drive created on December 31,1969?

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Level 1

6 points

drive created on December 31,1969?

I recently bought a WD external HDD for storing video files. I needed to transfer them from a windows PC so I formatted it as ExFAT. I formatted it on my brand new M1 MacBook Air, transferred the files from the windows PC and then plugged it back into the Air. As I was playing around with some settings I got the info for this drive, surprisingly this is what I saw:

Note the creation date of December 31, 1969 and the modified date of January 1, 1980! What could be going on here? Besides being weird is there any reason to be concerned about this?

I also note that the Sharing and Permissions just says I have custom access. I want to include this drive in my time machine backups/ When I go to TM Options this drive is listed as being excluded but I can't select it in order to remove the exclusion. Could these strange discrepancies in the info have anything to do with that?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 11.2

Posted on Feb 4, 2021 8:25 PM

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Answer 1

kostby

Level 4

2,964 points

Feb 4, 2021 9:20 PM in response to KLC3751

You're seeing historical artifacts of UNIX and PC-DOS/MS-DOS operating systems.

12/31/1969 is a UNIX default system date when no date was yet recorded by the system.

December 31, 1969: What's The Meaning?

01/01/1980 is a default system date for an early IBM-PC booting to PC-DOS or an 'IBM-compatible PC booting to the MS-DOS operating system. Early IBM Personal Computers (introduced 1981) did not include a battery-backup of the system clock*.

Users were usually prompted to enter the correct date and time by the autoexec.bat file containing DATE, and TIME, to ensure that user files saved to 5.25" floppy disc would bear the correct date and time, instead of the default 01/01/1980, and the number of hours and minutes elapsed since the system was powered-on that day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_DOS_operating_systems

*A battery-backed real-time clock was often added with a "multi-function card" in one of the ISA slots in the system board, that might also hold sockets for extra RAM, a 25-pin parallel port, and a 9-pin serial port.

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Answer 2

KLC3751 Author

Level 1

6 points

Feb 4, 2021 8:31 PM in response to KLC3751

OK, I just discovered why I can't back up this drive, it can't be ExFAT. I am still curious about the strange dates.

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Answer 3

KLC3751 Author

Level 1

6 points

Feb 5, 2021 9:52 AM in response to kostby

Thanks Kostby, I learned several new things from that and your links. I guess my only other question is why would a state of the art 2021 laptop running a current OS put those dates into the folder? I formatted the disk on my MacBook not on a 1980s PC running DOS. Is it because it is ExFAT? Will any external drive formatted to ExFAT show the same dates?

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drive created on December 31,1969?

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