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TimOus Author

Level 1

11 points

mds_stores prevents reformating of external hard drive

My external hard drive I use for back-up is formated in HFS, hence I cannot use the drive to make new back-ups. I now tried to format it to APFS with Disk Utility but it fails everytime because the external drive is used by the mds_stores process.

I've tried to disable my spotlight, reduced the spotlight index data and force quit mds_stores, but it keeps launching the second after I force quit it once by external drive is connected. Does anyone have a solution for this?

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Dec 27, 2021 3:37 AM

Top-ranking reply

TimOus Author

Level 1

11 points

Posted on Dec 27, 2021 4:26 AM

You're a legend. I thought I tried everything but the safe-boot was the only thing I didn't and it solved my issue, thanks!

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mds_stores prevents reformating of external hard drive

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