External Hard Drives Won't Erase After Using With Time Machine

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Level 1

8 points

External Hard Drives Won't Erase After Using With Time Machine

Hi,

I have 2 external hard drives that I was using for Time Machine. I have now replaced them and want to erase them for use as normal drives. I have de-selected them for use with Time Machine but Disk Utility won't erase them. It can't run First Aid on them either. It looks like they have become read only.

Here's the error message if that helps:

Erasing “Seagate Plus Drive 1” (disk11s1) and creating “Seagate Plus Drive 1”

Framework unable to communicate with the Disk Management daemon. : (-69812)

Operation failed…

Any ideas on how I can rescue these drives?

Thanks in advance!

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 13.2

Posted on Apr 12, 2023 3:17 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

PRP_53

Level 10

85,717 points

Apr 12, 2023 4:50 AM in response to chalkypinch

Predicate on the User having Removed the Problematic Drives from Time Machine Backup as per the Apple Support document in link below >>

Change Time Machine settings on Mac - Apple Support (CA)

The to Reformat the Entire Drive as per the Apple Support document in the below link should provide the correct Method to re-purpose the drive

Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support (CA)

The Key Element in the link is to use Disk Utilities >> View >> " Show ALL Devices "

The choose the Upper Most Drive by Manufacturers Name and not the Volumes below

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Answer 2

chalkypinch Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 13, 2023 11:57 PM in response to PRP_53

Thank you P Phillips, that was really helpful. Your answer 99.9% sorted it. It wouldn't work at first, strangely I had to eject the volume the Time Machine back up had been on before it would let me erase the parent drive. Thanks again!

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Answer 3

tbirdvet

Level 6

13,815 points

Apr 12, 2023 4:37 AM in response to chalkypinch

If you removed them as a TM backup they should be able to be erased. However, that happened to me once and what I did was connect to my Windows PC, erased and then redid the formatting on my Mac.

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Answer 4

PRP_53

Level 10

85,717 points

Apr 14, 2023 1:22 AM in response to chalkypinch

Welcome

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External Hard Drives Won't Erase After Using With Time Machine

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