View original (French)

Prob effacement disque externe

Solved
Yanber -  
 Frank white -
Hello everyone,

I’m taking the plunge… I’m migrating to Mac. So I bought an iMac 24 yesterday (Mac OS X 10.5.6 version for now). Until now, I was using PCs equipped with Windows XP (SP2 and 3).

I have an external hard drive formatted back then as NTFS under Windows. I connected it to the Mac; it mounts correctly on the desktop, I was able to copy its contents to the Mac, then I wanted to erase it and format it to FAT32 to continue using it on both platforms.

When I started erasing, I got an error message indicating an input-output error, and the erasing could not be completed.

But the problem is that the disk no longer mounts on the desktop, and on the PC, when I connect it (USB 2.0), I can see the connection of a new device, but no disk appears in the Windows Explorer. When I display the list of devices to remove, I can view its properties, and there I see that in fact the volume is not formatted. But since it doesn’t appear in Windows Explorer, I can’t format it either.

Does anyone have an idea to propose? I’m stuck here.

Thank you and have a good day

Yan

Configuration: Mac OS X 10.5.6 Safari 525.27.1

6 answers

  1.
    _Ritchi_ Posted messages 21130 Registration date   Status Contributor Last intervention   6 135
     
    From "Applications / Utilities / Disk Utility": can you see it? If yes, then format it first Mac OS Extended, then have it checked, then format it FAT32 if you really insist, because you can also:
    - split it in two: Mac OS X on one side and NTFS on the other.
    - format NTFS from a PC and buy a utility like Paragon NTFS for Mac
    - format Mac OS and buy then install on PCs where you’ll connect it MacDrive
    - implement a free solution explained here
    Personally I chose solution 1 at home and 2 at the office (after buying a hard drive from MacWay, the MacDrive software was provided for free).

    Back to your invisible hard drive: if the 1st method yields nothing, let's try this:
    From the administrator session on your Mac:
    1- connect your USB drive
    2- launch the utility "Applications / Utilities / Terminal"
    3- in the window that appears (Terminal window), type the command "sudo diskutil list" (without quotes, of course). You will be prompted for the administrator password.

    Is your external drive listed in the response to this command?

    Ritchi
    0
    1. Yanber
       
      Hi Ritchi, and first of all, big thanks for your reply. I tried your first method, I can indeed see the disk in Disk Utility, but when I try to format it in any format (Fat32, Mac OS, etc.), I get the same input-output error message. When I connect the disk "hot" I get an error message saying that the disk I inserted is not readable by this computer, I have the choice to Initialize (which opens Disk Utility), Ignore, or Eject. Disk Utility cannot resolve the problem as explained above. I then tried your method 2, and I got this response in the Terminal window: /dev/disk0 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *596.2 Gi disk0 1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk0s1 2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 595.9 Gi disk0s2 /dev/disk1 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: *465.8 Gi disk1 Disk 0 is clearly my main disk, disk1 is the external drive that’s keeping me up at night ;-) What do you think? Thanks in advance and have a good day Yanick
      0
  2. _Ritchi_ Posted messages 21130 Registration date   Status Contributor Last intervention   6 135
     
    Hello,
    Can you copy exactly the error message that the Mac displays?

    Thank you
    Ritchi
    0
  3. Yanber
     
    Good evening,

    here is the error message when connecting to the disk in hotplug: "The disk you inserted is not readable by this computer" and I have options: Initialize... Ignore or Eject

    When I go to Disk Utility and try to erase it with any format (Mac OS or Dos), I get this error message: "Disk erase failed (bold and title) Disk erase failed. Error: Input/output error"

    Seriously, it reminds me a bit of Windows messages when it says "an unexpected error has occurred"

    Do you have any idea?

    Thank you and have a good evening

    Yan
    0
  4. _Ritchi_ Posted messages 21130 Registration date   Status Contributor Last intervention   6 135
     
    Have you requested a zeroing of the hard drive?
    Personally, I don’t do it because it takes a long time. From Disk Utility, rather request a partitioning into 2 or 3 partitions of the disk and, in a second step, partition it into a single partition.
    Read on US forums:
    Some people have managed by starting Mac on the Tiger DVD and, instead of launching the Tiger installation, they launched Disk Utility from the menu bar to format the external disk.

    Read on a French forum:
    - One guy had two external disks, one of which had exactly the same problem as yours. He opened the two casings and swapped the hard drives. The formatting then went smoothly. The problem thus came from the enclosure.
    - Another one succeeded by connecting his external disk via FireWire.

    Read a recipe on MacBidouille: in their case, it’s the hard drive of an iPod that’s the problem, but it’s essentially the same. Note that it’s high level stuff and for you it apparently is /dev/disk1

    Another more precise tutorial and you can contact the author for more details: Partition a disk with pdisk

    Ritchi
    0
  6. Yanber
     
    Hello!

    I tried applying one of the methods you suggested; in fact I swapped the disk into another enclosure, then started the erasure and... bingo!!! The disk was formatted as if nothing happened. I then put the disk back into its original enclosure, and now it’s fully functioning in that enclosure as well. No idea why! But ultimately the most important thing is that I recovered my disk... thanks to you!

    A big thank you!

    Yan
    0
  7. Frank white
     
    Hello everyone,

    I know this topic isn’t fresh but I’m in the same situation as you Yanber when I plug in my WD hard drive of 300G on my MacBook Pro 10.5.8 I get the following message: "The disk you inserted is not readable by this computer". I can’t erase anything on Disk Utility, the following message appears: "The disc drive failed Input/output error".
    Finally when I type the command "sudo diskutil list" in Terminal, here’s what appears:

    /dev/disk0
    #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
    0: GUID_partition_scheme *232.9 Gi disk0
    1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk0s1
    2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 232.6 Gi disk0s2
    /dev/disk1
    #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
    0: *2.0 Ti disk1

    It seems to me that the disk1 partition prevents my hard drive from being read correctly, I wanted to know by what means I could delete this partition, I’m desperate.

    A big thank you
    0
    1. _Ritchi_ Posted messages 21130 Registration date   Status Contributor Last intervention   6 135
       
      Hello Frank White,

      My question is: on what type of computer was this hard drive created and used?

      Ritchi
      0
    2. Frank white
       
      Hi _Ritchi_,
      the hard drive in question has been used
      on my MacBook Pro running version 10.5.8
      Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
      Memory 2 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
      0
    3. Frank white
       
      The hard drive on my Mac is initially 250GB; I think it’s "Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 232.6 Gi", the problem comes from disk1, which refers to a 2TB partition, while my external hard drive is 300GB.
      0
    4. _Ritchi_ Posted messages 21130 Registration date   Status Contributor Last intervention   6 135
       
      If you do not want to keep the contents of this external drive, you can always connect it to a PC that should be able to format it in NTFS or FAT32.
      0
    5. Frank white
       
      Thank you very much _Ritchi_,

      But if I can't manage it on Mac with the Disk Utility or with Data Rescue (which estimates the deep scan time at 5 years), do you think it could work on PC?
      0