Format Mac OSX extended journaled FROM PC

[hazza_ob]

I’ve just got a new hard drive but my mac won’t accept it as boot unless it’s formatted in a mac readable format - it’s simply not readable by the volatile system (which is what’s run if no OS is found). I’ve ordered a usb to sata cable to format the drive from another mac, but can i format the drive (as OS X extended journaled) in windows?

 

tl:dr --> How do i format a clean ssd as OS X extended journaled, as opposed to exFAT etc.,  from a pc?

 

Thanks -Harry

[AkiraDaarkst]

14 minutes ago, hazza_ob said:

I’ve just got a new hard drive but my mac won’t accept it as boot unless it’s formatted in a mac readable format - it’s simply not readable by the volatile system (which is what’s run if no OS is found). I’ve ordered a usb to sata cable to format the drive from another mac, but can i format the drive (as OS X extended journaled) in windows?

 

tl:dr --> How do i format a clean ssd as OS X extended journaled, as opposed to exFAT etc.,  from a pc?

 

Thanks -Harry

You can’t, because that’s a proprietary Mac format.

[TARS]

GParted (HFS+)

[Tabs]

Is there some reason you couldn't reformat it from the mac using Disk Utility?

 

If you really have to format it from your pc, @TARS suggested gparted which can be run as a live cd (it's a Linux utility so it'll be a Linux live environment) where you can format as HFS+ for osx. As far as I know there are no windows utilities to enable formatting to this partition from directly within Windows.

[Zmax]

From what I have read, I may be wrong, Exfat is suppose to work both in windows and mac.

 

https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/format-drive-for-windows-and-mac

[Tabs]

1 minute ago, Zmax said:

From what I have read, I may be wrong, Exfat is suppose to work both in windows and mac.

 

https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/format-drive-for-windows-and-mac

NTFS and ExFAT both physically work within osx, but in order for a drive to be available for system use it must be HFS+ or APFS for high sierra.

 

From what I can tell, @hazza_ob is trying to run the drive as a boot disk, which rules out NTFS or FAT/ExFAT.

[Zmax]

Ha i see thanks.

[Zmax]

Found this, look like what you need. 

 

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/format-disk-hfs-mac-49229.html

[hazza_ob]

7 minutes ago, Tabs said:

Is there some reason you couldn't reformat it from the mac using Disk Utility?

 

If you really have to format it from your pc, @TARS suggested gparted which can be run as a live cd (it's a Linux utility so it'll be a Linux live environment) where you can format as HFS+ for osx. As far as I know there are no windows utilities to enable formatting to this partition from directly within Windows.

It’s possible to format from a mac with a USB to SATA cable which is on its way from eBay, but right now, the computer i have has one SATA connection and it doesn’t like the unformatted drive - even when booting from the ‘Install OS X Seirra’ USB drive... Guess I’ll have to wait for that eBay package then!

[hazza_ob]

1 hour ago, Zmax said:

Found this, look like what you need. 

 

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/format-disk-hfs-mac-49229.html

I’ll give that a try actually! thanks

 

[Tabs]

3 minutes ago, hazza_ob said:

I’ll give that a try actually! thanks

 

When you boot from the "Install OSX Sierra" drive, can you run Disk Utility on it? If not, does it give an error, or does it just not show up?

[Zmax]

Is it possible that his main Mac HD just went dead. 

[hazza_ob]

2 hours ago, Zmax said:

Found this, look like what you need. 

 

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/format-disk-hfs-mac-49229.html

Zmax! You are my saviour! The website’s tutorial worked perfectly and i’m installing the new OS now! Although the original hard drive was, and still is, OK, I wanted to upgrade from a HDD to and SSD and thus the mess with formatting.

 

Thanks again

-Harry

[hazza_ob]

42 minutes ago, Tabs said:

When you boot from the "Install OSX Sierra" drive, can you run Disk Utility on it? If not, does it give an error, or does it just not show up?

Before i formatted the disk with the link that Zmax found, i could go into disk-util on the ‘install OS X’ USB drive, but the main SSD just wouldn’t appear - like it didn’t exist

[Tabs]

4 minutes ago, hazza_ob said:

Before i formatted the disk with the link that Zmax found, i could go into disk-util on the ‘install OS X’ USB drive, but the main SSD just wouldn’t appear - like it didn’t exist

Ahh, interesting, I've not seen that before. Well, glad @Zmax got you sorted, I'll have to keep that link in case I run into the same thing in future

 

Edit: On second thoughts, after following that link, it's possible that the drive had an MSR partition right at the beginning of the drive, which is unusual, but would potentially screw with detection from osx utilities. It's likely that Disk Utility would have been able to access the disk properly after the "clean" command was issued, erasing the partition structure and setting the disk as uninitialized.

[Zmax]

1 hour ago, hazza_ob said:

Zmax! You are my saviour! The website’s tutorial worked perfectly and i’m installing the new OS now! Although the original hard drive was, and still is, OK, I wanted to upgrade from a HDD to and SSD and thus the mess with formatting.

 

Thanks again

-Harry

Congradulation. Glad I could help