Trying to format external drive

Hi,
I am trying to format an external 1TB Maxon hard drive for use with my airport extreme as a wireless Time Machine backup. I plug it into my Mac Pro through usb and run Disk Utility, select the drive, select Erase, select Mac OSX Journal, select Zero Out Data and run it.
Well, after doing this twice now, and after each process taking around 13 hours I keep getting "Disk Utility Lost Connection" Error message. Is the drive bad? Is there a way to do a quicker erase and format?
I checked the forums and this seems to be an issue from back in 10.3?? Also, I just installed an internal 1TB in my Mac Pro and went through the same steps, works great, took about 2-3 hours for the whole process??
Any help would be appreciated.

Follow this procedure:
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. 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 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 volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

Similar Messages

Disk Utility "frozen" trying to format external drive

some help please...
I've got a 120gb external USB/NDAS drive that was previously formatted in NFTS on a Windows XP machine. Using Disk Utility on my new MacBook, I attempted to erase it and reformat it using the "MS-DOS" option in Disk Utility (so I can use it on both OSes). I got the spinning beach ball for several hours, at which point I forced-quit Disk Utility. The drive is now unseen by Windows, and when I plug it into the MacBook, it tells me it can't be mounted, so I choose initialize. When I attempt to either erase or partition the drive for MS-DOS, I get the beachball. I left it overnight to see if it was just taking a while, and no difference.
What next? Should I try formatting it for Mac and then reformatting MS-DOS/FAT32 and see if that works?
Thanks in advance...

I had a similar problem with an older drive, eventually I did get it formatted using my iBook, but it wasn't worth it as the drive failed completely several months later (at the most inconvenient time, of course). If the drive is older than 3 years it might be on its last legs and you would be better off to buy a new drive anyway.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Transfer files from Mac formatted external drive to PC formatted drive

i need to transfer quicktime files (that were captured from video with FCP) to a PC formatted external drive (for editing them in after effects on a PC). the files can be transfered by burning them on a DVD, but that will take a very long time and waste many DVDs because i have 60 GB of material... can this be done (without having to purchase expensive software)?

thanx tom,
first of, i like that you made the link appear as one word. how did you do that? it's really cool!
i downloaded the program, but i'm not sure how to use it... reading the guide just made me more confused... if i understand correctly, it will automatically reformat ALL my files to NTFS-3G ones, which are not as stable... i'm a little scared to install it... though i may have totally misunderstood what it says. i see mostly black when i try to read these kind of things...
anyone out there have experience with this program?

How to access an ex fat formatted external drive on OS 10.6.8

How do I access an ex fat formatted external drive on OS 10.6.8 ? Drive has audio files and was originally formatted and created by a Windows PC.
When the La Cie drive is plugged in to my mac mini, it says can not recognize formatting.

Read this thread
exFAT mounting problem

Bootcamp utility in OSX Lion tries to format my Drive when i only want to download the support software for my existing install...

So i have a bit of a problem...
im using a Mid 2009 13 Inch Macbook Pro in dualboot.
Im running OSX Lion and Windows 8 Consumer Preview in dual boot, no problems...
However i only have bootcamp 3.x software on my Windows install and i want to install 4.x ...
i know that to get the 4.x software i have to use the Bootcamp utility in Lion to download it, here is where the problem is...
i run the utility and check the box next to download support software and uncheck the rest (i dont want to format my install or remove it) and im prompted for a save location, which i set to my desktop (because i can read it from windows). it then informs me that its trying to format my Drive... My System drive!? all i want is the software, nothing else...
is there a way i can download it directly? such as i direct link to the software from the servers?

Read carefully. You have to download the software to a FAT32 formatted USB flash or hard drive.

Error code -36 when copying to Mac formatted external drive

I'm trying to move my iPhoto library to an external drive to save space on my iMac's hard drive. It starts to copy it fine but after a few minutes stops with the error "The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “iPhoto Library” can’t be read or written. (Error code -36)"
The external drive is an iomega minimax and is formatted as "Mac OS extended (journaled)". I'm running Mac OS 10.6.3 and the iPhoto Library is for iPhoto '08 version 7.1.5.
Help! Thanks.

Kids birthday party today - sorry about the delay in replying.
This is an interesting problem, if disk integrity and space are not the problem.
My next step would be to use the command line to copy the library to your external disk. To do this, open Terminal and type:
cp -R ~/Pictures/iPhoto\ Library /volumes/yourextenaldiskname/Pictures/
Note that, if you have any spaces in your external disk name, you will need to put a backslash in front of the spaces.
Let me know how it goes.
Cheers,
Rodney

Disk utility wont format external drive

Hi all
I have a friends 1 TB toshiba external drive, purchased at office works. I am trying to format it for NTFS so he can use it to watch the movies he is copying on any machine, xbox etc..
using disk utility I am erasing the 1tb drive with the NTFS format option, then I am creating the partition with NTFS but after formatting, it is only allowing me to read. I have tried formating the hard drive with Mac OSX journaled and then creating the partition at 1tb with NTFS, but getting the same issue.
I am a little confused as I just did the same thing with my 2TB drive I purchased from Office works as well.
any ideas?
bret

Hi Bret. I am not sure I fully understand the details of your problem - the mention of another drive (the 2TB one) confused me a little. I'll try to help though because it doesn't look like anyone has had a chance to reply to your question yet.
As far as I can see, OS X doesn't write to NTFS formatted drives by default. It appears you can enable it by altering the mount options, e.g. http://learnaholic.me/2013/11/11/enable-ntfs-write-on-mac-os-x-mavericks/
Alternatively, perhaps just formatting it as FAT32 would achieve your aim - although now that I check, it doesn't really look suitable as it has a 4GB file size limit and some of the movies could be over that.
Hope that helps.
Ivan

Formatting External drive for Mac05

I am trying to format a Western Digital external drive for Mac05 Extended (journaled) in order to transfer photos from my I photo program to free up space on my hard drive, as per suggestions received in this support site. I have downloaded information from Western digital, but it is coupled with 'How to partition and format an internal slave drive or an external drive in a Mac OS X." Once I select Disk utility, the drives are not displayed. Anyone have any suggestions how to format the external drive for Mac05 Extended (journaled)??

I am trying to format a Western Digital external drive for Mac05 Extended (journaled) in order to transfer photos from my I photo program to free up space on my hard drive, as per suggestions received in this support site. I have downloaded information from Western digital, but it is coupled with 'How to partition and format an internal slave drive or an external drive in a Mac OS X." Once I select Disk utility, the drives are not displayed. Anyone have any suggestions how to format the external drive for Mac05 Extended (journaled)??

Format External Drive - From Mac for Windows

I have a Maxtor One-touch that I need to back up a bunch of data for a Windows XP user. After some research, I thought that formatting the drive in the MS-DOS (FAT) format would do it, however, after doing so and moving all of the data, I have tried the Harddrive on a PC running Windows XP. The drive doesn't mount.
The external drive is a PC/MAC compatible version. Am I overlooking anything? Is there something I need to do in windows to access the drive.... because it's not obvious.

Hi Christopher,
follow either Templetons advise or (if not possible) use Disk Utility and set the partition scheme (behind the Options button) to MBR (Master Boot Record) and use MS-DOS (= FAT32) as file system.
That should also do the trick.
The 'standard' partition scheme on Intel Macs is GPT (GUID Partition Table) which can sometimes lead to the effect with Windows PC that you observed.
Hope it helps
Stefan

Format External Drive for HFS+ volume and FAT32 volume with Disk Utility

I just bought a Seagate 1tb external drive from OWC and I want to partition it into a HFS+ (journaled I assume) volume and a NTFS volume. Objective: To manually backup critical folders from my wife’s Dell (running XP) to the NTFS volume and critical Mac folders from my PowerBookG4 to the HFS volume.
My plan was to have my Mac (10.4.11) do the partitioning into a 350gb FAT32 volume for Windows and a 650gb HFS+ volume for Mac – then take the external drive to the Dell and have the Dell reformat the 350gb FAT drive to NTFS.
First question – Is this possible overall?
Second question – I haven’t been able to get my Disk Utility on my Mac to do the initial partitioning into one HFS volume and one FAT32 volume the way I want it. Is this step possible?
I’m happy to be more specific about the steps I’ve taken if the basic plan is good. From what I’ve found in some forums so far, I think I’m on the right track but am unable to execute it. Thank you.

Thank you Limnos for all your help. Last night I tried again and it worked! I’ not totally sure on what I did right but:
• Both volumes on the new ext. driver were HFS (from my last attempt the other day) so I looked into a simple erase of one partition/volume into a different format, but DU did not offer a way of erasing it into MS-DOS(FAT32). But I think I did a simple HFS erase anyway of the volume I wanted to format to FAT32. There was nothing “in” that volume because this was a new external drive but I figured it could not hurt anything.
• So then, I think I went back to Partition, locked the partition/volume that I wanted to keep in HFS+ for my Mac files, and (re)partitioned the other just erased volume to MS-DOS. I think I did it under the MBR option.
• It worked! Not sure why but my Mac recognized both volumes one as HFS, the other as FAT32. Maybe someone will find this useful some day!!
• Then, I hooked up the drive to my work Dell, the Dell found only the FAT32 drive (as expected), and I executed a short simple easy command I found on ehow.com (search for ‘convert FAT32 to NTFS’) to make that volume NTFS.
Thanks again Limnos and everyone else!

Format External Drive with Disk Utility, Make it Windows Compatible

I have formatted my external drive using disk utility, and it works great on my Mac. But no Windows PC can read it, and I need to use it on Windows PCs. I tried formatting as MS-DOS FAT but that didn't work either. What can I do?
Thanks so much in advance.

I've run into the problem fairly regularly were I format a drive as FAT32 on the Mac, but Windows won't read it. I just reformat it from the Windows machine as FAT32. My Mac always reads and writes to it just fine, so it has never been a problem, just a minor mystery.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Formatted External drive for Mac OS extended

Hi,
I actually change from windows to Mac (no comparison...!!) but trying to transfer my photos (Pictures in finder) to an external hard disk i can`t drag and drop and i do not know why....i read in one forume that i have to formatted the external drive for Mac OS extended. First question: how could i do that? if my hard disk was originally formatted for windows, do i lose the info when i formatted?
Thanks!!

You will lose the files on the HD when you reformat it. So copy what you want off the drive to a folder on your Mac temporarily.
select the HD on the Desktop and launch Disk Utility.
select the HD in the left hand page of DU.
click on the Partiton button
select 1 Partition
select OS X Extended (journaled) in the drop down Format menu.
click on the Apply button
drag the folder of files onto the EHD to copy back and then delete from your Mac's drive after verifying that they all copied back successfully.
OT

Format External Drive Partitioned OSX extended and FAT32

I am new to the concept of partitioning a drive and have found information mentioning that disk utility has a MS-DOS option for partitioning a drive. I do not have this as a drop down choice in my Disk Utility options. I have read that this is format equivalent to FAT32. I would like to partition this drive half OSX extended and half FAT32. How do I get the drop down choice and is this possible.
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Thank you Limnos for all your help. Last night I tried again and it worked! I’ not totally sure on what I did right but:
• Both volumes on the new ext. driver were HFS (from my last attempt the other day) so I looked into a simple erase of one partition/volume into a different format, but DU did not offer a way of erasing it into MS-DOS(FAT32). But I think I did a simple HFS erase anyway of the volume I wanted to format to FAT32. There was nothing “in” that volume because this was a new external drive but I figured it could not hurt anything.
• So then, I think I went back to Partition, locked the partition/volume that I wanted to keep in HFS+ for my Mac files, and (re)partitioned the other just erased volume to MS-DOS. I think I did it under the MBR option.
• It worked! Not sure why but my Mac recognized both volumes one as HFS, the other as FAT32. Maybe someone will find this useful some day!!
• Then, I hooked up the drive to my work Dell, the Dell found only the FAT32 drive (as expected), and I executed a short simple easy command I found on ehow.com (search for ‘convert FAT32 to NTFS’) to make that volume NTFS.
Thanks again Limnos and everyone else!

Format External Drive Error can't unmount disk LaCie 1TB External Drive

Need Help Can't Format This disk. I have tried Formating with Disk Utility and It says it can't be unmounted.
Help!!

Drive Partition and Format
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
If you are preparing an external or a non-startup drive, then open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After Disk Utility loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
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.

Ca I stop TM from formatting external drive prior to backup?

I bought an external drive to backup my Mac and my Pc. It is formatted as Fat32, acceptable both to Mac and Pc.
When I tried to use Time Machine it asks to format the external drive -- which means it will be formatted for Mac only. Is there a way to force Time Machine to accept Fat32 and proceed with the backup?
If not, is there an easy to check list of files or folders that should be backed up manually?
Thankx. Roxy

You cannot use a FAT32 drive for a Time Machine backup destination. FAT32 doesn't support the required features that let Time Machine store multiple copies of files and directories in the way it does.
You have two basic options.
One is to format the disk as HFS+ (including partitioning the drive to have a separate Mac and a PC partition)
Two is to create a disk image on the FAT drive and use the disk image as your backup destination. As a disk image, the necessary file links work and are hidden from the FAT disk.
At no level, though, will the PC be able to read files directly from the Time Machine backup.

Trying to format external drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for