Trying to reformat my Seagate external HD

Question

Level 1

4 points

Trying to reformat my Seagate external HD

Question:

Why am I unable to erase and reformat my external HD?

Trigger of issue:

I use my HD to store pictures, documents, and videos. When I first got it about 1-1.5 years ago, I had no problem dragging files straight into my HD (all of this was being done on the same iMac). But when I tried to add some files today, it wouldn't let me.

I read in another forum about the file systems and confirmed that my HD is NTFS. The forum suggested that I erase and format my HD as ExFAT. When I tried to do that in Disk Utility, I get an error- "Erase process has failed" and the details underneath says "Unmounting disk...MediaKit reports no such partition...operation failed"

Possible Solution:

So would it be correct to create a partition in Disk Utilities > Internal Macintosh HD? I see the pie chart with the ➕ button. What would I use as the format? ExFAT?

Thanks in advance for your help.

iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013), macOS High Sierra (10.13.6)

Posted on Aug 28, 2018 2:05 PM

Reply

Answer 1

macuser96814 Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 28, 2018 3:57 PM in response to dialabrain

Awesome, it works! I downloaded the NFTS driver and restarted my Mac. I am now able to delete and add more files.

Question-

What does the driver actually do? I'm glad it was working but I'd like to understand why it's working now. I even plugged my external HD into my MacBook Air and it works on there too, now.

Reply

Answer 2

dialabrain

Level 10

136,535 points

Aug 28, 2018 2:43 PM in response to macuser96814

First, if you try to format the drive it will erase everything that is already on it. If it is still formatted as NTFS, try the latest NTFS driver from Seagate… https://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/item/ntfs-driver-for-mac-os-master-dl/

If that doesn't work you would have to purchase an NTFS driver from Paragon or Tuxera.

Or, copy anything that's on the NTFS drive to another drrive and reformat the drive as HFS+

Reply

Answer 3

macuser96814 Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 28, 2018 3:56 PM in response to macuser96814

Awesome, it works! I downloaded the NFTS driver and restarted my Mac. I am now able to delete and add more files.

Question-

What does the driver actually do? I'm glad it was working but I'd like to understand why it's working now. I even plugged my external HD into my MacBook Air and it works on there too, now.

Reply