Repair disk fails

[Dhelsdon]

Hey guys and gals,

looking for some advice here. I've got a Western Digital My Passport SE 1TB drive. I use it daily to run my VM's for work, lately it's been having issues mounting.

Today I came into work and lo and behold the disk won't mount. I verified the disk, it said to repair it. I repaired the disk and it failed.

It tells me to backup the disk and format it, how am I supposed to backup a disk that won't mount?

I should mention it's got two partitions, one is FAT32 the other is my Time Machine so it's Mac OS Extended Journaled. I did this because I wanted to have the option of running my VM's in Windows if I ever needed to. Was it a mistake to use two separate formats on one disk?

If I successfully back it up, should I stick to the mac format?

I thought VMware Fusion would play nicer with FAT32 but apparently that isn't the case!

 

[Fishrrman]

"I should mention it's got two partitions, one is FAT32 the other is my Time Machine so it's Mac OS Extended Journaled. I did this because I wanted to have the option of running my VM's in Windows if I ever needed to. Was it a mistake to use two separate formats on one disk?"

I'm not a "cross-platform" user -- I don't use Windows. For a while, I thought that having a drive in "multiple formats" (i.e., FAT32 and HFS+ on the same physical drive) didn't matter.

But after seeing a number of postings by users who have experienced the same problems as yourself, I've come to the conclusion that this is not the best idea.

This is a guess (and ONLY "a guess"), but I sense that on the Mac side, Disk Utility and other Mac apps are "wise enough" to deal with multiple-format drives, BUT, on the Windows side of things, this is not the case. Thus, a Windows app, trying to "correct" a disk problem, may readily trash the part of the drive that is Mac-formatted. Try to use that drive with a Mac again, and..... you've seen the results.


"If I successfully back it up, should I stick to the mac format?"

Yup.

I'd suggest keeping your important "Mac stuff" on a _Mac-only_ formatted drive (it might be partitioned into multiple volumes, but ALL those volume partitions should be Mac-format only). If the data on the drive is important to you, I would never let that drive be "touched" by a Windows PC.

For cross-platform purposes, use a "dedicated" FAT32 drive without a Mac-formatted partition on it.

Others may reply that this is not necessary.

But why risk problems again, like the one you're having now?

 

[Dhelsdon]

Thank you for the detailed reply. I've begun backing up my drive. I finally got it to mount after 2/3 repairs. I'll not be using FAT32 anymore!

 

[GGJstudios]

Thank you for the detailed reply. I've begun backing up my drive. I finally got it to mount after 2/3 repairs. I'll not be using FAT32 anymore!

It's not a mistake to have two partitions with different formats, but FAT32 isn't a great choice. For Windows, NTFS or exFAT is better.

FAT32 (File Allocation Table)

• Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
  [*]Maximum file size: 4GB.
• Maximum volume size: 2TB
• You can use this format if you share the drive between Mac OS X and Windows computers and have no files larger than 4GB.

NTFS (Windows NT File System)

• Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
• Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
  [*]To Read/Write/Format NTFS from Mac OS X, here are some alternatives:
  • For Mac OS X 10.4 or later (32 or 64-bit), install Paragon (approx $20) (Best Choice for Lion)
  • For 32-bit Mac OS X, install NTFS-3G for Mac OS X (free) (does not work in 64-bit mode)
  • For 64-bit Snow Leopard, read this: MacFUSE for 64-bit Snow Leopard
  • Some have reported problems using Tuxera (approx $36).
  • Native NTFS support can be enabled in Snow Leopard and Lion, but is not advisable, due to instability.
• AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support NTFS
• Maximum file size: 16 TB
• Maximum volume size: 256TB
• You can use this format if you routinely share a drive with multiple Windows systems.

HFS+ (Hierarchical File System, a.k.a. Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Don't use case-sensitive)

• Read/Write HFS+ from native Mac OS X
• Required for Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! backups of Mac internal hard drive.
  [*]To Read/Write HFS+ from Windows, Install MacDrive
  [*]To Read HFS+ (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer
• Maximum file size: 8EiB
• Maximum volume size: 8EiB
• You can use this format if you only use the drive with Mac OS X, or use it for backups of your Mac OS X internal drive, or if you only share it with one Windows PC (with MacDrive installed on the PC)

exFAT (FAT64)

• Supported in Mac OS X only in 10.6.5 or later.
• Not all Windows versions support exFAT. See disadvantages.
• exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table)
• AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support exFAT
• Maximum file size: 16 EiB
• Maximum volume size: 64 ZiB
• You can use this format if it is supported by all computers with which you intend to share the drive. See "disadvantages" for details.