USB external HDD Formatting - Failed - what am I doing wrong .

[Percy-Vering]

Thanks

The Seagate USB drive is plugged into one of the USB sockets on the back of the Mac Mini , may be I will try another USB socket on the Mac Mini , to see if that makes any difference .

Another thing I don't understand is this - After just trying to format the Seagate 2TB drive , now when I open the disk utility , its now showing the Seagate 2TB drive as 2 now separate drives

1. One drive .... ( Screen shot D1 ) ..... 500.11 GB
2. One drive ..... ( Screen shot D2 ) ..... 499.76 GB

I think I need a stiff drink after all this


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[Percy-Vering]

Did they sell it as new? If you charged it and they offered no replacement or refund I would dispute the charge with my credit card company.

Thanks, I purchased the Seagate 2TB drive as new on line and paid for it when it arrived at my home COD ( Cash on Delivery ) it came in a sealed Seagate box with a seal that was unbroken , the online retailer who I purchased it from will only exchange any goods it the box has not been opened

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[eldho]

I just did a little google search - if you can still read after that drink!

I am rather startled at how much was written for a link - I hope it works

https://www.google.com/search?q=err...cYHpgDAJIHBTAuMS42oAeTFQ&sclient=gws-wiz-serp

 

[Percy-Vering]

Hi and Thanks

I'm going to have a look at all those articles shown on the link . Here's some thing that I thought would be simple , just plug in the new Seagate 2TB USB drive and my Mac Mini ( recently given to me ) would take care of every thing , but alas it was not to be , we live and learn.😢.


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[tonmischa]

I removed the drive from its USB external case and this is the Drive in side ....


View attachment 2360294



I can't see the 2TB number mentioned any where on this drive


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You have been scammed.
On the left upper side it says "320 GB". Thats the total capacity of that hard drive

Someone put a 320 GB HGST (formerly Hitachi, now a part of Western Digital) harddrive in a Seagate enclosure and used a cardbox box with a "2TB" sticker on it.

No matter what you do, you will not be able to get 2 TB out of this drive.

Try to get your money back.
You have been scammed.

EDIT:
On the lower left side you can see the Manufacturing Date. "22FEB13".
This could mean February 2022, but Thailand (the manufacturing country) uses DDMMYYYY, so it probably means February 2013.
Which means that drive is over 10 years old. Do not use that drive. It is too old.

 

[Percy-Vering]

Thanks ,

There's no simple way to get my money back , so its a lesson well learned , one thing I'm not sure about is why the Disk Utility on the Mac Mini with the Seagate 2TB ( Fake ) drive plugged in , is showing 2TB capacity .

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[tonmischa]

one thing I'm not sure about is why the Disk Utility on the Mac Mini with the Seagate 2TB ( Fake ) drive plugged in , is showing 2TB capacity

Scammers are able to change the firmware of the Seagate enclosure.
So they change it to show 2 TB, where in reality it only has 320 GB.

This is a known scam:

Walmart lists a 30TB portable SSD for $39. It is, naturally, a scam

But the "30TB" disk does at least try to fool users in clever ways.

arstechnica.com

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Thanks ,

There's no simple way to get my money back , so its a lesson well learned , one thing I'm not sure about is why the Disk Utility on the Mac Mini with the Seagate 2TB ( Fake ) drive plugged in , is showing 2TB capacity .


View attachment 2360398



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That's a simple trick by HDD scammers. They can create a compressed volume which the OS (Windows or Mac) will recognize at x3 or x4 times of the actual physical capacity. But when you tried to copy a big file to the device, it would display an error message, leading to you re-partion/reformat the drive and it would come back to original capacity once the partioning/formatting is done.
I've seen several dozen cases like this in our local IT forum. The brand being abused the most is Seagate, both portable drives and 3.5" internal drives. The scammers re-print a messed-up label to stick on the surface of the disk, almost immediately you can tell that it was faked because this label is full of dictational and grammatical errors.

And yes, even the firmware of the HDD can be hacked so they can modify the data about power on/off times and operating hours to make a second hand hard drive looks new when you diagnose them using apps like CrystalDiskInfo.

There is very little the OP can do now except suing the seller so he/she will be banned from the online shop platform.
The HDD is not reliable in the long-term.

P/S: I recalled this trick we quite enjoyed for a little while in the era of 1.44MB floppy disks. We ran the program to partition/format the disk and its capacity increased 3 or 4 folds. Reading and writing greatly decrease because the files got compressed/decompressed on the fly, but the disk was still usable for very small files.

 

[Percy-Vering]

Many thanks , its the first time that Ive ever been scammed

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[Percy-Vering]

Thanks , i think its now time to post that this topic has been resolved ( Ive no idea how to do that )

I would just like to thank every one for your kind help and assistance , this great forum will now stay on my book marks and be there as I now learn more about my Mac Mini . So again , a big thank you to every one .

Percy .

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[HDFan]

It is usually worthwhile to pay more to purchase from a seller who guarantees the product, has a return policy and good support if needed. The first thing I look when purchasing electronics is vendor evaluation then the price.

 

[Percy-Vering]

Thanks

Ive now learnt my lesson and your advice is some thing I'm now going to follow . I think should I want to purchase another USB drive , I will go to a large well known walk in store and get a paper receipt and check their return policy .

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[Fishrrman]

That's a Hitachi (HGST, they're now owned by Seagate) 320gb drive. At least that's what the label says.

Hitachi drives are not "bad" drives -- actually I would prefer one over a Seagate or WD drive of the same size.

But we can't even be certain that "the label on drive" is a match for the drive itself (since you're getting 500gb formatted-out instead of 320gb).

Of course, you were scammed by the dealer you bought this from.

A "walk-in" store doesn't guarantee anything.
Perhaps you ought to tell us from whom you bought the drive.
Scammers need to be exposed.

Also, HDFan has it right in reply 36 above.