I have a clickfree external HDD that I cannot format to a mac drive

[cmm]

Hello,

I am trying to format a clickfree external hard drive, but disk utility cannot do it. I even tried one partition, but it doesn't work either.

It was formerly used on Vista or XP (unsure). It includes a virtual cdrom partition that is about 300MB. No matter what I do (format or partition), I cannot get this drive clean. I want to make it an external drive for time machine backups.

Is there any way I can get rid of this virtual cdrom, and actually wipe the drive clean, so it will work 100% on a Mac (without this annoying error message that the virtual cdrom drive cannot be read on a Mac - it asks whether I want to ignore or eject).

The website is bare with facts/help about this. It says that OS X is supported, but I cannot format the damn drive.

Here is a screenshot. I just want to format the entire drive and have one partition (250GB drive) to use for backups: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8494936/Screen shot 2010-12-26 at 8.26.40 PM.png

Are there any other tools that will do this job, since Disk Utility cannot?

Thanks!

 

[mtbdudex]

I have a 2TB WD Elements HD and Disk Utility can do it.
I just did it earlier this morning.
Follow these instructions, http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=3865&p_created=1258601352&p_sid=brtU4Qik&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_srch=1&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9Niw2JnBfcHJvZHM9MjI4LDIxOSwyODkmcF9jYXRzPTEyMyZwX3B2PTMuMjg5JnBfY3Y9MS4xMjMmcF9wYWdlPTEmcF9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD1NYWNpbnRvc2g!&p_li=&p_topview=1

I assume you have intel based Mac, make sure you format it as a GUID Partition table, not Apple Partition map.

Good luck!

 

[cmm]

I have tried this, and have successfully formatted other HDDs before, but with this drive, I cannot get rid of the virtual cdrom.

Any advice?

 

[mtbdudex]

I have tried this, and have successfully formatted other HDDs before, but with this drive, I cannot get rid of the virtual cdrom.

Any advice?

I don't understand your post, what is a "virtual cdrom"?
Use grab and post a screen shot of your issue.
If you can use Disk utility and get to what I've shown it will re-format your Hard drive, so anything and everything on it will be GONE.

 

[flynz4]

I have tried this, and have successfully formatted other HDDs before, but with this drive, I cannot get rid of the virtual cdrom.

Any advice?

I have no experience with clickfree... but I did have a similar problem with a different portable drive. I cannot remember if it was WD or Seagage. I found instructions on the companies website how to remove the "virtual CD" partition. It was a PITA to do... and normal disk operations would not touch it.

I suggest that you search the clickfree site for instructions for your model of drive.

/Jim

 

[cmm]

I don't understand your post, what is a "virtual cdrom"?
Use grab and post a screen shot of your issue.
If you can use Disk utility and get to what I've shown it will re-format your Hard drive, so anything and everything on it will be GONE.

I already have posted a screenshot of what I'm talking about in the original post.

 

[cmm]

I have no experience with clickfree... but I did have a similar problem with a different portable drive. I cannot remember if it was WD or Seagage. I found instructions on the companies website how to remove the "virtual CD" partition. It was a PITA to do... and normal disk operations would not touch it.

I suggest that you search the clickfree site for instructions for your model of drive.

/Jim

Thanks -- I sent customer service an email but haven't heard back. Of what I did read on their site, there was no information on this, unfortunately.

 

[rckstwrz]

Is there any update to this? Someone just gave me a ClickFree external and the virtual CD partition is super annoying. Gotta find a way to get rid of it...

 

[Jo'Ran Films]

Update: Put It in New Enclosure

The answer was posted in a similar thread on another site; open up the enclosure (you'll void the warranty if you do, but as long as you're okay with that) and remove the SATA drive from the board. The software that runs the ClickFree partition is only active with this board. Place the drive in a new enclosure (they are relatively inexpensive) and format as you please; you should have no problems from there.