Mac gurus Help!! HD initialise problem

[Mike F]

just wondered if you've come across this one before:

I have an external firewire drive hooked up to the G4. I buy seagate barracuda's to back up onto.

This time, I put a brand new 40Gb disk in. I get the usual message: "..disk unreadable. do you want to initialise...?

my format options say
"Mac OS standard 127.9Gb"
"Mac OS extended 127.9Gb"
"DOS 127.9Gb"

Question 1: the disk is 40Gb, why does it say 127.9Gb ??

When I choose Mac extended (or standard) & I get "initialisation failed"

Fearing a faulty disk, I took it back to the shop where they ran a test on it which showed all OK

In desperation, I went through the process using "DOS format" The disk initialised, appeared on the desktop as a 64Gb (!!??) drive. I was able to copy data to & from it, all seems ok. Strangely, under mac utilities, it doesn't recognise the disk, but it's there on the desktop!

Any idea what's going on here??

PS I have just bought another new HD, & am faced with exactly the same scenario.
Thanks in advance,
Mike

[Rey Mo]

That's a strange one. I don't know if it'll work, but I'd try booting with a Mac OS CD and using the Disk Utility (OS X) or Drive Setup on the disk.

What OS are you using?

[Mike F]

sorry, I forgot to mention. I'm on OS 9 [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img]

[linpaws]

Hello Mike,

Maybe this helps: (copied from apple support)

If your hard disk is not an Apple hard disk:
Use the disk utility software provided by the disk's manufacturer instead of Drive Setup.

If you want to initialize your startup disk:
Start up your computer from the system software CD. Open Drive Setup, select the startup disk, and click Initialize.

If initialization fails:
Open the Functions menu and choose Initialization Options. Click the "Low level format" and "Zero all data" checkboxes to select them. Then try initializing the disk again.

If initialization fails a second time:
Test your hard disk for physical damage.

p.s. no mac-guru, rather a search-guru

[soundboy69]

I have a feeling this is a "low-level" format issue. Although I'm curious. Digi says to format using Apple's "Disk Utility"...interesting to see if it'll run sessions or PT...

[Mike F]

after no success with apple utilities, I got onto the seagate web site. One of their recomendations was to try other mac utilities software. I have Nortons, but nowhere does it make reference to initialise or formatting hard drives, although Nortons does see the disk as an unmounted drive.

Am I right in saying Nortons has no format function?? (I would have thought that a fairly obvious & basic utility!)

What other formatting software is out there?

[Mike F]

ah ...problem solved, by connecting the drive up internally. Initialised no problem. Back into the firewire drive & all is sweet again.

Still curious as to why it didn't want to initialise via the firewire box - I've been able to do this before.