“Time Machine was unable to prepare the disk. File system formatter failed.”
This was message after trying to format backup disk. When I bought a new Mac Mini earlier this year, deleted content on backup for fresh start. Disk is pretty old, do I need to abandon it and buy new?
Mac mini (M2 Pro, 2023)
Yes.
Platter drives have a typical half life of 7 years.
SSDs that have not been used for a long time can also fail from lack of use.
Magnetic fields can worsen the life of platter drives, some found in old style tube TV/Monitors only when on.
Dropping platter drives can permanently ruin them as well.
If the drive has nothing on it, use Disk Utility to reformat it and see if locking out the bad sectors make it viable to Time Machine or not. Do not use case sensitive formatting. Do not use encryption or Filevault.
If formatting it with Disk Utility doesn't make it usable using the same format as the source drive, then I would consider it a lost cause.
Yes.
Platter drives have a typical half life of 7 years.
SSDs that have not been used for a long time can also fail from lack of use.
Magnetic fields can worsen the life of platter drives, some found in old style tube TV/Monitors only when on.
Dropping platter drives can permanently ruin them as well.
If the drive has nothing on it, use Disk Utility to reformat it and see if locking out the bad sectors make it viable to Time Machine or not. Do not use case sensitive formatting. Do not use encryption or Filevault.
If formatting it with Disk Utility doesn't make it usable using the same format as the source drive, then I would consider it a lost cause.
“Time Machine was unable to prepare the disk. File system formatter failed.”
