So I'm trying to return my external hard drive to one single volume. I currently have two volumes on the external drive. But for some reason I cannot remove one of the volumes. I did an online search and followed the steps yet I still cannot remove the volume. See screen shots below. Is there perhaps a step I missed?
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Unable to remove a partition from my external drive (High Sierra)
- Thread starter bigpoppamac31
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You can return that device to one volume by erasing the device.
Back out of Partition, and choose the Erase tab. Choose the device (HGST HTS 721010A9E630 media), then Erase. It will all be gone in a moment, resulting in a single partition.
If you don't see the Device line, click on the View icon, then choose "Show all Devices"
Back out of Partition, and choose the Erase tab. Choose the device (HGST HTS 721010A9E630 media), then Erase. It will all be gone in a moment, resulting in a single partition.
If you don't see the Device line, click on the View icon, then choose "Show all Devices"
I cannot choose the Erase tab unless I select one of the volumes. Also when I have my internal drive selected it says to the right "shared by 4 volumes". Which 4 would that be?
Click on the "View" icon (top left corner of that DU window), and then select "Show All Volumes"
NOW, what do you see?
You should then see the device, which is your hard drive (not just the volumes on that drive)
Select the device line, then Erase will work, erasing all volumes on your internal drive.
(Looks like that's your backup for your internal drive... Are you OK with erasing your backup? I guess I am asking if you keep a second backup - a backup for that backup ... )
NOW, what do you see?
You should then see the device, which is your hard drive (not just the volumes on that drive)
Select the device line, then Erase will work, erasing all volumes on your internal drive.
(Looks like that's your backup for your internal drive... Are you OK with erasing your backup? I guess I am asking if you keep a second backup - a backup for that backup ... )
Last edited:
Yes it worked. Thank you very much. Yes this is my only backup drive. I do not have another one. My reason for resetting the backup drive is that I recently put a 1TB SSD into my 2015 MBP so I wanted to again have my external drive as a single 1TB drive. I have my backup drive as a clone of my internal drive via Carbon Copy Cloner.
