Formatting NTFS drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

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.

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

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.

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/Download/swissknife/swissknife.htm

Read this article about using Swiss Knife or DOS to format larger HD as FAT32
http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/formatting-external-hard-drive-to-fat-32/

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.

Okay, just tried to format from the terminal with the command "diskutil eraseDisk HFS+ backup disk5" It said it was partitioning the drive and then froze, just like it does in the Disk Utility UI.  Now here's what I get from diskutil list:

/dev/disk6
   #:                   type name               size      identifier
   0:                                           *153.4 GB disk6

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.

There may be an issue with the Drive Enclosure .. that is about all I can suggest at this stage.

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.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-59159.html

What about this program, Parted Magic? Or something like it that will allow me to format HFS+ in XP?

http://www.download.com/Parted-Magic-LiveCD/3000-2094_4-10663999.html