Can't Erase Drive To Mac Format

[applejack]

   

iMac using Leopard.

 

I have just purchased a new Drive Station Combo 4 and I am trying to
erase the disk using Disk Utility to extended journaled but it keeps
failing. Error message is File system formatter failed.

If I erase to MS-DOS FAT then it works.

I have tried this using Firewire 800 and 400 and USB connections.

 

Please advise.

[Paul]

have you tried a different mac?

[Matt_M]

Are you running OS 10.5.5? If so, then what you will want to do is format the drive into two seperate partitions no larger than 700 GB. This is a re-occurring issue I have seen in 10.5 not just with our drives, but most USB drives over 500 GB in size.

[Phunkadilic]

   

I had the same issues using the GUI version of Disk Utility (this isn't uncommon as the GUI version just doesn't cut it sometimes). I have the 1TB version of the Combo4 drive and am running Leopard OS 10.5.6. I'm using FW800 but really, any of the connection formats should work the same. Here's the workaround I did that WORKS!

*DISCLAIMER* Be it that the following instructions are easy, you still need to know what you're doing. If you put the wrong info in, you could very well delete your system drive. Pay attention to the instructions below and be careful. If you follow the instructions you should be fine. But of course, don't come blaming me if you mess this up and blow away your system drive. Use at your own risk. I'm a weathered OS X IT admin with plenty of time on the command line... weathered at age 28...*sigh*. Feel free to e-mail me or PM me here if you have any questions regarding this procedure.

You'll need to open Terminal located in /Appliations/Utilities/Terminal.

Once you have that open, follow these directions:

type in "diskutil list"

You should see something that looks like this:

    /dev/disk0
        #:                 TYPE NAME             SIZE          IDENTIFIER
        0: GUID_partition_scheme                 *465.8 Gi     disk0
        1: EFI                                    200.0 Mi     disk0s1
        2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD                 443.9 Gi     disk0s2
        3: Microsoft Basic Data NO NAME           21.6 Gi      disk0s3
    /dev/disk1
        #:                 TYPE NAME             SIZE          IDENTIFIER
        0: FDisk_partition_scheme                *931.5 Gi     disk1
        1: Apple_HFS                              931.5 Gi     disk1s1

What you're looking for is the section labeled above /dev/disk1 (also highlighted in red). NOW REMEMBER: THIS MIGHT NOT BE /DEV/DISK1 ON YOUR MACHINE IF YOU HAVE MULTIPLE DRIVES CONNECTED. A good way to find out what your Buffalo drive is named as is to look at the size. As you can see up above, the 931.5 Gi is the largest drive that is nearest to 1TB... pretty safe bet that this is my Buffalo drive. Also look at the names associated with the drives. The names "Macintosh HD" is my system drive so I'm not messing with ANYTHING in that section. It's also a safe bet that your boot volumes will almost ALWAYS be under /dev/disk0. Once you've found the section that your Buffalo drive is listed, grab the part that says "/dev/disk1" (copy or just remember it. Again, this part is highlighted in red up above). Then, do the following command (here's the point of no return. Make sure you're certain you're using the right drive identifier i.e. /dev/disk1):

    diskutil eraseVolume HFS+ NameYouWantToCallYourDrive /dev/disk1

AGAIN, REMEMBER THAT THE PART THAT SAYS "/DEV/DISK1" MAY BE DIFFERENT ON YOUR MACHINE. IT MAY BE /DEV/DISK2 OR /DEV/DISK3 DEPENDING ON HOW MANY DRIVES YOU HAVE CONNECTED TO YOUR MACHINE. IT'S A VERY SAFE BET THAT IT WILL NOT BE /DEV/DISK0 AS THAT'S 99% OF THE TIME YOUR MAIN BOOT DRIVES.

You should see a staus come up that looks like this:

    Started erase on disk disk1
    Erasing
    Mounting disk
    [ + 0%..10%..20%..30%..40%..50%..60%..70%..80%..90%..100% ]
    Finished erase on disk disk1 NameYouCalledYourDrive

If you open your GUI version of Disk Utility, you'll notice that the drive is now mounted and does not have any partition or partition table. What this means is that this drive does not have the ability to boot. This is fine for me as I really just want a blank HD that I can save files too. After you have done this, you can use the GUI version to erase your drive again and shouldn't have the same issues you had before (and you don't have to use separate partitions on the drive either). If you do choose to use the GUI to format the drive again, you'll notice that two Disks will most likely show up. One called something like disk1s1 and the other will be what you named it. The reason for this is that the GUI version automatically creates a small EFI partition that is needed for using a device to boot from. It won't hurt anything but it'll always be there when you look at your drive in the GUI version of Disk Utility and only takes up a few MBs. Using the command line method as mentioned above will "fix" this and make it a true standalone drive with no partition schemes.

 

If you want to be sure that your drive is formated in HFS+, type the following in the command line:

 

    diskutil info /dev/disk1

 

You should see "HFS+" for the File System

 

 

 

I hope this helps! Again, feel free to contact me via messages here or through e-mail at slanaconda@gmail.com.

Message Edited by Phunkadilic on 02-14-2009 03:06 PM

[Jason]

You probably just need to change the partition type. In disk utility just select the partition tab once you've selected the buffalo drive then create 1 partition then you'll be able to click on options, in options choose GUID and then you can go ahead and format.