Unable to erase and format a new Hard Disk

BrianG3,

Connect the external drive and open Disk Utility. In Disk Utility's "source list" on the left, select the drive, not any named "volumes" you will see indented underneath, then click the "Erase" tab.

You should now see the options for formatting the drive. Once you have formatted the drive, you can partition it as you like, and use different formats for the partitions (HFS+, MS-DOS, etc.).

Scott

I have exactly the same problem. Bought a 750GB Maxtor OneTouch III and Leopard at the same time. I can see the drive in disc utility but when I try to erase the drive and format with mac os extended it gives me the error 'file system formatter failed'. Help!!!!

same problem here. I went to erase and it said "erase failed. can't unmount disk."

While the disk shows up in my desktop and I can open the maxtor manager. the drive doesn't show up in the list of drives.

This after none of my applications will open. I bought the drive to copy my files to it and then do an erase and install, but now I can't even do that. When I explained this to the apple folks yesterday after being on hold for an hour, they told me they'd have engineering get back to me in a few days.

I go back with Apple to Apple II days, and I can't remember having such a disastrous time with an Apple update. I'm having a real crisis of faith with Apple. This is just awful.

I also have this problem.

I just bought a 750GB Seagate FreeAgent Pro drive and I was unable to format it as MacOs Extended in any of its variations under Leopard. The strange thing was that I WAS able to format it as MS-DOS (FAT32) and as MacOs Extended Journaled, but as long as it had two or more partitions, so it's definitely a bug of Leopard. I was able to format it as a single partition under 10.4.10 in another Mac.

How do we report this in order to get it fixed?

chipito

Do you know if it is therefore possible to partition my 750gb hard disk in Leopard into 3 x 250GB drives and then format them to Mac OS Extended Journaled or would it have to be formatted first? I could live with 3 drives instead 1 if I have to!

Are you booting with the drive connected?
If so, boot without it and then after the system is running plug the drive in.
It might be possible that if the drive mounts at boot it is "active" and therefore not erasable.
You can also unmount the drive using the terminal if you are comfortable there.
In general you cannot format a mounted drive.
You might also boot into single user and erase the drive that way, if it's possible.

Take a read here: http://seagate.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/seagate.cfg/php/enduser/stdadp.php?p_faqid=4975&p_created=1193688733&p_sid=yze-YvPi&p_accessibility=0&p_red irect=&p_lva=2781&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9M iwyJnBfcHJvZHM9MCZwX2NhdHM9MCZwX3B2PSZwX2N2PSZwX3NlYXJjaF90eXBlPWFuc3dlcnMuc2Vhc mNoX25sJnBfcGFnZT0xJnBfc2VhcmNoX3RleHQ9bGVvcGFyZA**&p_li=&ptopview=1

Hi BrianG3-

I actually just bought one of these drives and was having the same issue when I searched and came across this post.

I have a G5 iMac that I did not update and is till at 10.4.X. Guess what? You hook the drive up to that computer and it formats no problem.

This kinda makes me worry. I am not storing anything important on this drive until that particular anomaly is fixed. If it can't format properly under 10.5 I can't imagine what else lurks.

Luck-

-DaddyPaycheck

I had the same problem with a WD MyBook Premium 750GB.

Here's the fix:

http://geekgoesmeow.blogspot.com/2007/10/problems-using-pc-formatted-drive-with. html

I bought a 750Gb Maxtor OneTouch4 Plus and have the exact problem. SCaNNy URL fix works!
I realised you need not create 2 partitions. 1 should do with options GUID Partition Table.
Thanks!

Purchased a Western Digital My Book 1 Terrabye (2 firewire, 1 USB, i eSata) plugged it into my Macbook Pro with Leopard installed and guess what - disk utility can not get the thing formated under anything but FAT32. It fails every time with any other FS choice. I retuned it thinking I had a bad drive, and bought the exact same drive with the exact same error results. This is obviously a Disk Utility issue due to the Leopard install as I regularly reformatted my other 4 external drives under Tiger with no problem. I'm kinda ****** that such an obvious bug is out in my OS now it makes me wonder what else I'm going to run into as I push Leopard harder. (For example, none of my PSP sync software works anymore either). I guess I'll return this HD and forget my current project until Apple releases a software upgrade....

Notsomuch here again... seems that disk utility will partition my 1 terrabyte WD mybook with HFS into two equal partitions, but it fails every time I have it choose 1 partition of default max....

Solved. Disk Utility defaulted its OPTIONS under PARTITION in Disk Utility to MBR (Master Boot Record). When I switched the option to GUID Partition table it formated as one partition with HFS+ no problem.

It's not nearly as fast as playing with the partitions to format but I zeroed out my Maxtor III 750 right out of the box. It took over eight hours but that ensures absolutely that any residual formatting code is history and maps out any iffy sectors. I've not encountered any problems with Time Machine using the drive. Partitions, if used, should be set up using GUID for Intel Macs and Apple Partition Map for PPC Macs.