if that does not work. Try formatting it in any other type of MAC OS.
You can also try formatting it on a windows pc first, but that would create double the work, as you'd have to format it on your mac as well.
/TT
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Question
Formatting NTFS drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
I have an external hard drive enclosure with a 160 gb Hitachi drive that I want to use to back up my Power PC iMac G5 computer. It is quick-formatted to NTFS, but when i try to reformat it in Disk Utility to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) the program freezes up and it will not format the drive.
How can I format this drive to create a bootable backup for my Mac?
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Answers
Tried all the above...doesn't work. I'm using Tiger 10.4.11 and it just freezes me out. I tried formatting it as NTFS and GUID on the PC first (both worked) - it was recognized by the Mac, but once i tried to format in Disk Utility it all froze up.
I also tried to format using a friends Mac with Panther---the horizontal barber pole showed up, but it never completed the job.
Any other ideas? I saw something on another site that said you could reformat the drive using diskpart in XP. Not a big fan of command-line work, though.
What make and model of USB drive are you using? How big is the external drive in Gb 250Gb?500Gb??
Plug the drive into a Windows PC and format as FAT32 .. not NTFS.
The Mac will then mount and allow read/write of the drive.
Unless you plan to store single files larger than 4Gb .. FAT32 will allow you to use the drive for OSX & Windows.
Alternatively on OSX .. you could try using the command line to
1. Make sure your external drive is NOT plugged into the Mac and Open a Terminal Window
2. Enter the following command
diskutil list
This will list the default hard drive and any other device already connected
3. Plug in the USB drive and run the command again
diskutil list
Now you'll see an extra drive listed .. probably something like /dev/disk1
Can you paste the results of the partition table for your external drive so we can see what is going on
It's a Hitachi 160GB internal hard drive inside a USB enclosure: here's what comes up in the devise properties--Hitachi HDS721616PLAT80.
The PC doesn't give me a FAT32 option, which from what I've read is the case on newer computers---you can't format any drive over 60gb to FAT32.
I can try running the partition table data this weekend and see what I get.
My end goal is to create a drive to back up my iMac. I figured it would be nice to have it bootable, so I wanted to go Mac OSX Extended, but perhaps I can just back up the data on to an NTFS drive and avoid this hassle.
It is not a great idea to use an NTFS drive with a Mac...
Download this free application on Windows called Swiss Knife - http://www.compuapps.com/D
Read this article about using Swiss Knife or DOS to format larger HD as FAT32
http://www.online-tech-tip
I tried running the FAT32 command line format (I've got Vista on my home computer and SwissKnife didn't work)--I got to about 99% and then it told me it couldn't format the drive FAT32. I may try running SwissKnife at work tomorrow. Here's the diskutil info on the drive as it currently stands:
/dev/disk5
#: type name size identifier
0: *153.4 GB disk5
I'll try to reformat it FAT32 on my work XP and then use disk utility in Panther to try to format the disk. Otherwise, I may just do this from the terminal window.
If the Disk Utility application fails then running the DiskUtil terminal command to format the drive is not going to fare any better.
It is likely that the partition table on the disk is damaged .. making formatting the drive unworkable.
If I was working with the drive I'd first attempt to re-partition the drive before formatting.
See how you get on with SwissKnife first.
I was able to format w/ SwissKnife to Fat32. Tried to convert to MacOS Extended via the erase and partition functions in Leopard, it still froze up on me.
The drive will format to NTFS and FAT32 and mount to both Mac and PC, no problem. Why can't I get Disk Utility to create an HFS+ drive??? It worked a few years ago when I formatted the drive initially.
Hmmm...it seems odd that there would be a problem with the enclosure if it will format to FAT32 and NTFS, mount on a mac and PC. I don't have an extra enclosure available...is there any way to test that otherwise?
I found this online and they seemed to be having the same problem as me, but with no solution apparent.
http://forums.mac
What about this program, Parted Magic? Or something like it that will allow me to format HFS+ in XP?
http://www.download.com
I fixed it!
Decided to try to format to HFS+ using PC software, found this post:
http://www.experts-ex
whi
http://www.mediafour.
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by: eoinosullivanPosted on 2009-02-17 at 23:37:54ID: 23667717
In Disk Utility ... highlight the DRIVE icon and go to the PARTITION tab. Delete the existing partition and create a new single partition with HFS format. This should reset the HD and allow it to be formatted for OSX.