I cannot delete/reformat an external drive!

I have a 4tb external drive, that has 1.8tb that cannot be deleted, seen, or reformatted. Can anyone advise how I can completely reformat this drive? Appreciated.

Posted on Aug 22, 2019 8:08 AM

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2 replies

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,138 points

Aug 22, 2019 8:14 AM in response to Ian999

I don't believe macOS can handle more than 2TB on a FAT32 formatted drive.

I may be wrong, but that is what I remember.

Format the drive using a modern file system format.

Aug 22, 2019 8:13 AM in response to Ian999

From Disk Utility>View>Show All Devices

initialize the parent drive—If you can not format the parent drive then your drive has failed.

About Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support

Erase a volume using Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support

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I cannot delete/reformat an external drive!

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