Rusty Razor Blade
I just bought a 1TB Western Digital drive. I am stoked.
However, I tried to format the drive on my Mac (Leopard) and got the error “File system formatter failed” when I tried to format the disk as MacOS Extended (Journaled). Not cool.
I found this forum thread which suggested using multiple partitions to solve the problem. When I was trying this, I went into options and changed the partition scheme from Master Boot Record to GUID partition table. It formatted fine.
To test things further, I changed the scheme back to 1 partition, and left the format as GUID partition table. This time it worked flawlessly.
The GUID type says it will not work as a start up disk MacOS older than 10.4. So if you’re still on Panther you can’t boot up off my backup drive. Try not to cry too much.
Update: here’s a few reasons why GUID owns MBR
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I love the internet for exactly this reason. Thanks.
Brilliant advice. Have been thinking my 1tb hdd was experiencing hardware faults. Thankyou for the tip, even if it is an oldie.
AHHH!! Finally, an answer! Thanks so much, great help indeed.
One word mate. LEGEND!!!!
Worked with my new WD Elements 1TB drive ( WD 10EADS External Media ) on my Leopard iMac. Was just about to send drive back, so saved me lots of hassle! Thanks
Brilliant – like others, I had spent most of a morning getting nowhere; but Google IS your friend – and you are No.1
I think I love you! Better than any other websites advice for this! Thanks
Over two years later and this page is still providing a needed solution. Thanks!!
I also could not format my drive using USB connection,using OSX 10.6.5.
I always got the message in Disk Utility
‘POSIX reports: The operation couldn’t be completed. Cannot allocate memory’
but when I tried plugging it in using firewire, Disk Utility worked straight away.
If you have a USB/Firewire drve enclosure I woukd say this is the best solution.
Thanks so Much!
Perfect – I had a carbon copy of the original problem from 2008! Western Digital 1TB drive (Elements SE, USB2, bus powered).
This is my first WD drive and the first time I have EVER come across this problem when formatting a drive. Fail.
Whereas Jon, you are a diamond – I salute you.
You just made my day.
What a joy to find such clear thnkniig. Thanks for posting!
Here we are, three years later, and this advice is still useful. Thanks!
My friend, you have just saved my sanity. Thank you so much!!!
Thanks so so so much for this! July 2011 and the advice is exactly what I needed!
I had a similar problem with my WD Passport 320GB portable drive. I tried the suggested solution. It did not work for me exactly but it guided me towards another solution (thank you so much!). My drive would not create the last partition (no matter how many partitions I would select it would create all but the last one where it would fail and it would always fail when I wanted to create just one). I finally figured it out. It looks like the OS system is trying to make partition(s) larger than total size of the disk. The solution that worked for me was to create 2 partitions: one that is slightly smaller that maximum size of the disk and the other one that is formatted as “free space”. In example my WD 320 GB was showing as total size of 320.07 GB. I created two partitions: Mac OS Extended partition for 318GB and second “Free Space” partition for the remaining space. This way the disk still shows as only one partition and you don’t loose a lot of space (free space could probably be even smaller).
Thank you so much! I was really stumped.