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Old 01-16-2009, 02:40 PM   #1
ktinkel
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Default Now I see why people pay for Time Capsule

My 750GB Seagate drive evidently cannot be formatted to run on a Mac under Leopard. It has been sitting here for months, but I just tried to set it up, but cannot erase and reformat the drive for Mac Extended Journaled.

I found several discussions about this problem with this drive and with the Western Digital MyBook. They advise to plug/unplug, boot/reboot, and partitition the drive instead of formatting in in one volume, but after an hour or so of screwing around like this, I quit.

Disk Utility starts the job, then after 15 seconds or so delivers this error: File System Formatter Failed. I was able to partition the drive at one point, but I just put in 4 partitions that I didn’t want. When it seemed to work, I tried to erase and was back to square one. Disk First Aid also fails.

Another PC drive that I reformatted on the G4 works fine under Leopard. (It is smaller, though — a mere 250 GB.) So I suppose I could try formatting the big on on the G4. But now I suspect it altogether (even though this seems to be a common occurrence).

Any advice or suggestions? I was really psyched to set up Time Machine, too.

   
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Old 01-16-2009, 05:25 PM   #2
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Well, I acted upon a bright idea, and seem to have successfully reformatted this Seagate drive.

I hooked the drive to my good old G4 (running Tiger), and had no problem with reformatting. Then I moved to the iMac (Leopard) and there it was. Time Machine sucked it up.

On the assumption that I have nothing to lose but time, I left it to back up the iMac overnight. Not sure it will be long enough — we shall see.

I am trying to type on my laptop. I usually use a keyboard and mouse with this, but neither is being recognized. This is agony. How does anyone live with only a laptop?

   
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Old 01-16-2009, 05:55 PM   #3
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Well, I acted upon a bright idea, and seem to have successfully reformatted this Seagate drive.

I hooked the drive to my good old G4 (running Tiger), and had no problem with reformatting. Then I moved to the iMac (Leopard) and there it was. Time Machine sucked it up.

On the assumption that I have nothing to lose but time, I left it to back up the iMac overnight. Not sure it will be long enough — we shall see.

I am trying to type on my laptop. I usually use a keyboard and mouse with this, but neither is being recognized. This is agony. How does anyone live with only a laptop?
I do enough work now on my work laptop without keyboard or mouse to have finally acquired a tiny amount of skill with it.

   
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Old 01-17-2009, 07:05 AM   #4
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I do enough work now on my work laptop without keyboard or mouse to have finally acquired a tiny amount of skill with it.
Ouch. That is not encouraging.

Not sure what is going on with my externals, but I also wonder if the laptop’s battery is spent. The night the lights went out a couple of months ago, I tried to use the laptop. It came up, and after about half a minute went into a coma.

We are not using it much, which is probably the problem.

But typing on it makes me nuts.

   
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Old 01-17-2009, 01:04 PM   #5
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Ouch. That is not encouraging.

Not sure what is going on with my externals, but I also wonder if the laptop’s battery is spent. The night the lights went out a couple of months ago, I tried to use the laptop. It came up, and after about half a minute went into a coma.

We are not using it much, which is probably the problem.

But typing on it makes me nuts.
I assume you keep the laptop connected to power so its battery is charged? I never use the keyboard on my MacBook Pro, because it's pretty well static on my desk. The work one I hump around the country a lot...

   
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Old 01-17-2009, 01:37 PM   #6
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I assume you keep the laptop connected to power so its battery is charged? I never use the keyboard on my MacBook Pro, because it's pretty well static on my desk. The work one I hump around the country a lot...
Well, its battery should be charged. But it doesn’t act like it.

   
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Old 01-17-2009, 01:48 PM   #7
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Well, its battery should be charged. But it doesn’t act like it.
What does the battery meter say the charge percentage is?

   
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Old 01-17-2009, 02:09 PM   #8
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What does the battery meter say the charge percentage is?
When it decided to shut down, the meter said there was no charge. That was the night the lights went out. We closed it up, went out to dinner, and didn’t so much as look at the thing until last night.

I will unplug it later and see what the battery does.

   
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Old 01-17-2009, 03:03 PM   #9
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When it decided to shut down, the meter said there was no charge. That was the night the lights went out. We closed it up, went out to dinner, and didn’t so much as look at the thing until last night.

I will unplug it later and see what the battery does.
Sounds to me as if it needs either a new power pack or a new battery. This happens to our laptops at work all the time, but they're junky HPs.

   
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Old 01-17-2009, 05:32 PM   #10
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Sounds to me as if it needs either a new power pack or a new battery. This happens to our laptops at work all the time, but they're junky HPs.
I will try to look into it when I get time. The problem is: I do not have any emotional attachment to that white thing at all.

   
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