I have an externam firewire Hard Drive, and i want to erase the partition on it, so i can put it on a PC. When I open the DiskUtility, and click on either the main external drive, or the partition, the DiskUtility unexpectedly quits. I tried to erase via the Terminal. I logged in as root, and in the terminal wrote "diskutil" and came up with an error saying "Segmentation Fault". I turned off my external drive, and typed "diskutil" again, and it came up with a whole bunch of commands. I wanted to use the comman "eraseDisk" to erase all the volumes and partitions on my external drive "Disk1". (Obviously turning the HD back on), and it came up with the same error "Segmentation Fault". Does anybody know how to fix this? All I want to do is erase all the volumes and Partitions on it.

Thanks,
Eibbor

**BTW, I'm running OSX 10.2.8.**

It would probably be easier to format the drive in the PC.

Take a look at the pdisk command screen capture in the tutorial at:


http://www.osxfaq.com/tutorials/fsck

If you cannot view the partition map, it may be damaged.

I do not want to format it using the MAC i simply want to erase all the partitions and volumes on it, so the PC can read it. Right now, with the Mac partition on it, the PC won't read it or recognise it. Any tab at all it the Disk Utility quits when i clike on the external hard drive, or the partitions, i simply click on them, and it quits... is there anyway i can erase the disk not using th disk utility?

You should try to view the partition map, which would give you some indication of whether the problem is with Disk Utility or with a logical structure on the disk.

Some people have reported success with formatting disks using Linux when software damage prevented them from being recognized by Disk Utility. You could also try Drive Setup under Mac OS 9, or the Finder's Erase Disk command.

I got this when i looked at the partition map

[Robbie-Bradley-Combss-Computer:~] root# pdisk /dev/rdisk10 -dump
pdisk: can't open file '/dev/rdisk10' (No such file or directory)
[Robbie-Bradley-Combss-Computer:~] root# pdisk /dev/rdisk1 -dump
/dev/rdisk1 map block size=512
#: type name length base ( size )
1: Apple_partition_map Apple 63 @ 1
2: Apple_HFS Untitled 490234680 @ 64 (233.8G)
3: Apple_Free 0+@ 490234744

I don't know if this is good ot bad..
I don't have OS 9, only OS 10.2.8. Can you tell me how to do a "Finder Erase Disk Command" I'm not familiar with it.

Thanks

The partition map looks reasonable but shows that Mac OS 9 drivers were not installed when the disk was formatted. Installing the Mac OS 9 drivers is accomplished by default when current versions of Disk Utility format a disk.

The Erase Disk command is part of the Mac OS 9 Finder, which will not be able to see this disk.

How was this disk formatted when it was last formatted? Can you install the device on an internal ATA bus? It seems odd that this external FireWire drive has no ATA drivers in it, because the device is an ATA device.

I don't think I did it right. I dont think i even formatted it. When I installed it at first, i formatted it, but then had to delete it and re-format it because i was trying to partition it on the PC at the same time. I think by the time that I actually settled for having the whole drive on the mac, and plugged it in, I didn't bother to format it. I could put files on and off also, so I don't think I even thought about formatting it... I don't have OS 9 by the way. Is there anyway I can erase all the partitions on it? I have a Mac and a PC.

If Disk Utility cannot format it now, try formatting it as a FAT32 volume in the PC. At that point, Disk Utility may be able to reformat it as one or more HFS+ volumes. Do not mix FAT32 and HFS+ on the same device.

You should also go to the Web site of the mechanism maker and make sure that the jumper settings are correct for the mechanism when it is installed in a FireWire case, and make sure that the firmware in the FireWire case is current.

Have you tried mounting the drive on a PC and running FDisk? You will have to do that before you can format it on the PC.

It would be possible to reformat the HD using OS 9 regardless of whether or not drivers were installed on it for OS 9. OS 9 simply wouldn't be able to mount up the current volume if it lacks drivers, but Ext HD Setup will still nuke it for you.

Barring that, I know how to "make it go away" using OS X, but I don't know the exact commands needed. If the first byte of the first block of the HD is changed (from $E4 iirc) to $00, the mac will consider the entire device empty (no partition table) and will not attempt to load drivers or mount partitions, which is what's causing his crash most likely.

Now I know it's possible to boot up in single user mode and pipe some data to a hard drive, but I'm not too certain what the commands are to do this. (done it with norton disk editor numerous times though...) Can someone supply him with the terminal command to drop a zero onto the first byte of the first block on the device? Be sure this is the first byte of the first block OF THE DEVICE, not of a PARTITION. We are trying to zap the partition table itself, not a single partition on the drive. That, and please show him how to find the correct device, so he doesn't nuke his boot drive by accident. ;-)

After this is done and the computer is rebooted, it should pop up a msg saying the disk in the drive is unreadable, (ignore) or (initialize), and 'initialize' will launch disk utility to format it. Disk Utility should not crash this time though, since it can't attempt to mount damaged partitions or load corrupted drivers.