External Hard Drive wont format

[Mastamarek]

So I bought a new Iomega external HD today. Hooked it up, it was already formated to NTFS so I wanted to convert it to macos journaled and the disk utility wont let me do it!! It starts to format and then it says that an error occurred and it quits. !?? The only format that works is zero-out the whole HD, but its a 1Tb HD so it will take like 14h according to the disk utility and I dont have that much time. What should I do? are there any other programs for mac that can format HDs?
thx in advance
Marek

 

[Mastamarek]

Also i can format the drive to fat, but it wont allow me to format to any mac type file format what to do?

 

[dr. shdw]

Did you redo the partition? Make sure it's GUID if Intel, Apple Part. if PPC.

 

[madog]

It's probably set up as a Master Boot Record volume map which can only then be formatted to NTFS/FAT (MS-DOS). Strange I've typed this three time for three different posts tonight...

Do not just go to the Erase tab in Disk Utility but rather head over next to it in the Partition tab. You'll have to have the drive selected as opposed to the volume in order for this (select the one that says something like IOMEGA KJH798 and not the one below it).

When you change the Volume Scheme pull down menu to 1 partition (or whatever), it will unlock the rest of the options in the window, and allow you to change the partition map scheme (through the Options button at the bottom) to GUID or Apple Partition (GUID if you have Intel, other if PPC, it gives you a description). Select the option for your machine (either will work, as it only affects bootable drives, external or otherwise) and then hit OK. Then head over to the Format pull down menu on the right side and select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and then click apply at the bottom. This should correctly format your drive (Mac only in this case) to use properly with your machine if something isn't wrong with it.

 

[Mastamarek]

Did you redo the partition? Make sure it's GUID if Intel, Apple Part. if PPC.

Thank u. It Worked, I was setting my partition wrong. Now its up and running

 

[GraphicsGeek]

Just had this happen with 2 1TB Seagate hard external drives. I thought it was the first drive I brought home because my other 1TB formatted fine using Disk Utility. But my first 2nd 1TB drive didnt. So I bought another, thinking it was the hard drive, and it didnt work either. But the above post also worked perfectly for me. Proof the search function does work!