| 3 CarlaMac, on Wednesday May 21, 2008 09:57:55 PMI had the same problem with the Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB External Drive that I bought. It kept failing when I tried to reformat it for my Mac as Mac Extended (journaled). I was ready to return the drive because it was so frustrating!
I called WD customer support and they walked me through it over the phone:
This is what worked perfectly:
Use the Apple Disk utility software that comes with your Mac.
PARTITION your Mac as 1 Partition and while you are in that same window, SELECT OPTIONS.
THIS IS THE KEY: There are 3 radio buttons in the popup window for formatting options. The drive was preset as the bottom button PC formatting and you have to chose the middle button which is for Mac.
Click apply and finish formatting your drive. Works perfectly.
One other thing, it is a good idea not to have any applications running when you format the drive.
Hope this helps. | 5 emurphy, on Monday May 26, 2008 05:35:09 PMI want to say THANK YOU for posting how to format a WD 1TB drive for a Mac. I've spent an hour going crazy. And your steps worked perfectly. :) |
| 6 sergam, on Thursday May 29, 2008 05:07:21 PMThanks a lot, i was loosing my head until i read your post!!!! |
| 10 fraser, on Saturday June 7, 2008 04:50:42 AMYou rock! Thank you for posting these steps. I was pulling out my hair! |
| 15 richelieu, on Wednesday June 18, 2008 06:45:18 AMI was close to returning the drive. Thanks a lot! |
| 16 Kev, on Monday June 23, 2008 02:50:27 AMYou're awesome! I actually returned a drive, bought another one, and had the same problem. |
| 17 thank you so much!, on Tuesday June 24, 2008 05:53:54 PMI found this on a Google search. Thank you so much for this info. Of course, it works perfectly as others have stated.
Matt |
| 23 Casual User, on Wednesday July 9, 2008 01:44:03 PMCarlaMarc,
I would like to join the othes and thank you for those instructions. I too just got a My Book and was frustrated as I was unable to format it using disk utility. The options setting was what I was missing.
Regards
Nic |
| 26 JD, on Thursday July 17, 2008 07:27:26 AMWow! You saved my ass on this one.
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
JD |
| 27 Silvertooth, on Thursday July 17, 2008 03:17:02 PMHey - you're a life saver (not like the candy)
Thanks for these steps! I was struggling with it myself too.
Appreciate you sharing!
Just a note - when I called Mac support, they told me to choose the top (GUID)
I don't know what kind of difference it makes, but I never would have found it without you!
Cheers! |
| 29 Fretbuzz, on Wednesday July 23, 2008 07:57:55 PMI have to thank you! I was just about to return this drive when I came across your post. THANKS! |
| 30 brage, on Friday July 25, 2008 05:26:30 PMCheer mate, works like a charm! |
| I'm just sign up to the forum to say thanks. Your help is very appreciated and it works good! Thanks a lot |
| 37 RideAHarley, on Saturday September 27, 2008 12:39:58 AMWant to add my thanks to the others on the forum - saved me a lot of time - well done. |
| 45 Jonas, on Thursday November 6, 2008 12:21:57 PMHere you go, yet another thank you! :D |
| 50 waveshredder, on Monday November 24, 2008 04:29:12 AMTo Carlamac,
thank you, thank you thank you,
As all have said before, thank you. After reading all rel: FAQ on WD site pointing at disk utility, again and again, and emailing WD, who pointed me back to disk utility, full stop. no other instruction? I took mine back to Magnum Mac here in NZ. They also didn't know after both of us re google-ing found your answer, I know we are in a download everything world, and should get lastest updates, but an install disk included with the drive AND INSTRUCTIONS could help, after all these HD aren't cheap.
Clearly a few people have had an issue with this. Forwarded to WD email help desk also.
Thanks again. |
| 53 Tommy, on Friday December 12, 2008 10:36:30 AMCarla, I could kiss you .. Cheers Tommy |
| 57 khadije, on Wednesday December 24, 2008 08:43:29 AMHi
i had problem with hard and ur guide was perfect
very very very thank u |
| 65 Scott, on Wednesday December 31, 2008 03:22:33 AMThanks so much for posting this response -- worked like a charm!! |
| 68 jimmybivona, on Wednesday January 7, 2009 09:28:18 AMThis was your post. I have a comment:
I got similar help but for Time Machine: some of my folders were case sensitive so the format had to be Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, journaled). Of course it didn't tell me that. I had to stumble on the solution after I did a total format. My MBP chose this on its own even tho I had selected plain journaled. And the drive must be virgin. And TM will still erase the drive before it begins. Picky, ain't it.
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CarlaMac, on Wednesday May 21, 2008 09:57:55 PM
I had the same problem with the Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB External Drive that I bought. It kept failing when I tried to reformat it for my Mac as Mac Extended (journaled). I was ready to return the drive because it was so frustrating!
I called WD customer support and they walked me through it over the phone:
This is what worked perfectly:
Use the Apple Disk utility software that comes with your Mac.
PARTITION your Mac as 1 Partition and while you are in that same window, SELECT OPTIONS.
THIS IS THE KEY: There are 3 radio buttons in the popup window for formatting options. The drive was preset as the bottom button PC formatting and you have to chose the middle button which is for Mac.
Click apply and finish formatting your drive. Works perfectly.
One other thing, it is a good idea not to have any applications running when you format the drive.
Hope this helps.) |
| 71 bryan4134, on Monday January 12, 2009 08:21:48 PMMany many thanks - was also going crzay!! |
| 74 grrrr, on Thursday January 15, 2009 03:28:53 AMSame as all the above posters - thank you so much. I found your answer through Google and am very relieved. |
| 88 danielx, on Thursday March 5, 2009 02:16:10 PMThank you very much, it worked perfectly. Bless you :)))))) |
| 91 krbristol, on Thursday March 12, 2009 03:56:27 PMMany thanks
I was going bananas over the same problem. Even my one to one Mac man couldn't work it out
Keith |
| 95 BILL, on Wednesday March 25, 2009 05:08:19 PMThanks, your suggestion worked perfectly. I actually took the WD drive I bought back to best buy thinking it was defective as I have reformatted WD drives in the past for Mac and it had worked fine. But with these 640 GB drives I wasn't getting anywhere. I googled for some ideas and your advice has helped me to properly format my 2nd WD hard drive for Mac OS. Thanks again. |
| 96 Steve, on Thursday March 26, 2009 12:26:38 PMIt worked!
Thank You, Thank You, Thank You, I thought I was going to loose my mind. |
| 98 xttom, on Friday April 3, 2009 08:36:07 AMThanx carla... u really saved my ass... :) Was goin nuts over this issue.. well, i selected the GUID partition option. I guess the difference is that u con also install Mac OS X, so that the system can boot form this drive with a GUID partition. |
| 99 Gator, on Friday April 10, 2009 02:22:18 AMThe steps to resolve this are not working for me. The drive works fine on my new imac with 10.5 OS, but on my 10.4.11 when I try these steps to reformat (because its not recognized) I get an input/output error when I press partition.
Any ideas? |
| 100 Cloud, on Tuesday April 14, 2009 01:47:46 AMThanks so much for this. Saved me hours. |
| 102 NilsRensen.com, on Tuesday April 14, 2009 03:53:07 PMTHANK YOU VERY MUCH
I'm in the middle of a production, lots of stress for the producers. Needed a backup instantly. |
| 109 d man, on Saturday May 23, 2009 01:06:12 AMThis worked perfectly. I have the same frusteration, and thanks to your post got to the answer quickly. |
| 110 enceph, on Saturday June 6, 2009 06:33:24 AMDitto on the SimpleTech [Re]Drive 1TB. . . THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! |
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