External Lacie 2GB HD won't mount or erase

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External Lacie 2GB HD won't mount or erase

My external Lacie 2 GB HD will not mount, nor will it erase.

I tried to set it up for my old Mac years ago and it failed; I didn't have a lot of time to mess around with it, so I gave up and put it away.

Now I have a new Mac and would like to use this drive for Time Machine.

I have no files on it, but it appears to have another disk on it that using all of the space.

When I attempt to erase the "St2000…" or the "Untitled", the erase fails every time.

Any solutions?

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015), iOS 9.3.1

Posted on Apr 21, 2016 4:03 PM

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Answer 1

Apr 21, 2016 4:16 PM in response to CynicalKiddo

Select the drive (not the volume indented below) in the Disk Utility sidebar, like in the first screenshot. What happens (in more detail), when you click the Erase button, and try to erase (reformat) it? How does the Erase fail?

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Answer 2

CynicalKiddo Author

Level 1

9 points

Apr 21, 2016 4:35 PM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

Hi Kenichi,

Here are screenshots of the error message I receive. The very last line, not seen in the shots, say "Failure…"

Here is the fail

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Answer 3

Apr 21, 2016 4:52 PM in response to CynicalKiddo

Where is says "Resource busy" may be relevant. It can't actually be "busy" because it looks like the current volume is not even mounted.

Instead of selecting the drive in the sidebar, can you show me what happens when you select the volume (indented below the drive) and try do an Erase on the volume?

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Answer 4

CynicalKiddo Author

Level 1

9 points

Apr 21, 2016 5:01 PM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

This is the error message for the volume:

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Answer 5

CynicalKiddo Author

Level 1

9 points

Apr 21, 2016 5:04 PM in response to CynicalKiddo

The forum won't let me post the second screenshot. It reads:

262934528): Resource busy

newsfs_hfs: write (sector 513544): Invalid argument

Mount disk

Could not mount disk3s2 with name (null) after erase

File system formatter failed.

Operation failed…

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Answer 6

Apr 21, 2016 8:58 PM in response to CynicalKiddo

Interesting that the volume is now name "Time Machine" (before doing an Erase on it) even though the previous Erase (with the drive selected in sidebar) was not successful. Before that, it was named "Untitled."

It seems Disk Utility its not able to write data to a critical part of the drive's media. Since this problem was present when you used this drive with your older Mac, it may be hardware problem on the hard drive. The drive appears to get passed setting up the partition scheme (with one volume/partition), but fails while formatting the volume.

With the drive selected in sidebar, are you able to click on Partition, instead of Erase? If you can show the Partition setup pane, try creating two partitions (volumes) on the drive. If you can, make the first partition smaller and the second partition (the one just added) larger. Apply the new partition scheme. Does it still error out? Do you end up with two corrupted volumes that are not mountable?

Some the other things, if you have not already... Try using a different USB cable, to rule out faulty cable as the cause. Make sure it is rated for the speed of the drive. So, if the drive is USB 3.0, the cable needs to be rated for USB 3.0. If the drive is USB 2.0, don't use an old USB 1.1 cable. If you're using a USB hub, try a direct connection to the Mac's USB port. Try more than one USB port on the Mac. It's also possible for the hard drive mechanism to be OK, and the enclosure to be faulty. If you can't get it working, you may want to test the hard drive mechanism in a different enclose, or get a USB adapter like this one

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/U3NVSPATA/

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