Disk Utility won't allow Master Boot Record?

Hi there, I have a Lacie 2big thb disk, 8tb, I'm trying to partition it to MBR, but I'm not given the choice to select MBR, it's not active in the window in disk utility, what am I doing wrong here? Do I have to set each partition at max 2TB?....

Hi I just found out how to do this I hope.!!!

but it will erase everything so you need to back up or have a new USB,

So..

when you open disc utility, choose the top option on your USB. the Tool bar should then appear at the top of the screen box. Select 'erase'. there is a dropdown box that appears, you can select the 'scheme' here to 'master boot record.'. its the third option, you change the USB partition name as well, then you select 'erase" then when its done . you can see the white box below that the "partition map " has changed to 'master boot record'. you can then change the format if thats what you need to do after that. hope this helps. Im not to techy though.

Drive Preparation

1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.

2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.

3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to MBR then click on the OK button. Set the format type to MSDOS (FAT32.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to MBR then click on the OK button. Set the format type to MSDOS (FAT32.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

Did you do the above?

Probably the drive is already partitioned MBR and formatted NTFS (it's a new drive.) So all you need to do is reformat it using MSDOS in Disk Utility or FAT on a PC.

You can also partition the drive GUID and make two partitions. The first partition will be Mac OS Extended, Journaled. The second is formatted MSDOS. Use one for the Mac and the other on the PC.

Hi, I did format the two drives in OSX disk utility as MS-DOS FAT, went to windows, tried to make a stripped disk, the wizard did go all the way through, but in the end there poped up a window saying "there isn't enough space to make the desired action¨

The drives are not partitioned MBR, it's GPT partitioned, and I can't figure out how to partition it to MBR...

When I look at the drives in windows disk management, I can see there is 3 partitions on each disk, one at the start 200MB (EFI partition), one in the middle, the main disk 3.8GB, and one at the end 128MB. I'm only able to delete the middle and the last partition, NOT the first......maybe that's why I can't make it work...?

Should I try to use another disk management tool, instead of the standard in OSX and Windows?

Alberto you're right, but here's what Lacie answered:

[QUOTE]<a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=16913829" target="_blank">Originally Posted by Runnernorth</a>

Hi, thx for your reply:-), just a quick question, do YOU think it's possible to make my 2big thunderbolt work as RAID0 in windows 7/64bit, or just as two independent drives......?

Kindly[/QUOTE]

hi, if you already have the disks RAIDed from OSX then you can't re-RAID them in Windows. The only thing you can do is set it to a RAID, volume scheme and file system that both OSes are able to detect.

Otherwise yes, if you haven't already set a RAID mode on another OS then the disks can do RAID 0 and 1 in Windows.

~mn, LaCie

Hello,

I have the same problem (meaning I would like to partition my LaCiE 3TBd2 drive with MBR instead of GUIT and the MBR option is always greyed out in Disk Utility andhence I cannot choose it).

I am wondering if you have resolved this already and how.

Moreover, I need it non-journaled, so this would be the second thing I need to resolve somehow.

Found this and was so frustrated trying to partition a USB drive with an MBR. It's ridiculous that Apple doesn't provide this functionality that existed as far back as DOS and continues to exist in MS Windows, Unix (well...unix other than Darwin I suppose...), and Linux...

I suppose it's Apple's "But why would you be using any other computer besides a Mac, anyway?" mentality :-/

The partition table in an MBR (Master Boot Record) boot sector can only support disk drives up to 2TB.

The partition table in a GPT (GUID Partition Table) boot sector can support disk drives up to and beyond 2TB.

So, if you have a disk greater than 2TB you cannot have Disk Utility format the boot sector as an MBR type (i.e. MBR would be grayed out). If you must have an MBR formatted disk drive you will need to purchase a 2TB or smaller disk drive.

So let me clarify this.....

I cannot partition my drive with MBR because it is over 2TB. However, the only way to use my drive is with the MBR. So it is not possible to use my 3TB disk drive with both my mac and pc. Is this correct?

Background:

Bought a PC so I could run a work program. I need to transfer my files to my PC and would prefer to use the the drive for both computers. The drive does not recognize and connect with the PC, I suppose because the files are formatted for Mac. WD suggested partitioning the drive once and formatting it using exFAT and MBR. Obviously the MBR will not work. Is there another well to format this drive for both computers?

Thanks,

Tan: You can use all 3TB. Format the partition with exFAT and it'll work with both OSX and Windows just fine.

The 2TB limit is with FAT32 (technically it can go up to 8TB but some OSs don't support it) which also (because it's 32bit) can only support files up to 4GB large. exFAT is a 64bit system and can support a volume as big as 128 petabytes and files as large as 16 exabytes (which is a lot bigger than your drive 🙂

I had the same problem. When you erase the media from Disk Utility select...

Format: MS DOS

Scheme: Master Boot Record

Click Security Options and drag the slider one to the right.

This will properly erase the media.

Im having the same problem. I want to format my USB (Kingston) to "master boot record", but you cannot change the scheme on El Capitain. there is no options, no volume . you can only select partition, but there is no option to change to master boot record. you cannot change it from scheme 'guid partition map'. you can name the partition, choose the format, thats it. on the left is a blue circle, it has a facility to change how much blue there is like a pie, but i don t know what this means.!! I want to use this USB for djing on pioneer cdjs. unless i do this apparently the usbs won t work on the pioneers. can you help. ?!!