Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus 640gm

[roryp]

Using a iMac 10.5.6 Leopard. Just got a Maxtor One Touch 4 Plus 640gb. On installation, according to the yellow piece of paper in the box, for Leopard users: after double clicking the Mac Installer.dmg and then double clicking the Mac installer disc image on the desktop and then double clicking the Mac install icon (orange open box symbol) there should have been on-screen prompts to prepare the drive with an HFS+ partition and install the software. This did not happen. No on screen prompts. Also there was a web address on the paper http//:support.seagate.com/leopard which doesn't exist! Really helpful.

I have tried to partition the external drive ( 2 partitions) using disc utility and make it for Mac extended (journalled) rather than MSDos, every time I try to do this I get input/output error.

Getting truly frustrated, so any help gratefully recieved.

 

[harryb2448]

G'day and welcome to the forums.

Go into Partition, select the partitions you want to set up, then into Options on the Partition window and make sure GUID is selected as the partitioning system. Then give it a try.

Also helps enormously if you provide machine details. Assuming you are using an Intel machine. Older PowerPC machines need to be set up as Apple Partition Map. Seagate always forward their driver out in PC format.

 

[roryp]

Hi Thanks for reply and your suggestion. It's a PPC and I did try doing what you have suggested and selected apple rather than GUID, tries to partion and just comes up with input/output error.

Also have changed from msdos to mac
Any other things I could do?

Thanks in advance

 

[harryb2448]

It has to be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journalled).

 

[roryp]

Hi Thanks again.
Talked to Seagate / Maxtor chat help and they told me that it wasn't straightforward and sent me the following:

Special instructions if erase fails on Leopard / Snow Leopard.

Leopard (Mac OS X - 10.5.x) and Snow Leopard (Mac OS X - 10.6.x) seem to be currently having problems reformatting external drives. This is a common issue on Leopard/Snow Leopardthat is seen on most brands of drives.
Note: This is not a problem with the external drive itself. Rather, it is an issue with the Disk Utility included in Leopard/Snow Leopard.

Suggestions: If partitioning/formatting the drive in Disk Utility fails, there are three options:

Ensure that any/all installer (DMG) files are dismounted before trying to prepare an external drive. Simply drag these files to the Trash to proceed.

Partition the drive using the OS install CD.


I had already done most of this, but dont have a windows pc to try the last suggestion. Spoke with Hardly Normals who will take it back and replace with something more suitable for my system.

Insert your Operating System install DVD into the CD/DVD drive.

Restart your Mac.

Hold down the Option key while the Mac is rebooting.

Choose the "OS X install Disk" option.

Choose your preferred language.

Choose "Utilities > Disk Utility" from the top-menu.

Follow partition and formatting instructions from step 1-C.

If the Disk Utility Partition option fails, it may be necessary to move the external drive to a Windows system to repartition and reformat it. Click here to launch a video showing how to prepare an external drive using Windows Vista, or here for step-by-step instructions for Windows XP, or here for step-by-step instructions for Windows 7 / Vista.

Additional Information: Do not try to use the reformatting tutorial script that comes on the OneTouch 4 drives, as this script was designed for Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and will not work properly on Leopard.


am taking back to replace for something more suitable.