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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Consumer Hardware & Components > External HD not formatting under Disk Utility.

External HD not formatting under Disk Utility.
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kmkkid
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Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Brantford, ON. Canada
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Aug 13, 2006, 03:59 PM
 
Hey guys,


I just bought a 300 gb external HD, and it just won't format under disk utility. DU just keeps hanging. I have formatted it successfully under windows using macdrive as HFS+, the drive is then mounted under OS X, however, when I try to add a file other than what's on the desktop, it hangs on copying. What could be wrong? Even after formatting as HFS under windows, I still can't erase the drive under OS X because DU just hangs repeatedly. Anyone have any idea what may be going on? Should I return the drive or do you guys think a new one will do the same as it'll be the exact same drive and manufacturer.


Any info would be great, thanks in advance!



Chris
     
chefpastry
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Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: New York City
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Aug 13, 2006, 06:44 PM
 
I've had the same problem with an external drive when it was connected via Firewire. When I switched to USB, it formatted fine. I have no idea why. YMMV...
     
kmkkid  (op)
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Aug 13, 2006, 06:51 PM
 
This drive is USB 2.0.
     
chefpastry
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Aug 13, 2006, 07:49 PM
 
Hmm... Sorry... In that case, I have no idea...
     
Ag3ntS
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Aug 26, 2006, 02:12 PM
 
I've got a 250 gig external USB2.0 drive that does the same thing, formats fine in windows, it even will format in OS X(if I don't do anything like zero-fill). Whenever I add data to it, however, it will get to some arbitrary point, such as 1.2 gig out of 11 or 30 megs out of 100, and then lock up the entire machine, with the only ways to recover being a manual power-down of the machine, or flipping the power switch on the drive. Called MacMall, the ones who sold it to me, and they had me boot with my OS X DVD and format from there. It sort of worked for a while, as in I was able to get my 11 gig music folder over, but now I can't get it back off without taking small chunks at a time.
     
   
 
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