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I'm trying to format a new external hard drive and every time it comes up with 2 partitions. I don't want it split into partitions. The drive shows up as two separate drives. In disk utilities I can only erase one at a time. How do I clean the drive completely and come up with just one partition? I'm on OS Ventura. Thanks much for any insight...
iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 13.6
first, in disk utility, select the drive at the top level. (USB DISK 2.0 in my example) then choose "partition" from DU's toolbar.
then when the partition window opens, click the "-" sign below the "pie chart" of partitions to remove one partition and then choose "apply".
you should then be able to format the drive using the usual method to get a drive that is no longer partitioned.
Problem resolved! I moved the physical hard drive into a new drive case. When I then opened the disk utility it came up with only one container although the capacity was wrong (it was the capacity of one of the previous containers when they were partitioned). I simply reformatted the drive and it came up as a single partition with the correct capacity. Thanks so much for your time and brainpower!
Select the whole physical drive to erase it so that a new partition table is created since some manufacturer's do odd things with the partition table at the factory. See this Apple article for details:
Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support
Hi Jeffrey, thanks for your reply. The problem is, I have 2 drives listed at the top level, both from the same physical drive, both named WDC WD40. I haven't been able to completely get rid of one of them. I've tried erasing each one individually, but it keeps defaulting to this, and curiously, each time with the same partition sizes.
ok. I see the dilemma. but I have not seen that before, so I don't really know where to go. maybe first try and eject one of those entries listed, and then see if you can then remove the one partition from that other entry.
HWTech wrote:
Just to confirm that those are two separate physical external WDC drives?
I can jump in here. the issue the OP is facing is that it is a single drive partitioned into two portions. but it is showing in DU as two separate drives.
Mstrbassmn wrote:
Problem resolved! I moved the physical hard drive into a new drive case. When I then opened the disk utility it came up with only one container although the capacity was wrong (it was the capacity of one of the previous containers when they were partitioned). I simply reformatted the drive and it came up as a single partition with the correct capacity.
What brand was the old enclosure?
Thanks HW. Tried it, and still getting the same results... Let me know if you have any other thoughts... Thanks!
Hi Jeffrey, thanks for a great idea! Tried it in a few different ways. Still getting the same result. Hmmmm...
Try rebooting the computer.
Just to confirm that those are two separate physical external WDC drives?
Is this WD drive a RAID drive by any chance and you are seeing the two separate physical drives that make up a broken RAID 1 mirror?
We are glad you were able to resolve the issue. Thanks for the follow up since that may help other people who find your thread. Good job!
Re-formatting an external drive with a single partition
