"Hard drive" is not an audio playback engine, even tho...!

[Stoofex]

Hello!
I have researched for an hour around here at DUC and other places. Tho i know many others have the same problem i can't see why i am getting this.

I just bought a new Mac pro;

2,8 GHz quad-Core Intel Xeon
6 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 - ram
Version 10.6.6
Running Pro tools 8.0.4.

Macintosh HD - 1TB OS HD where i have Pro tools and East West Quantum Leap Complete Composer's Edition installed.
Western Digital Caviar Black Internal HD - Was shipped from "Soundsonline.com" with Complete Composer's edition on (778 GB).
Western Digital Caviar Black Internal HD - Which is totally clean.

Problem:
I want to use the clean HD to run my projects on, but when i try to save at the HD i get ""HD" is not an audio playback engine."

I have selected "R,record" on A and V for that HD.

My Pro tools is freshly installed and updated (today), and i just installed the East west quantum leap pack.

I have reformatted the HD to both journaled and not journaled, none did work. I have repaired the Disk permissions to my Macintosh Drive.

What to do? Should i reinstall my Pro tools again?

Would be great if any genius could answer!

[Eric Seaberg]

When you initialize/format how are you doing that? I've discovered that Disk Utility sets its own preferences. You should confirm the erase/format settings.

Give me more info, please. What are you doing? Are you checking GUID or Apple Partition Map settings?

[Stoofex]

When i format i do the following;
I go to Disk Utility, select the hard drive, click on the Erase tab. Set the format to Mac OS extended (Journaled) and then press erase. That's the way i thought i was suppose to format the hard drive.

I believe I am not checking the GUID or Apple Partition Map settings since i don't know what any of those are.

I am not really doing anything other than that.

[Park Seward]

From Digi:

If you are receiving any errors regarding drives not being suitable for playback or not being an audio record volume, try the following:

In Pro Tools, go to the Windows menu and select 'Show Workspace'. In the Workspace window you will see a list of your drives on the left and to the right of each drive will be an 'A'(for Audio) and a 'V'(for Video) column. Under the 'A' column next to your drive it will probably have a 'T'(for Transfer) or 'P'(for Playback) - click on the 'T' or 'P' and, from the drop down list, choose 'Record'.

You should now be able to open, play and record in your session as normal.

If you're drive will not change to a Record volume, you may need to reformat the drive.

On Mac OSX - use the Disk Utility to reformat the drive as Mac OS Extended.

[Eric Seaberg]

Park, he's done everything you suggested, and it doesn't work.

I've had issues with GUID or APM partitioning. The way you change it is:

Open Disk Utility. Click on the heading of the drive, NOT the name you've called it. This is the PRIMARY name of the drive and would most likely be WDxxxxx (for the Western Digital drive). Once that is highlighted, click on the PARTITION tab. In the top left corner is a pull-down menu under VOLUME SCHEME. Pull down to ONE VOLUME (I'm typing this from memory, sorry).

Setting the name and size should be obvious, but at the bottom of the screen is a button labeled OPTIONS. This is where you select between GUID or APM settings.

[Stoofex]

Great, that made it! I went in to the primary name of the Hard Drive and made one partition of Mac OSX Journaled and now it works perfectly!
I really appreciate your help Eric.

[Park Seward]

Did you do the Guid partition table?

[Eric Seaberg]

I would guess not... that's been my experience. I have had trouble for a long time using GUID on audio drives, regardless of what Apple may say. Apple Partition has always worked for me.

[Stoofex]

Yes, on options i selected GUID Partition Table.