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.

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Just got iPhone 4 but doesn't have a mic for speech to text. downloaded dragon dictation but too many steps to make it work for texting. how can I get easy speech to text

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To get speech to text you need an iPhone that supports Siri. The iPhone 4S and the iPhone 5 both support Siri

Can I store the apps in my iTunes library on an external hdd but keep my music on my mac

can I store the apps in my iTunes library on an external hdd but keep my music on my mac?
thanks

I don't know if this is me adding files to iTunes when the external wasn't connected
it is.
is it OK to just keep deleting that library on the Air?
i wouldn't - at least not until i
mount the external
point iTunes media folder location back to the external via preferences > advanced
consolidate my library via file > library > organize library
The ntfs hasn't seem to be causing any problems, but I've always wanted to know.
in order for your Mac to write to NTFS drives, it needs some help by installing e.g. the NTFS 3G driver. apparently that or something similar is installed on your Mac already. preferably, it would be formatted for Mac but then windows machines would need to have e.g. MacDrive installed to recognize the drive.

HT203909 Why can't you provide specific instructions here about how to make the USB drive bootable? The article referenced is not dedicated to Bootcamp--too long, too many options. How do you make it bootable?

Why can't you provide specific instructions here in HT203909 (Boot Camp: Creating an ISO image from a Windows installation DVD) about how to make the USB drive bootable? The article referenced for partitioning the drive is not dedicated to Bootcamp--too long, too many options. How do you make it bootable?

If your BC Assistant shows the option to create a USB Installer, it automatically is marked as bootable. There is no need to have manual intervention to make a bootable USB. Once the process is manually modified, it is supported by the person modifying it.
You have two or three options (depending on your Mac Model).
1. Create USB... - Use a USB2 flash drive, which is erased and formatted. If your Mac supports ISOs then BCA will prompt for the Media. Any Mac which does not have a built-in Optical drive will support an ISO. There are specific Mac models which support both, DVD and USB based installation.
2. Download Software from Apple servers...
3. Install Windows...
Are any additional instructions really necessary?

I am new with iMac and I am trying to copy some file from my external HDD but it does not let me also I can't delete anything from this HDD using the finder. Can somebody help me , please?

I am new with iMac and I am trying to copy some file from my external HDD that a used with my PC but it does not let me also I can't delete anything from this HDD using the finder. Can somebody help me , please?

No, unfortunately, when you format a drive, it will erase all the contents. So you will need to find a temporary "storage" place to put the stuff using a PC so you have access to it. Then reformat using Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities). If only using with mac, format Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and use GUID Partition scheme under Partitions/Options. After formatting, you can drag the files back.

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.

Trying to mount external HDD, problems arise

Been trying to mount my external HD but it's not playing ball. Firstly, I can't work out what my setup is naming it in /dev, partly because I'm getting inconsistent readings of available space on my internal HD.
If I run
df
when the external HD isn't plugged in, I get the following output:
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs 7662396 2662828 4615216 37% /
/dev 1024816 0 1024816 0% /dev
run 1027740 204 1027536 1% /run
/dev/sda3 7662396 2662828 4615216 37% /
shm 1027740 0 1027740 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 1027740 8 1027732 1% /tmp
/dev/sda1 99590 17903 76468 19% /boot
/dev/sda4 152576072 2634200 142302968 2% /home
I figured that if I plug it in and run the command again, something new should pop up and I can thus figure out what's where. However, the above reading doesn't even make sense.
Firstly, there's sda1, 2 & 3. I only have two partitions on my hard drive (one for /, one for /home). I also have a swap. Yet reading the available spaces, there's four different places (going on size); 1027740, 99590, 152576072 & 7662396.
My internal hard drive is only about 160 gig.
If I open thunar and view the properties for /, I get the following:
Size: 106764 items, totalling 128.0 TB
Free Space: 4.4 GB
From memory, the partition allocation for / was 10 gig, so the free space reading is presumably correct, but the 128 TB reading is bizarre. My external hard drive is 1TB, so it can't be that it's adding together / & the ex. HDD to get that estimate (if it is, it's worse at maths than I am); plus it gives the same estimate regardless of whether or not the ex. HDD is attached to my PC.
If I run:
lsusb
with my external HDD attached, it registers just fine (OK, it gets the size wrong, but it's better than nothing)
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 1058:1021 Western Digital Technologies, Inc. Elements 2TB
Anyone got any ideas about what's going wrong and how I can amend things?
(this is the first time I've had a Arch setup -previously ran Crunchbang- so I acknowledge that I may just have missed something I should have installed/configured)
Insights much appreciated :-)

Throne777 wrote:
debdj wrote:
Ohhh, pmount worked a treat ^ ^
Any way to get it mount it automatically when I log in?
mm..I guess you can put it in your ~/.xinitrc file
but put the line before the DE/WM invocation line.
so, if you use say, use lxde and have a line like
exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch startlxde
in your .xinitrc,
put the 'pmount device' line before that.
Edit. if u want to put it in ~/.bashrc, you'll have to start a bash terminal at least once after you log in to get it mounted.
Hmm, pmount isn't working as well as I thought.
It won't let me transfer files from my hard drive to the external; says it isn't permitted. If I open thunar as root and try to change the groups read/write permissions it says the operation isn't supported (though I myself have read/write access apparently :s).
Edit: Typo
pmount is just a wrapper, it calls the standard mount program to actually do the work, without the need to have an entry in fstab. Let's first make sure that you can mount and use the drive with the standard old-fashioned mount. When we get that to work, switching should be just a matter of using correct pmount options or doing some minor tweaks.
From what you linked, I assume you are using ext filesystem, which should make things a lot easier. If you're using something else, you need to let us know.
First things first, lets start from the beginning. Umount the drive and set permissions on the empty directory you're mounting it into back to root (or just remove it and recreate it as root). This is not essential, just doing that so we know the current state of things.
Second, mount the drive with simple mount /dev/sdx /mnt/mountpoint Obviously you need to change the device and mountpoint to whatever's appropriate. This *should* work. Logged in as root, try to create a directory inside, and for example copy something into this new directory, to make 100% sure that the drive is correctly mounted. If you get past this point and everything works, then this all is most likely just a case of botched permissions. You can't write into it as a user yet, but we now know that it can be correctly mounted.
Third, find out your user uid, and your primary group gid. Simply type 'id' into terminal logged in as regular user you want to mount the drive with, if it's the only user you created shortly after system installation, then most likely your uid will be 1000 and gid of users group will be 100. Now umount the drive, and re-mount it with running as root mount -o uid=1000,gid=100 /dev/sdx /mnt/mountpoint Again, change everything as appropriate. You now should be able to write new files and directories onto your drive as your normal user. You still may not be able to edit files already stored in if permissions were set wrong, but that can be changed, as we discussed before.
If this all works, then you can use your drive without any problems, and one line in your fstab will mean that you can mount the drive as user without even needing pmount. Please verify everything works first, if it does we can help you with that as well if you need it. And sorry if I'm being too thorough, just trying to avoid any mistakes
edit: to avoid any confusion, this is more or less a test. When mounting ext partitions you shouldn't have to set things like uid, gid or umask. Those options are primarily meant for filesystems which don't use this kind of permission setting, like vfat or ntfs. But it should move us a little bit further.
Last edited by meph (2012-03-31 16:45:25)

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!

Got message trying to log in to email 'too many l...

Hi BT,
This morning when first logging into BT Mail I got a failure message to the effect that there had been too many login failures on my account try again in 10 minutes.
Since this was on my FIRST login in attempt it could not have been me that caused the login failures.
Questions for BT:-
1. Is someone trying to hack my email account?
2. How many times does it have to fail before causing this message?
3. Are you able to detect (IP Address?) where these failures are coming from?
4. If you are able to detect there are too many login fails how about displaying the number of login fails?
Looking fwd to your reply.

radclifm wrote:
re: Did you receive any replies?
Yes, in the form of delivery failure messages. So I could see that the real email address used (it was mine) and I could see what the spam message was (it contained a link to a dodgy website). Not being an email spoofer I can only go by what I have read and it would appear that when an email address is spoofed it will be returned by the delivery failure system to the spoofed address because no authorisation checks are done on spoofed address. That is the point of spoofing a genuine address.
re: ... email would return to you so there would be no gain for the spammer
The messages sent out contained a web page link, so the spammers (and there have been several) would not be trying to get replies from the email, more trying to get the recipients to look at some dodgy web site. Fair enough.
re: The volume of emails sent by spammers is I suspect more than the 49 permitted group email limit set by BTMail on your account so this would be rather limiting for any spammer.
I've seen the failed deliveries come back in batches, which would fit the group email limit, and mean they were trying to circumvent the group mail limit.
As an aside, it's worth setting up a non-existent email address in Contacts to see if anyone is doing this, then you'd see the failed delivery come back. I have already done that. It is the only email address I have in my contacts. I don't keep contacts or emails on the servers. I would rather be responsible for my own emails and contacts security.
re: deleting the emails to cover their tracks - I've found that with BT Mail webmail if you delete from Sent box they don't appear in Trash, so you wouldn't see the spam mails there either. I have found that in BTMail if you do delete from sent box they do get put in the trash so your spammers are very tidy not only deleting it from the sent folder but also the Trash folder.
I am not trying to convince you one way or the other, you have your views that your email account is/has been logged onto and emails sent from it and I have my view that it was only your email account address that was spoofed. I think we will just have respect each others views and agree to differ.
The bottom line is you do what you feel is best for your security and piece of mind when using your email account.

Can you configure Time Machine to backup external HDD's too

I have my "stuff" on 3 separate external HDDS - 1 for photos (50GB), 1 for Music (140GB) and 1 for VIDEO (350GB).
I want to buy a 2TB drive as a backup drive and have time machine manange this so that the MAC and the 3 external drives are all backed up to this 2TB drive.
Is this possible with TIMEMACHINE and secondly, even if it is, is there a better 3rd party application for managing this?
Thanks for any help

TM does back up directly attached external drives that are formatted as Mac OS Extended, but you must specifically include them. I think they are excluded by default in the Options… area of TM Prefs.
You can always find something better depending on how you frame the criteria. You should always have more than one backup of the items you describe, with at least one off-site. As drive prices have dropped significantly, this is more a reality for the home users as compared to corporate endeavors.
There are several programs that work well for that. Carbon Copy Cloner, SuperDuper both have the benefit of being able to make an bootable clone of your startup drive--nice feature if your boot drive fails. They are also starting to make Fire Safes with a USB drive inside for backup. I believe Retrospect Backup is still around, also.
I've heard of people who swap drives for TM so that they get two backup sets, but I haven't tried that. Mostly, I back up the pictures to iPhoto Libraries on DVD.
Cloud backup services are starting to gain steam. Carbonite, Mozy, DropBox… These all scare me as I don't have physical control of the media--but that might be a good thing.

Time Capsule Crashing When Trying to Access External HDD

Hi, I have a MBP and an iMac backing up successfully to a 1TB Time Capsule. I recently bought a 1 TB WD My Book external HDD which I attached to the USB port of the Time Capsule to archive all my digital media so that the TC could be used exclusively for backups.
The external HDD showed up under Airport Utility as well as as a partition under Time Capsule in the finder. The problem is whenever I tried to access the HDD it would freeze and crash the Time capsule which needed to be rebooted and restarted to work again. The funny thing is that on occasion I actually got the disk to work and I copied a few files across but within like a couple of minutes the Time Capsule hung and I got messaged that the file server in the Time Capsule and the External HDD was disconnected. Reconnection was only possible by powering off and restarting.
Any suggestions? Much appreciated.

I have the same problem.
My Setup:
Time Capsule 500 GB
15" MBP 1.83 GHz
WD 250 GB USB Drive (Powered)
I run Time Machine backups to TC. This works without any problems and very quick I might add.
My problem is when I try to copy files to and from the External USB Drive to my MBP. The files will start to copy, then I lose the connection to the USB drive and the TC (no Internet connection as well).
To get the TC to work again, I need to power it down and power it back up.
Any help would be appreciated.

Trying to restore external HDD

I was doing regular backups of an external drive to my time capsule, and recently the drive crashed which required me to reformat it. I gave it the same name and thought I could restore it via Time Machine but when I select this drive under Time Machine I see no windows from past backups. Time Machine does not recognize that it is the same drive that I had backed up before. How can I restore this valuable information to my newly reformatted external hard drive?

If you copied the right folders from your Library / Mail folder, then I'd suggest you first set up Mail on your new MBA (if necessary look at screenshots of old account settings if you need to enter anything). Then quit Mail. Open the User/Library/Mail folder and see which new folders (empty) were created during setup. Open your copied old folders. If you have an inbox folder in both locations, delete the new one and replace it with the old one, etc, etc. If you have added your own folders (old), place the entire folder hierarchy into the new Mail folder. When done, open Mail - it should work.
Message was edited by: Barbara Daniels1

HT1750 bought a used iMac with bad HDD and I have a external HDD but it wont let me reinstall the os until it is registered to me

I bought a iMac with a bad hdd but I have a external hdd. I wanted to reinstall the OS on the external but it would not let me because I am not the registered user. What can I do as I do not have the original user info?

You can go to the Mac App Store from another Mac and purchase Mountain Lion while logged in with your Apple ID. It's $19.99 US. After that you can just sign in at the re-install screen with your AppleID and password and it will verify that you did purchase it.

I have followed Apple support Article HT4527 for moving itunes but have insufficient space on my new PC for the complete library of. How can I leave music on the external HDD but associate the content on my external HDD with my pc itunes when it is open?

I have followed the Apple Support Section Article HT 4527 and have moved itunes media onto an external Hard Drive. The complete file is 103GB in size.
I have downloaded the latest itunes onto my new PC.
When I follow the article and try moving the itunes file onto the new PC, I am informed that there is insufficient space on my new PC.
In any case, like my old system, I want to leave my music on the external HDD and just have the music library displayed in itunes when I click on the "Music" folder.
How can I get itunes on the new computer to interogate my external HDD to just list the library and leave the music on the external HDD?

you can do this by keeping the external hard drive connected and doing the following
-hold shift key down on computer while opening iTunes and a prompt will appear to choose a library
-select choose library, iTunes should bring up your explorer windows where you can search for the external HD
-after you find the external HD find the iTunes folder you just copied to it
-after opening the iTunes folder look for the file that says iTunes library.itl or if you can't see that extenstion just look for a document looking thing in the iTunes folder that shows up as a database file
-double click the database file and boom iTunes should load your library without having to copy it to the computer
PS: do make sure that if you are going to do it this way, make sure that the external HD is connected at all times, because if you don't then you will get exclamation marks next to your iTunes songs
double PS: if you are unsure how to find out if the iTunes library file is a database file just right click it and choose properties and under the type it should say database file
hope this helps:)

HDD dead no back up or disc drive, have external HDD but can't back up?

Hello,
Computer in question is mac book pro late 2008.
So I've been looking since 10 this morning to sort this out and i just can't seem to find a way round this??
I have had the disk utility on trying new image and can't get that to work. Ive been running easeUS data recovery wizard but i think it will only let me move 2GB over before i have to pay. I feel as if there is a free way out there to get this done I've just not found it yet.
Im running yosemite from my HDD now as i can't get my other one to work. I have use to another mac book pro but its not mine.
Many Thanks!

If the HDD in question is inoperative but data recovery software will allow you to salvage some/all of the data, you Will have to pay if you want that data. I know of no free software for data recovery. Backups eliminate that problem.
Have you tried Target disk mode?
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT1661
This will not help if the HDD data cannot be accessed.
Ciao.

Trying to Reformat External HDD, but too many options!

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