Formatting PC formatted external hard drive

Question

Level 1

0 points

Formatting PC formatted external hard drive

My old laptop, a largish screen iBook G4 now belonging to my sister, is having hard drive problems. When it is booted up, it flashes a file folder with a question mark and the split face mac logo. Does this mean that the hard drive is dying?

I just bought an external hard drive to back things up. It is PC formatted and I was having difficulties in disk utilities in reformmatting it (journalled) for mac. It kept dumping out of the formatting utility. Finally I turned on Time Machine and initiated a backup. I am wondering if the backup is valid, since it is unclear to me if the external drive actually reformatted for mac. When I left my sister's it was more than 1/2 backed up according to Time Machine.

I am grateful for your help.

Cheers,

John

ibook G4, Mac OS X (10.5), 133 ghz

Posted on Mar 17, 2012 11:35 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Limnos

Level 10

411,073 points

Mar 17, 2012 11:55 PM in response to billy58

The flashing question mark means the computer cannot find a valid boot system and I take it it is not booting fully. How are you able to enable Time Machine or try formatting the drive if the computer is not working? Or is it just flashing the question mark for a few seconds, then proceeding to boot?

Something is not going right if Disk Utility (was this the formatting utility?) keeps crashing. Theoretically Time Machine should refuse to use the drive at all if it isn't formatted.

Reply

Answer 2

Mar 17, 2012 11:58 PM in response to billy58

Apple's suggestions for coping with the flashing question mark folder can be found here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1440?viewlocale=en_US

Were you attempting to format the external drive from the Mac OS X 10.5 Install DVD's Disk Utility?

Reply

Answer 3

billy58 Author

Level 1

0 points

Mar 18, 2012 12:09 AM in response to Limnos

I kept shutting the computer off and turning it on til I got past the boot problem. I had the thing up and running. I tried several times to format the external hard drive and seemed to get time machine to recognize it, tho I am not sure that I actually formatted it. I did get time machine to write a backup. Will try tomorrow to open the hard drive. Perhaps I should do that on a separate computer. My MacBook Pro?

Reply

Answer 4

billy58 Author

Level 1

0 points

Mar 18, 2012 12:13 AM in response to Ronda Wilson

I tried to format the external drive using the disk utility on the hard drive of the ibook, not the install DVD.

Is the boot problem a hard drive problem or some sort of system software problem?

Thanks for the article reference. I will study it and try to execute these suggestions in the AM.

Cheers,

J

Reply