drive and reformat it.
So I phoned the store an they said all drives they sell are PC and they need to be "Reformated" for the mac to make them bootable.
He said I can buy "Any" External HD and reformat it so it can be "Bootable" from the Mac.
So my Questions are:
1) Is this true? Can buy any 1 TB External Drive and reformat it so it can be "Bootable" by the mac OS?
2) How would I reformat the drive for OSX? Is this something Super Duper can do?
I appreciate any help you may be able to give me.
pg

1. Yes.
2. See the following:
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 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. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC 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.
You cannot do this with SuperDuper! which is just a backup utility. Of course after prepping the drive you need to put a bootable copy of OS X on it either by installing it from an OS X installer DVD or cloning an existing system. See the following:
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Check the box to Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive.
Source means the internal startup drive.

My external drive won't mount. Disk Utility says it can't repair disk and to backup the disk and reformat, but how can I do that if it won't mount?

My external drive won't mount. Disk Utility says it can't repair disk and to backup the disk and reformat, but how can I do that if it won't mount?

See mount section in 1st linked article.
Disk Unmount Using Terminal
Disk Utility – Force Mount Disk

I want to erase and "reformat" a 1TB external drive?

I want to erase and "reformat" a 1TB external drive to use it to back up my iphoto and itunes library. I don't want to use time machine. I have gone to utilities, disc utilities, erase. Then do I chose Mac OS Extended ( Journaled) or Mac OS Extended or any of the other choices?

You are on the right track. Choosing OSX extended is the best option if you only intend to use the Ext HD with your Mac. If you want to use it to share files with a Windoze PC then you should choose FAT32, but if you do you will have difficulties transferring larger files (over 3-4GB). Also, it is best not to partition the drive. It is unnecessary.

Reformat external drive

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