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Mac drive formatting issue

  • 02-12-2015 5:16pm
    #1
    Effects
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,760 ✭✭✭


    Hey, I'm having a bit of trouble formatting a drive on a mac. It's a 4TB Western Digital Mybook. When I have it connected to disk utility it seems to only let me format it in a number of mac ways and not NTFS or Fat32.
    Trying to format it to back up from a Netgear Ready Nas. The ReadyNas doesn't recognise any of the mac formats so won't work for me.
    Anyone have any ideas that might help. At my wits end.

    ZTWCnAx.png


Comments

  • #2
    Doodah7
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,799 ✭✭✭Doodah7


    Did you try formatting to Mac first and then reformatting it to NTFS?


  • #3
    ZENER
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,163 ✭✭✭ZENER


    Most NAS units run a version of Linux and usually format any installed drives to EXT3 or EXT4.

    You don't mention which model of ReadyNAS you own but most of them have a USB port, try connecting it to that and use the control page to format the drive. The problem with this is that the drive will be unusable on any OS other than Linux without some 3rd party Filesystem extensions.

    There are some 3rd party NTFS plugins for Mac OS X but any I've tried have been unreliable.

    Edit: If you want to backup the NAS then you could format the drive to MacOS and then simply copy the files on the NAS over the network to the new drive.

    Ken


  • #4
    Effects
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,760 ✭✭✭Effects


    I'm running a RaeadyNAS NV+ V1. Trying to back the data up so I can upgrade. Copy over the network gives me 12 hours for 200GB of data and I've 2TB altogether to copy. Seems a bit long.
    Going to try a mac format again and then see if it will let me NTFS.


  • #5
    Effects
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,760 ✭✭✭Effects


    I've formatted to Mac OS extended but still gives me the same options when I drop down the list.


  • #6
    Effects
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,760 ✭✭✭Effects


    Switched from iMac to MBP. Then it let me partition it to fat32 at 1.8 TB volume size.
    ReadyNas still doesn't recognise it though. Ugh.


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  • #7
    whiterebel
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 15,120 Mod ✭✭✭✭whiterebel


    Effects wrote: »
    Switched from iMac to MBP. Then it let me partition it to fat32 at 1.8 TB volume size.
    ReadyNas still doesn't recognise it though. Ugh.

    As Zener said above, most NAS units use Linux file systems usually EXT 3 or 4 and don't recognise Windows/Mac file systems. The NAS needs to format the attached drive, or you need to google how to format an internal drive with a Mac. The documentation or help on the NAS website should tell you which format the external drive should be.


  • #8
    Effects
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,760 ✭✭✭Effects


    Thanks for the replies. NAS won't format the drive for some reason. I'm about to set up another NAS and hopefully copy everything across on to that one.


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