External hard disk erase / reformat - still stuck on FAT32.....?

Question

External hard disk erase / reformat - still stuck on FAT32.....?

Hi there. I'm using Disk Utility to erase and reformat a Buffalo 1TB (=2 x 500 GB) external hard drive for backup purposes..... All seems fine - the resulting volumes have been renamed and report as HFS+ (Mac OS X Extended Journalled).

However: when I select the hard drive icon itself - one step above the created volume - it still reports the original disk name and reports as FAT32.....

Now, is this just a default hardware name and status that won't change, even if the disk has been reformatted.....? Or, does it mean that the disk has not been properly reformatted as HFS+?

Any ideas? I suspect I'm worrying about nothing, but would appreciate confirmation one way or the other....

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.1), 1 GB RAM

Posted on Nov 18, 2007 12:21 PM

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Answer 1

hbuff

Level 1

0 points

Dec 16, 2007 9:39 AM in response to Dr Paul James Cowie

I have the same issue!

I have WD 750 GB external hard drive connected by FW400, and if I look at it using 'Get Info' it shows it as being a FAT32 format, but if I use disk utility to check it out, it shows it as having one partition that is MAC OS Extended (Journaled).

Is my HD formatted correctly? I have all my music and pictures on here and would hate to loose it (it is backed up on another external drive).

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Answer 2

Dec 16, 2007 9:55 AM in response to Dr Paul James Cowie

I'd imagine this is more a bug or incorrect labeling of the drive than anything else. If the volume is formatted to HFS+ then it will display as HFS+. The device may have some default "format" string that's not getting updated with Apple's formatting utilities, especially if "FAT32" is appearing in the device name (which you cannot edit, and may contain "FAT32" from the manufacturer's settings). If the volume is reporting HFS+ back to the system then that should be correct. The real attributes for the device are listed in the various fields in the "info" window, so those should be correct regardless of what the name of the device says.

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Answer 3

macjack

Level 10

111,168 points

Dec 16, 2007 10:06 AM in response to Dr Paul James Cowie

Which did you reformat the disk or the volume?

-mj
macjack@gmail.com

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Answer 4

Dec 16, 2007 10:08 AM in response to macjack

As far as my understanding goes, you can only partition a disk and you can only format a volume, so the disk contains the partition map scheme, and each partition then contains volume information in a specific format.

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Answer 5

macjack

Level 10

111,168 points

Dec 16, 2007 10:13 AM in response to Topher Kessler

You can format a disk, just go to DU >> Erase tab and choose the disk rather than the volume.

-mj
macjack@gmail.com

Message was edited by: macjack

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Answer 6

Dec 16, 2007 10:14 AM in response to macjack

That creates a volume on the disk and formats it accordingly.

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Answer 7

macjack

Level 10

111,168 points

Dec 16, 2007 10:24 AM in response to Topher Kessler

Yes, it must create a new volume... but when I choose my disks which were formatted Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) pre-Intel they now show as I re-formatted them, "Partition Map Scheme : GUID Partition Table" while my volumes are Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

-mj
macjack@gmail.com

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Answer 8

Dec 16, 2007 10:32 AM in response to macjack

Erasing the disk directly in this way perhaps repartitions it as well, changing it to "GUID" as you experienced, but this poster's problem is that the volume and partition scheme seem to be fine as they're reported by the system, but the name of the device still contains a "FAT32" string. I suspect this is just an unmodifiable string that doesnt reflect any attribute of the drive (kinda like the model number in my drive, which has the name: "55.9 GB TOSHIBA MK6021GAS" and can safely be ignored. I can see some manufacturers distributing drives with similar name schemes, but that include format info like "SIZE COMPANY MODEL FORMAT".

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