There are many tools to do this (note that with a 3TB drive it could take weeks), however definitely try using Western Digitals' program to do this first before trying others (then you can blame them if something happens :P ) This will delete ALL formatting and ALL data on the drive. If that doesn't work, you will have to do what is called a 'zero write' or 'low-level formatting', and then reformat the drive using the above software.Ī zero write takes an extremely long time especially on a 3TB drive (try 12 hours for 350GB! I recommend trying to format it via WD's software FIRST it writes over your entire hard drive with zeroes, effectively deleting ALL the information on the drive. After you've backed up your drive, you'll want to try Western Digitals Formatting Program to reformat the drive. How can I make this drive work in the external enclosure again?įirst, I would make a backup of everything on the drive that you don't want to lose. My guess is that the WD SATA/USB converter that is part of the external hard drive enclosure requires the drive to be formatted in a certain way.

When running GParted it reports: Input/output error during read on /dev/sdhĪnd fails with that same error when trying to create a partition table. Sense: Logical unit access not authorized Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE

Using Linux: Plugging the device into a Linux machine gives lots of errors on dmesg: Once I agree to do that it tells me that the device is write-protected. Using Windows Disk Management: I am prompted to create a partition table. Formatting works with neither Windows nor Linux tools. However, I can't do anything with it anymore. Now I want to use it as an external drive again so I put it back into the enclosure. When I did that I partitioned the drive after installing it in my machine. I own a WD Elements 3TB external hard drive (WDBAAU0030HBK-01) which I disassembled and converted into an internal SATA drive.

How to format wd elements on mac