Reformatting external drive in Terminal

[proZak]

Hi all, I've been trying for the past day or two to try and get Windows XP onto my external hard drive which currently has nothing on it. I've been reading up on past topics here, and have found the one listed below useful. But unfortunately, I am stuck. First off, i do not know how to format my external drive as FAT32 in Terminal, like link #2 says. Secondly, I do not know if I have a partition ID and/or where i can find out what it is.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/2291889/
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/2292040/


Any help would be fantastic. Thanks.

 

[clevin]

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030613121738812

http://www.nomadig.com/journal/index.php?p=355

 

[proZak]

I tried that first link, but when I got to making the FAT32 partition, it said the last line:

Last login: Tue Apr  3 19:12:59 on ttyp1
Welcome to Darwin!
zak-douglas-computer:~ zakdouglas$ ls /dev/rdisk?
/dev/rdisk0
zak-douglas-computer:~ zakdouglas$ ls /dev/rdisk?
/dev/rdisk0     /dev/rdisk2
zak-douglas-computer:~ zakdouglas$ ls /dev/rdisk2
/dev/rdisk2
zak-douglas-computer:~ zakdouglas$ newfs_hfs -v HFS_PARTITION_THINGY /dev/rdisk2s1
newfs_hfs: /dev/disk2s1 is mounted on /Volumes/My Book
zak-douglas-computer:~ zakdouglas$  newfs_msdos -v FAT_VOLUME_NAME -F 32 /dev/rdisk2s2
newfs_msdos: FAT_VOLUME_NAME: bad volume name
zak-douglas-computer:~ zakdouglas$  newfs_msdos -v FAT_PARITION_THINGY -F 32 /dev/rdisk2s2
newfs_msdos: FAT_PARITION_THINGY: bad volume name
zak-douglas-computer:~ zakdouglas$  newfs_msdos -v FAT_VOLUME_NAME -F 32 /dev/rdisk2s2
newfs_msdos: FAT_VOLUME_NAME: bad volume name
zak-douglas-computer:~ zakdouglas$

 

[Lixivial]

A FAT32 volume name has a maximum length of 11 characters. Both of your attempted volume names are longer than that. Try just using FAT_VOLUME. If you do a man newfs_msdos you can see this, otherwise this webpage contains a web version of the same output.

-v volume-name
Volume name (filesystem name), up to 11 characters. The name should consist of only those characters permitted in regular DOS (8+3) filenames.

As a general curiosity, why are you doing this in Terminal? Disk Utility provides a pretty nice front end for this. 🙂

 

[proZak]

How would I go upon doing this in Disk Utility then?

 

[Lixivial]

Well, after reading some of the forum posts you were reading I think I understand why now. You should carry on with your other instructions, but fixing up the 11 character limit. Use something like -v WINDOWS instead of -v FAT_VOLUME_NAME

Disk Utility only has support for one Partition Scheme, and I assume you're looking to boot Windows and Mac OS X off the same drive. Nevermind, I thought you wanted a Windows boot drive with an unbootable HFS partition. 🙂

If you wanted to just boot Windows, you'd open Disk Utility, select the external drive, go to the Partition tab and go through setting all the partitions/filesystem formats (Mac OS Extended Journaled, MS-DOS Filesystem) and then click the Options... button and select Master Boot Record.

EDIT: I was just a little bit confused on what you were trying to do. Sorry.

 

[proZak]

zak-douglas-computer:~ zakdouglas$ newfs_msdos -v WINDOWS -F 32 /dev/rdisk2s2newfs_msdos: /dev/rdisk2s2: No such file or directory
zak-douglas-computer:~ zakdouglas$

No such file or directory. :/

 

[Lixivial]

Well, that means it can't find your second partition or it's not listed in the /dev directory (either it was unmounted, or unplugged or whatnot). Following the instructions clevin posted, and looking at your second post, I noticed that you didn't do:

ls /dev/rdisk2*

If the output doesn't display a rdisk2s2, then it means there isn't a second partition to format. rdisk2, as an example, is your removable hard drive, and the s# are the various partitions. There will be an rdisk2s1, this is your HFS partition, but if there is no rdisk2s2, then the command can't format it, as it doesn't exist.

 

[proZak]

Okay, well, I'm back at it, and I have backed up my Hard drive since Lix recommended I just boot Windows from my internal. He mentioned that I'd need to maybe delete some stuff and make more room on my internal in order for this (click4photo) to stop happening. Well, I made ALOT more space and it is still displaying that message. I need help, please!