Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Level 1

16 points

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

Similar questions

Trying to format an external HDD? I have an external HDD formally used with a Windows PC. Id like to format this so i can use it normally with my MacBook. I can browse files using the finder. I can't delete anything, create anything, nor do i see any options to format this external drive. Help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
299 1
Reformatted disc but can't see whole thing I have an external drive (5TB) that I reformatted but it's only showing me a portion of the disc. I did not create a partition. The disc was in a thunderbolt enclosure, but I reformatted it in a FireWire toaster. I tried erasing it several times but I can only see 600 GB of the disc.
128 5
Formatting external drives Hi, I've been a PC user almost exclusively and am still finding my way with my MacBook Pro, now updated to Big Sur. With PCs, formatting external drives was a snap; with mac, not so much. At least not for me. I chose the full format, meaning security options to make sure the data were gone, and MacOs Extended (journaled). This meant, to me, that the drive should have been completely empty at the end of the process, but for whatever it needed to keep the drive itself working. Wrong. There is an unexplained 800 MB file--almost 1G--that I have yet to find any description of anywhere. Does someone in this community know what it is, why it's necessary, and why I can't get rid of it? Thank you so much!
340 3

2 replies

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

Barney-15E

Level 10

113,172 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.

I cannot delete/reformat an external drive!

Welcome to Apple Support Community

A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.

Learn more Sign up