Format new external hard drive

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I just bought a new Western Digital HD (1TB). Not using for time machine, but general storage.

I had read somewhere, that I should reformat the drive with my Mac OS (X.5.7) before using. So, I tried to do that with the disk utility. It wouldn't let me do it any of the Mac OS Extended options for volume format, so tried with MS-DOS (FAT), thinking I could go back and then format as Mac OS.

Sigh - well, now my Mac won't recognize the disk, and when I try the First Aid it tells me "Error:Filesystem verify or repair failed"

Any suggestions on what to do next?

Thanks
 
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Does the external disk show up in Diskutility ?

Cheers ... McBie

Thanks CWA .... a few seconds faster :)
 
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Thank you.

That worked, but it seems I can only format the drive as "MS-DOS (FAT)". Does that make sense? Should I be able to format as Mac OS Extended?

I'm not sure what that means or if it matters?

Thanks
 
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You should be able to format it as HFS+ as you indicated.
It matters as the FAT32 filesystem only allow a max. filesize of 4 GB

Cheers ... McBie
 
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Sorry - HFS+?
 
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HFS+ is an OS X file system (just like NTFS is a Windows file system).
 
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OK Thanks.

Any idea why it wouldn't let me format as Mac OS extended? Any downside to using the external hard drive formatted as MS-DOS (Fat) other than the issue mentioned above - restriction on file size of 4GB?
 
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I would try plugging in your external, and going into the partition tab in disk utility. Then format the drive for the GUID partition table under options, that way you should be able to format it as any Mac format. The Master boot record option that is in there is for NTFS and FAT. I have 2 drives formatted this way under GUID, and 2 drives under Master Boot Record. The GUIDs can't be seen on PCs, unless you have a program like Macdrive installed.
 
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ohhh any way around the 4gb restriction? (sigh)
 
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did you delete all the partitions first?
 
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can you partition a drive to be half FAT and half HFS?
 
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Sure, make two partitions.

Code:
/dev/disk1s4 on /Volumes/STORAGE1 (msdos, local, nodev, nosuid, noowners)
/dev/disk1s2 on /Volumes/Time Machine (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, journaled)
/dev/disk1s3 on /Volumes/Backup (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, journaled)

see? all disk1 different slices, and fat and hfs spread.. that's a WD 1TB drive btw.
 
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I've sen this before. If you want to do it all as 1 partition in HFS+ just make 2 partitions, format, then change it to 1 partition and reformat. I have no idea why you have to do this but this has happened to me with a few 1Tb drives...
 

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