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changing network hard drive from fat32 to apple extended

I

ibook4a

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 25, 2006
58
0
UK
Hi,

I have an Iomega StorCenter network hard drive(500GB) which i would like to use to backup my iBook G4, however, it comes formatted in fat32 so i would like to change it to apple extended format. Does anyone know how i could do this? I can connect to the hard drive with no problems but the drive does not show up in disk utility - not sure if thats normal or not.

I guess i should probably mention that i'm running 10.4.8

Thanks :)
 
yes thats right. Heres a screenshot of disk utility when its mounted.

278999346_f07401d896.jpg


I can change some settings by putting its ip address into safari - 192.168.2.12 but that does not let me change the format of the drive. I also know its possible to change the format from fat32 to NTFS by using a windows computer.

Thanks for the reply
 
no i dont think so. There are 2 usb ports at the back but i'm pretty confident they're just for connecting printers.
 
Interesting... Well try connecting one to the USB port on your Mac (unless the manual says not to) all the same. I can't think how to format a network drive. I imagine it's possible via Terminal, but I'm not capable enough to know. I'll have a look 'round just in case the USB ports don't work. :)
 
ok, apparently it can not be connected through usb. The usb ports are dedicated to furthur storage devices and also act as a print server (which i can't get to work either but never mind :confused: ) I don't have the appropiate cable anyway. I tried hooking it up directly to my mac through an ethernet port but didnt get any results doing that either.
 
Okay, well a quick look around the Iomega site brought me here, where they tell us to reformat the drive via Accessing The Device Settings using the Iomega Discovery Tool that came on the CD. I have no idea if this will give you the option to format as HFS+ though. :eek:
 
These are the options it gives. Doesnt mention the actual file format though.....anywhere.


279036251_70686e56d3.jpg
 
Okay, sorry, I dunno how to do it. When you mentioned that Windows can reformat it as NTFS, how exactly does that happen? I guess it's not through this same method. :)
 
A NAS device is not just a drive. It is a computer. The available filesystems are determined the the capabilities of the computer in the NAS box. From what I can see, that particular box only has full support for FAT32. It will mount NTFS filesystems on USB drives as read-only (absolutely no connection to the NTFS limitations of OSX).

FWIW, you're never going to find a NAS device with HFS/HFS+ filesystem support. The closest you'll get is a NAS that supports NTFS (read/write) or EXT3. Or buy an old gigabit G4 and use it as a fileserver.
 
What JTown says. ^^

The network drive is really a little Linux server with its own OS and disk format. You cannot change this. Attempting to may ^&(& things up.

If you don't like the limitations of the disk formatting and SMB networking, then a NAS drive is not for you. Buy a MacMini as a server and hang a drive off of it. The ONLY way you get HFS+ and full AFP support is if your server is a Mac.
 
jtown said:
A NAS device is not just a drive. It is a computer. The available filesystems are determined the the capabilities of the computer in the NAS box. From what I can see, that particular box only has full support for FAT32. It will mount NTFS filesystems on USB drives as read-only (absolutely no connection to the NTFS limitations of OSX).

FWIW, you're never going to find a NAS device with HFS/HFS+ filesystem support. The closest you'll get is a NAS that supports NTFS (read/write) or EXT3. Or buy an old gigabit G4 and use it as a fileserver.
Click to expand...

CanadaRAM said:
What JTown says. ^^

The network drive is really a little Linux server with its own OS and disk format. You cannot change this. Attempting to may ^&(& things up.

If you don't like the limitations of the disk formatting and SMB networking, then a NAS drive is not for you. Buy a MacMini as a server and hang a drive off of it. The ONLY way you get HFS+ and full AFP support is if your server is a Mac.
Click to expand...


oh ok then, thats a shame - i regret buying it now :(
i appreciate your help anyway :)
 
CanadaRAM said:
If you don't like the limitations of the disk formatting and SMB networking, then a NAS drive is not for you. Buy a MacMini as a server and hang a drive off of it. The ONLY way you get HFS+ and full AFP support is if your server is a Mac.
Click to expand...

Linux boxes running Netatalk or similar software can offer full AFP support as well. I've got a Fedora Core 5 box doing exactly this. When it's a network drive, the actual disk format doesn't matter so much - it's the network protocol that matters. When I run a backup, the Fedora box copies both the data fork and the Resource fork by writing two different files (e.g. file joe.txt and ._joe.txt; note that you'd only know this if you logged directly into the Fedora box). The Mac thinks it's a HFS+ volume on the network, but the actual disk is formatted ext3.
 
NavyWings said:
Also, since the drive is a FAT32 greater than 128GB, OSX will not mount it directly. You'll need to work around it to get it up and running, but after it's formatted HFS, it'll work fine. Try this link as well:

https://iomega-na-en.custhelp.com/c...earch_text=&p_faqid=1478&p_created=1072727236
Click to expand...

No, I think you have a misconception here.
We are talking about a network attached storage device, not a hard disk. This link is instructions for formatting a direct-attached Firewire or USB hard disk.

With a network attached storage device, the Mac communicates with the device as a server, USUALLY via SMB, not as a hard disk. The hard disk format of the drive within the device is determined by the OS in the device. The server OS of the device may provide an emulation of Apple filing systems, however that may also be buggy (prior experience here)
 
NavyWings said:
Iomega 250 Storcenter does support HFS. Try this link:

https://iomega-na-en.custhelp.com/c...mwyPTk4OSZwX2NhdF9sdmwxPTczJnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=
Click to expand...

No and no (to your other post).

The Mac OS X software is just for device discovery - it is not a disk formatter.

The Iomega will not format as HFS.

I'm not sure if it can be formatted as NTFS - if it can, then that's the format you should choose. It goes without saying that you should back up your data as everything on it will go of course :D
 
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