? Formatting 1.5T
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- sea_sea
I started formatting an external hard drive last night and the darn thing is still not done! did i break it? or is this normal? i know it's a big drive. I'm not big on the tech part.. any idea? should i start over? do something else? throw it out the window? any help much appreciated. :)
btw I'm running it on a Mac Pro OS 10.4.11 dual-core Intel. and it's connected by USB 2.0 because my firewire connector is not working properly. thnx.
- GeorgesII0
just unplug the damm thing
- designbot0
Dude that's 1.5 Terabytes of space and your trying to format it over (slow) USB. I would say be patient as it can take some time. Is there an indicator as to how far done it is?
I don't have much experience formatting drives on mac, but on PC there is basically 2 options...quick format and regular format. The quick format only takes a few minutes and the regular format can takes hours sometimes.
- yeah, i tried the firewire but it doesn't work. so USB is the only way. and no indicator as to where it's at. just looks like it's still running.sea_sea
- still running.sea_sea
- I would put your ear up next to the drive...if it's doing a low level type format (secure) you will definitely be able to hear the drive cranking away.designbot
- drive grinding away.designbot
- yeah it's doing something.sea_sea
- K, I would leave it. That's a huge drive, very likely it's just formatting still.designbot
- Maybe run some checks on it when its done formatting like kvgs72 said just to be sure nothings wrong with it.designbot
- I used to fix computers btw, so I would run into this alot ;)designbot
- :) thanks. i'll just wait then.sea_sea
- acescence0
well, if you do a plain ol format, it should take seconds. if you do a low-level or secure format, it takes forever (and is pointless in most cases). secure writes zeros to every sector 8 times, which as you can imagine, takes forever.
- Does OSX have a secure format option?designbot
- secure is only necessary when you don't want anyone to recover the data that was there.acescence
- it doesacescence
- that's cool, but yes your right....if this is what sea sea did it is going to take forever...especially over USB :)designbot
- i can wait i just would hate for it to be idle and me thinking it's doing something... i can feel the gray hair sprouting.. lolsea_sea
- kgvs720
I bought a Western Digital 500GB HD about two months ago. I ran an extensive disk check and it was defective, so I went and got a new one.
I would do an extensive disk check before putting anything in that drive.
- sea_sea0
ok so what I did exactly was I went into disk utility and under Volume Format I chose: Mac OS Extended and hit erase... did i break it? lol
- Horp0
Punch it. Not hard enough to break it, but enough to send it skitting across the table.
- ribit0
that should take only a few seconds... The only one that should take a long time is if you go into Security Options and choose to write zeros and stuff over the whole drive..
You should use Mac OS Extended (Journaled), thats the default now.
- designbot0
- The way you did it, this would only come up if you clicked on the "Security Options" button.designbot
- no. it only gave me the option to "erase free space" or "erase".
of course i hit erase. 8 /sea_sea - i didn't click security options...sea_sea
- damn, 35-pass erase, the pedophile and secret agent optionacescence
- 35 pass? Might as well destroy the drive.kgvs72
- LOL! I know like what the hell is on your drive that your that concerned about it, right :)designbot
- sea_sea0
^so should i stop it. and try again by hitting security options first? i suck. thanks for the help.
- designbot0
Yeah what ribit said....if you just did a regular format it wouldn't be taking so long.
Time to start it over :) If it does the same thing again (takes ages), something might be wrong with the drive. Just to ensure you're doing a regular format...click the "Security Options" tab and make sure "Don't erase data" is selected.
Let us know what it does
- sea_sea0
ok it's started again..... and i think it's friquen DONE!! :D
- designbot0
good stuff!
well maybe run a few checks on it just to make sure it's ok, before you start loading it with your secret agent files :)
- sea_sea0
THANK YOU!! you da besss! :) lols
- raf0
Recently, when I was getting a MacBook LCD and battery replaced, I talked to a technician who turned out to be from the same country and city I was. Outside of a few good maintenance tips for me he gave the computer extra checks using diagnostic software/hardware/whatever and was able to tell that the hard drive was on its last legs, despite regular tests not showing any signs of trouble. It wasn't the original drive that came with the MacBook, so he couldn't replace it under Apple Care.
I was wondering, do you know some software that can do this kind of advanced diagnostics? It would be nice to know of hard drive problems ahead.
BTW, the drive died in a few weeks, but I had been well prepared by then.