Unable to partition/ erase/ format 1Tb 6Gb Hitachi internal HD

Hi All
I was a Wndows user and recently given a mid 2010 MBP 13 inch. After about 2 months the original Hitachi 320Gb HD failed. Bought a 1Tb Hitachi 32Mb Sata II HD replacement. Booted up from my recovery Mountain Lion USB stick. I tried using Disk Utility to erase and partition the new HD but kept having Partition failed with the error: Wiping volume data to prevent future accidental probing failed. Disk Utility sees the HD but is not able to format it. Any ideas?

Does the hub have it's own power supply?
Test with & without the hub.
You have tried different USB ports?
You have disconnected other inessential USB devices?
Is it a custom cable? Can you try another?
I'd also try recovery mode (cmd+r at boot, select Disk Utility) to see if that works any better - that could indicate the OS is at fault.

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Cannot partition, erase, format or restore (OS X Lion, MBP 2009)

Hi!
I have a 2009 MacBook Pro 13" (2.53 / 4GB / 250GB / Lion) that stalled on the grey screen + spinning wheel a few months ago. I was able to recover my data and load it onto a new MBP, so I set the old one aside. I am now trying to repair the problem and cannot get past DiscUtility.
Starting with a Cmd+R start:
"Use English for the main language" [press Enter]
Mac OS X Utilites
[Double-click Disc Utility]
I no longer have "Macintosh HD," but instead a volume called "disc0s2."
From the First Aid tab, I can click Repair Disc. It states: Verifying and repairing partition map for "ST9250315ASG Media" and the time bar begins to run across, while the details box does 5 checks (prereq's, partition list, EFI system), and begins "Repairing the EFI system partition's file system" This runs for a seemingly endless amount of time, until the mouse changes from arrow to spinning color wheel. At this point, clicking nothing works, but the mouse still moves. I manually restarted after 25 minutes. I can let this go all night, but I would like to continue trying alternatives.
For Volume, the error reads:
     Volume Erase Failed
     Volume Erase failed with the error:
     File system formatter failed.
For partition, I have:
     Partition Layout: Current
     Partition Information:
          Name: disc0s2
          Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
          Size: 249.2 GB
From here, when I try to set up one partition, renamed "Macintosh HD" still journaled for the total capacity (250.06GB), I get:
     Partition Failed
     Partition failed with the error:
     Couldn't unmount disc.
And then....
Starting with a Cmd+R start:
"Use English for the main language" [press Enter]
Opened Terminal to verify "date" is correct, which it is. Close Terminal.
[Double-click on Install Mac OS X Lion]
[Click Agree]
The only option I have to install it on is "Recovery HD." It has 650MB total, with 140.3MB available. Also states, "This disc is locked."
I cannot click on the disc anyways, and the only available option is 'Back.' Ultimately, I have to exit Install, and I'm back to the Mac OS X Utilities.
So, could it be a bad drive? It would seem impossible to me considering that any of this is working at all. I have also tried to boot from a OS X Mavericks USB drive (from my newer MBP), but with the same results; except that the Install OS X is for Mavericks. Everything else is exactly the same.
I don't need any of the data on the computer (if there is any left anyways), and I'll try just about anything.
Thank you in advance for your time!

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm afraid that might be true. Can the computer operate like this with a bad HD?
Also:
For partition tab, I have:
     Partition Layout: Current
     Partition Information:
          Name: disc0s2
          Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
          Size: 249.2 GB
From here, when I try to set up one partition, renamed "Macintosh HD" still journaled for the total capacity (250.06GB), I get:
     Partition Failed
     Partition failed with the error:
     Couldn't unmount disc.

I am unable to pick a partition to format.

Partition drive with a 49 Gb partition with boot camp, insert windows xp pro disk and error message "No disk found....Free space 131072GB".
I am unable to pick a partition to format.
ALL info I have found relates to Windows 7 or vista but NOT XP.
ANY help would be GREAT !!.
Thanks

Thanks for your replies.
I have had to reformat the Apple disk to remove the XP as it does not have service pack 2 on it.
Installed Windows Vista and that removed ALL the Apple stuff
Now zero out the drive and reinstalled Apple os
Now using my wife's laptop...must get mine fixed. Would rather have a MacBook but just too much !!
Think the fan stopped which cooked the chip...opppps !!
Thanks again for your help

SDXC card unable to Erase/format.

Hi there,
new SANDISK 32GB SDXC card from authorized seller will not progress past the initial stage of the Erase process i.e after I hit Erase in the Disk Utility the log shows the SD card has been partitioned but 'waiting for the disks to re-appear'.
So it stalls at this point and never formats into MacOS Extended (Journaled).
It also only shows up as 32 MB on the Apple SDXC reader instead of 32 GB.
It is a brand new card, never formatted or used before. Am I missing something or is the card at fault?
Card inserted into both my MacBook Pro (2012) and new iMac both running 10.8.5.
Any ideas?

Hi Tasmanflyer,
If you are having issues with your SDXC card, you may find the following article helpful, in particular this portion:
Can I reformat an SD card with Disk Utility?
Yes. Using Disk Utility, you can partition and format an SD device as FAT32 (using the MS-DOS FAT setting) or Mac OS Extended. The Mac OS Extended format can only be used on Macintosh systems. Cards formatted to Mac OS Extended will not be recognized by non-Apple systems. Formatting cards larger than 32GB for use with digital cameras, GPS, and other devices may require formatting them with the exFAT file system. When in doubt, format the cards in the device you intend to use with the card.
Apple Support: About the SD and SDXC card slot
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3553
Regards,
- Brenden

SSD always disappearing and unable to partition/format

Hello,
i recently bought a Samsung 840 EVO 500GB for my 27" iMac 2011. It worked great at first, installed OS X, then used Bootcamp for installing Windows 7. But when i used the Windows installation to format the BOOTCAMP partition, the SSD suddenly disappeared. Booting OS X didn`t work either after that.
I`m quite desperate right now, i`m unable to partition/format/analyse or repair the SSD. When i boot up my iMac the SSD is listed in disk utility. But as soon as i try anything, the tool freezes for about 30sec and answers with an error. Then the drive disappeares and won`t show up again until i reboot my iMac. I have tried using different computers (Mac, Windows, Linux) and several tools, but i get the same behaviour over and over again.
Right now i`m suspecting a defective drive, but i`m still hoping for a quick fix. Anyone experienced something like that?

Yes of course
Read and Write speed are about 500-520 MB/s. Both on OS X and Windows. Btw. my iMac has the 250GB version and my PC got the 500GB version installed (for games). TRIM is enabled.
It`s quite a fast drive. At work, i`m using a MacBook Pro Retina, and the speed of that flash drive tops at about 350 MB/s.

Few questions about partitioning and formatting in Windows 8

Hello,
I'm very shortly after a Windows 8 reinstall and I want to make use of this moment to finally understand partitioning and formatting in Windows 8.
Before using Windows 8, I was an XP user for 5 years and I actually never bothered myself with formatting my main system partition, that's probably why my computer ended up working like a slime for the last years. Anyway, by now I have been using Windows 8 for a year.
Three weeks ago I faced a system-related problem with my laptop (IdeaPad Y580) which prevented it from peacefully shutting down. A good friend of mine (XP user for his entire life, and now Windows 7 newbie user) told me, that I should keep all my non-system stuff on separate partition and that I should do the main system partition format from time to time to keep my PC out of trouble. It is sure that he took his knowledge from using XP, and here's my first question - does this method apply to Windows 8?
I mean as far as I know, back then, in XP, partitioning was possible only during Windows installation, and now, in Windows 8 we have a Disk Management for this, which do not require running Windows installation to create new partitions.
I'm mentioning this due to the fact that originally (I mean by factory settings) my drive has only one visible partition - C: (1TB), so I would need to use the Disk Management to take some space from C: partition and allocate it to the new D: partition.
In case I do this whole partitioning operation and create a D: partition, is it sure that formatting my system-only C: partition won't have effects on my D: partition, and all the programms and data I have here will stay on their places and work after format? (I'm worried about this because I've seen in some partitioning guide a warning not to format the main partition after the partitioning operation, because it would erase totally all data - I'm not sure if I misunderstood something or is it a mistake? EDIT: here's the link for this guide, just jump to the "Final Thoughts" section to see what I'm taking about: http://www.technorms.com/8438/windows-8-create-hard-drive-partition ).
If this whole method of keeping your system running fine doesn't apply to Windows 8, I guess I'm okay with having only one C: partition.
By the way, it doesn't matter for me if I create new partition in terms of conflicts with preinstalled Lenovo OneKey Recovery, since I had to reinstall my Windows 8 recently from non-Lenovo CD, and either way my laptop is now totally clean, without Lenovo stuff (I found Lenovo Recovery CD for Y580 on the internet, but it had non-single-language Windows 8 in it, and I needed a single-laguage one in order to have my Product Key recognised, so I just used a pure Windows 8 SL installer)

I just found out that I can't even transfer my Users folder or Program Data to other drive than the one with the system, because it would prevent me from updating my system or even from actually booting to my system. So apparently my whole topic is for nothing... I guess I should live with only one drive, and whenever my system totally crashes again I should do the backups to my external HDD. It's sad though that Windows 8 is a total opposite to user-friendly OS, to say the least.

Thunderbolt partitioned and formatted hard drive not recognized on USB2/3

I have a MBA (mid 2012) and recently purchased a Seagate Desktop Thunderbolt Adapter (STAE129), a Seagate Backup Plus 4TB USB 3.0 external drive (STCA4000100), and Apple Thunderbolt cable. The 4TB hard drive can be separated from the USB 3.0 adapter and the drive placed on the Thunderbolt adapter. I created two partitions (3TB and 1 TB) on the 4TB drive while it was mounted on the Thunderbolt adapter and formatted them Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using partition map scheme GPT. Everything works as expected, the drive hits r/w speeds in the 180 MB/s range (using Blackmagic Disk Speed Test), and no issues at all transferring data to the 3TB partition and using the 1TB partition for TimeMachine.
However, if I disconnect the hard drive from the Thunderbolt adapter and place it on the USB 3.0 adapter and connect it to my MBA, Mountain Lion says "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer and gives me the options to Initialize, Ignore, or Eject. Going into Disk Utility app, the drive shows up without the partitions I created when the same drive was mounted to the Thunderbolt adapter (just shows disk1s1). In fact, the drive label (Disk Description) is different too and the Partition Map Scheme now shows MBR!
To try work-arounds, I went ahead and repeated the partitioning and formatting steps with the drive attached via USB 3.0 and all works fine until I put the drive back on the Thunderbolt adapter where once again OSX reports that the disk is not readable. I've even tried a single partition with no luck. In short, the drive partitioned and formatted on Thunderbolt is unrecognized under USB and vice versa.
Shouldn't the disk preparation and data be consistent across these different interfaces? I would think so. My biggest concern is that if I had a failure in the Thunderbolt setup (assuming the drive itself does not fail), then I can't access my data. This is not a very comfortable situation.
I'm assuming I've overlooked a very basic detail. Appreciate any steer to solve this problem.
Thanks,
Rob

Thanks for that, I recently ran into the same problem. I even chatted with Seagate tech support and they didn't know the answer.
My situation is a bit different from you. I bought the 3 TB Thunderbolt version of the drive directly and then purchased a USB 3 adaptor seperately. You see, I still own a 3 year old Macbook Pro that doesn't come with a Thunderbolt port. I was looking to upgade to a MacBook Air later. I thought that I might as well buy the TB version now.
In anycase, my old MacBook Pro won't see the drive when I use the USB3 adaptor. I get the same exact error message as you did. I can't really test it on Thunderbolt since I don't have one. I'm going to go install the Thunderbolt drivers now and hopefully, it will recognize the drive afterwards. I'll let you know what happens.
BTW, I was thinking of reformatting the drive with NTFS so that I can use the drive on PCs. My mac has the NTFS drivers loaded so it's no problem. I hope this won't screw up the Thunderbolt connection later when I do get the Macbook Air?

Need help to partition and format new hard drive for T400

The HDD failed in my T400. I bought a new 1TB HDD and fitted it. The diagnostic software in the BIOS did a read and controller test (Passed). When I put the Windows XP disk in the CD reader, the setup started - then stalled at the "Windows setup" page. I thought the hard drive had a write problem but apparently it must be partitioned and formatted first, before Widows setup can commence. The thing is that I can't get to the option where Windows formats the drive. In old computers, there was always a partitioning option in the BIOS setup but in my T400, there doesn't appear to be any such option. The computer has 4GB RAM, the actual model is 2767-RV8.
Does anyone have any suggestions how to get this up and running?
One other question is - (assuming I can get the thing working) - Is there somewhere I can load the operating system on part of the hard drive where it can act as a fall back in case the operating system gets corrupted? - i.e. something that can't get attacked by malicious software?
Thanks in advance for any assistance.
Ian

Hi irivlin,
If you are trying to clean install XP, then you have to do following setting in BIOS first:
Press F1 to BIOS, Config -> Serial ATA (SATA) -> change to "Compatibility"
You can change XP partition only if you are doing clean installation, otherwise you have to use 3rd party to do it.
For backup part, there are lots of choices in the market. You might consider using XP own backup function. Lenovo got a program called Rescue and Recovery can also do backup as well.
How to use the Backup utility to back up files and folders in Windows XP Home Edition
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320820/en-us
Rescue and Recovery® 4.23 by Lenovo
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/product-and-parts/detail.page?&LegacyDocID=MIGR-76225
Fred
T61 + X201i

HT5628 i was installing windows 8 on mac by boot camp and after i put the windows code and choose the partition i formatted the boot camp sector it said windows can not install on this sector because it is gpt

i was installing windows 8 on mac by boot camp and after i put the windows code and choose the partition i formatted the boot camp sector it said windows can not install on this sector because it is gpt

Reinstalling Mavericks depends on several factors:
if you erased your recovery partition
what OS originally came on your Mac.
I'll assume you don't have a backup available that you made before your mishap, because you didn't mention it.
That's really the take home message here: have a backup!
If you still have your recovery partition:
boot into the recovery partition (command R at restart)
use the recovery partition to reinstall Mavericks. see: OS X: About OS X Recovery
if you do not still have your recovery partition, then it depends on whether your Mac originally came with installer disks or not.
If it originally came with installer disks, you would boot from the installer disks, erase your HD, and then reinstall the OS that is on the installer disks, and then upgrade as necessary until you get to Mavericks.
If your mac did not originally come with installer disks, but you managed to erase your recovery partition, then you can try to boot into internet recovery (option-command-R at restart), and use internet recovery to erase your HD and reinstall the OS that originally came with your computer, and then upgrade to Mavericks if you need to. See: Hands on with Mountain Lion's OS X Recovery and Internet Recovery | Macworld
(the reference refers to ML but it applies just as well to Mavericks).

Unable to partition hard drive

Unsure if this is a macbook pro or a leopard subject or even something else...
but i have a 230gb usb hdd which i have been using for approx. a year now. I wanted to move all the data off and use it just for time machine and other synced backups.
I moved the data off and went to erase the drive... but, the disk utility just hanged when going through the partitioning/erase. The status bar just stopped as if it wasn't even able to start, and the mouse icon stayed on the spinning wheel. After an hour i had to force quit Disk Utility.
Once i restarted and played around a bit more i just could not access or format the drive.
I even tried using terminal's command to partition the drive, but again it stuck on 0%.
If the drive has totally gone, then fine, but i would love to know what has happened and if i can do something to se how usable the drive is.
PS i dont have access to any other machine and just upgraded to leopard.
Thanks.

Chris51333 wrote:
Might this because the format of the hard drive is Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)? Is the encryption playing a part in not allowing me to partitioning my hard drive?
That's correct.
If you open Disk Utility, click on the encrypted partition and look towards the bottom left and check for Format: Encrypted Logical Partition. If you see this, you have a CoreStorage volume or Logical Volume Group which is usually created during the encrypting process. If you want to have multiple partitions on your external drive without encrypting ALL of them, you can decrypt your external drive which should get you back to square one so you can partition it the way you want. Then, if you want to, just encrypt the partition(s) you want and leave the others alone.

How long to erase & format a drive?

Hi, how long should it take to erase and format a 640 GB internal hard drive on my Mac Pro?
My Mac Pro is an 8-core, 2.8 ghz MacPro, which I've had for about a year. It came with a 320 GB primary drive. Recently I bought a Western Digital Caviar WD6401AALS 640 GB drive so that I can run Time Machine on it. The WD drive came formatted with NTFS.
After opening Disk Utility, I selected my 640 GB drive and then selected Mac OS extended (journaling) before clicking on Erase. After less than a minute this ended with "Disk Erase failed with the error." I tried this a few more times and got the same result each time. Then I clicked on the "Repair" button but got messages that stated "Disk Utility stopped repairing 'diskOs1' because the following error was encountered."
I then selected the volume (listed under the WD 640 GB drive), with format Mac OS extended (journaling) again and clicked on Erase. This set a barber pole at the bottom right of the box into motion. It's been running, however, for over 13 hours at this point. If I try to quit Disk Utility, a dialog box comes up that states the operation is still in progress. Should I exercise more patience or is something wrong with the procedure?
Here is the last part of the log so far:
2009-05-08 20:37:00 -0700: Preparing to erase : “disk0s1”
2009-05-08 20:37:00 -0700: Partition Scheme: Master Boot Record
2009-05-08 20:37:00 -0700: 1 volume will be erased
2009-05-08 20:37:00 -0700: Name : “disk0s1”
2009-05-08 20:37:00 -0700: Size : 596.2 GB
2009-05-08 20:37:00 -0700: Filesystem : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2009-05-08 20:37:00 -0700: newfs_hfs: /dev/rdisk0s1: partition size not a multiple of 4K.
Can anyone tell me what the last line means? Thanks for your help.
Larry

Wow, Hatter, that's the fastest response I've ever received to a question in any forum I used!
I purchased this WD 640 GB drive from Tech for Less. It was advertised as an "Open Box" item and was supposed to be unused.
In my first few attempts I selected the WD6401AALS itself and tried to erase it. Every time I tried this, the procedure failed. This is the first part of the log:
2009-05-08 18:41:37 -0700: Disk Utility started.
2009-05-08 18:43:45 -0700: Preparing to erase : “WD640”
2009-05-08 18:43:45 -0700: Partition Scheme: Master Boot Record
2009-05-08 18:43:45 -0700: 1 volume will be created
2009-05-08 18:43:45 -0700: Name : “WD640”
2009-05-08 18:43:45 -0700: Size : 596.2 GB
2009-05-08 18:43:45 -0700: Filesystem : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2009-05-08 18:43:45 -0700: Creating partition map.
2009-05-08 18:43:47 -0700: Formatting disk0s1 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name WD640.
2009-05-08 18:43:48 -0700: Disk Erase failed with the error:
File system formatter failed.
2009-05-08 18:43:48 -0700: Erase complete.
2009-05-08 18:43:48 -0700:
2009-05-08 18:43:49 -0700: Disk Utility failed during an unspecified action with the error:
I noted that one of the entries at 18:43:48 -0700: states "Erase complete." This is followed 2 lines later, however, with "disk Utility failed during an unspecified action with the error:"
When I selected the "volume" itself and clicked on Erase, the erasing and formatting operation seemed to begin. I guess that in selecting "volume" I selected only the NTFS partition itself.
The only way I can stop the current erasing and formatting operation seems to be to pull down on Disk Utility in the menu bar and select "quit Disk Utility." This brings up a dialog box, however, cautioning that stopping in the middle of an operation can render some disks nonoperational.
My WD 640 GB drive is supposed to have the same warranty as a new WD drive - according to Tech for Less. I hope that pulling the plug this way won't void the warranty.
Thanks for your rapid response.
Larry

Data Recovery from Partitioned and formatted Bit Locker Encrypted Drive

Recently because of some issues in windows 7 installation from windows 8 installed OS. it was giving as the disc is dynamic windows can not be installed on it. so at last after struggling hard no other solution i partitioned and formatted my whole
drive so all data gone included the drive which was encrypted by bit lockers.
For recovery i used many software such as ontrack easy recover, get data back, recovery my files professional edition but still i couldnt able to recover my data from that drive. then i found some suggestion Using CMD to decrypt my data first
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee523219(WS.10).aspx
where it shows it successfully decrypt my data at that moment my drives were in RAW format excluding on which windows is installed and then in CMD i check Chdsk which also shows no problem found. but now problem is still i coudnt able to recover
my data then i format the drive D and again tried to recover data using above software after decryption still no result.
Now i need assistance how i can recover my encrypted drive as it was partitioned and also formatted but decrypted also as i have its recovery key too. thanks

Hi ,
I am afraid that we cannot get the data back if the drive has been formatted even if use the
BitLocker Repair Tool.
You’d better contact your local data recovery center to try to get data back.
Tracy Cai
TechNet Community Support

SMS: unable to open. message format not supported...

hey folks i've seen a bunch of guys asking this same question on another threads with no reply, is this a OS bug or something? from time to time i received SMS from my contacts and sometimes I am not able to open them and i got a message: "unable to open. message format not supported Symbian" even though i can read some text from the preview list.
any workaround?
thanks!
Powered by Nokia X6

try a reset there could be a file in the message which phone wont support
*#7370# security code 12345 back up your data 1st
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Can I put 1TB SATA Hitachi drives in my Powermac?

Can I put 1TB SATA Hitachi drives in my Powermac?
I have a Dual 2.5GHZ PowerPC Power Mac.

Hi clazz-
That drive should be fine.
You may also be interested in checking out the experiences of other users with regard to this topic: Drive Compatibility Database>
Luck-
-DaddyPaycheck

Mac PPC G5 1.8 Ghz 2 Gb ram, running 10.5.8, is 10.6 compatibåle with my machine? any other way to erase/format a new WD MyBook 2TB drive? help!

Mac PPC G5 1.8 Ghz 2 Gb ram, running 10.5.8, is 10.6 compatibåle with my machine? any other way to erase/format a new WD MyBook 2TB drive? help!

No, Leopard 10.5.8 is as high as you can go on a PPC Mac.
See this thread about the WD MyBook:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/8824857#8824857
Message was edited by: Klaus1

Unable to partition/ erase/ format 1Tb 6Gb Hitachi internal HD

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