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High Sierra's Disk Utility Does Not Recognize Unformatted Disks (tinyapps.org)

Posted by msmash on from the stranger-things dept.

macOS 10.13's Disk Utility 17.0 (1626) does not recognize raw drives, reads a blog post, shared by several readers. From the post: Diskutil does recognize the drive. We'll use it to perform a quick, cursory format (e.g., diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ NewDisk GPT disk0) to make the disk appear in Disk Utility, where further modifications can more easily be made. Plugging in an unformatted external drive produces the usual alert, "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer. Initialize... | Ignore | Eject", but clicking Initialize just opens Disk Utility without the disk appearing. There's an option in Disk Utility to view "all devices," but clicking that doesn't show raw disks, the blog post adds.

14 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. I am not surprised by oldgraybeard · · Score: 5, Funny

    Apple assumes everyone gets everything from Apple. And Apple would never sell a device that was not prepared at the factory.

    1. Re:I am not surprised by Anubis+IV · · Score: 2

      Apple assumes everyone gets everything from Apple.

      Has this ever been true? Sure, it's a funny line to toss out there, but Apple has obviously recognized that their products exist in a world beyond their control, which is why we see support for SMB, NTFS, and a host of other technologies and formats that didn't originate at Apple.

      To be sure, their support falls far short of what we see on Windows or Linux, but in the various Macs I've worked on, I've replaced RAM, batteries, SSDs, HDDs, and even created my own Fusion Drive, none of which I did using Apple-branded components. Clearly they designed their products to work with products they didn't create. That something otherwise is being reported here today is an upsetting departure from the status quo for Macs.

  2. So Apple.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How do you expect to format a drive to make it appear when you can't make it appear to format the drive?

    Do people think about this kind of thing anymore?

    1. Re:So Apple.... by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Try man mkfs. They are likely just piping error messages of some low level utility. For example, parted would return "error: /foo/bar: unrecognized disk".

      Some OS component recognized the disk and announced that it was uninitialized, then offered to send them to initialize it. It's not acceptable for the subsequent tool not to recognize that there's a disk there, even if all it knows about it is that it can't do anything with it.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. It Just Works by sexconker · · Score: 4, Funny

    You're holding it wrong?

  4. Uhhh... by Billy+the+Mountain · · Score: 4, Funny

    Did you try turning it off and turning it back on again?

    --
    That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
    1. Re:Uhhh... by infolation · · Score: 2

      Yes. I did. So... prepare to put mustard on those words, for you will soon be consuming them along with this slice of humble pie, that comes direct from the oven of shame, set at gas mark 'egg on your face'.

  5. Re:Apple has suffered a massive brain drain. by MightyYar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What? Maybe System 7 was innovative. 9 was a desperate attempt to keep the ol' geezer marketable after their replacement OS effort Copeland was aborted. It was very uncertain whether or not Apple would even survive. OSX, even in it's initial craptastic state, was welcome relief.

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  6. Also not recognized for Time Machine- USB APFS by allanmccoy55 · · Score: 2

    Maybe I missed the warning, but I thought, why not convert my USB connected Time Machine drive to APFS... the conversion is allowed in Disk Utility, so I started it up. After a looonnnnggggg time (more than 6 hours, but less than 21 hours) it completed. And Time Machine says "Where is my backup disk?" It's right there, same name and everything, just APFS. OK, when checking disk selected, I see my disk a second time in the list, so I choose that. TM tells me that I need to erase the disk. Well, I really don't have anything much on this machine, so sure, let's erase it and start over. Only after it is erased, TM says it can't find the disk. NICE! So that's where that stands. Maybe I am having issues due to older hardware (the MacBook Pro still has an optical drive, for ghod's sake!) or something else, but I think that Time Machine is borked when it comes to APFS drives, at least USB ones (can't check any other's- or maybe I could partition the SSD and try to use the second partition for TM? hmm, something to try.

  7. Just happened to me by sehryan · · Score: 5, Informative

    I ran into this exact problem today. Clicking "Initialize..." did nothing, with the drive not showing up in Disk Utility.

    Turned the enclosure off and back on, and clicked "Ignore." Disk came right up in the Utility without issues, and I was able to get it working from there.

    --
    The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
  8. Re:and pro hardware (imac pro) you can't change di by the_B0fh · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In other words, because you don't know, you just spout nonsense?

  9. Re:and pro hardware (imac pro) you can't change di by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac+Intel+27-Inch+Retina+5K+Display+Teardown/30260

    See Step 4.

  10. Re:Apple has suffered a massive brain drain. by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 2

    I'm old enough to remember when Apple announced plans to skip version 9 and go straight from Mac OS 8 to Mac OS X. Then they released a 9 anyway.

    Then your memory is failing.

    Apple announced Mac OS X and Mac OS 9 at the same time (I believe at WWDC '98). Mac OS 9 was available as stand-alone on Macs sold in that time frame as well as having code to handle running under Mac OS X.

    Needless to say, Mac OS X got most of the press. But I don't believe there was ever not going to be a Mac OS 9.

  11. Re:and pro hardware (imac pro) you can't change di by AC-x · · Score: 2

    imac's dont have glued in screens at all

    Apple have been gluing the imac's screen since 2012.