Reformat Mac Hard Drive External For Fresh Install

I have an old Mac OS X drive that I would like to reuse as external storage. I'm trying to reformat the drive to allow me to do this using Linux parted. I've been successful removing all the old partitions except for the 32 KB head partition: GNU Parted 2.2 Using /dev/sdc Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands. (parted) print Model: ST375064 0NS (scsi) Disk /dev/sdc: 750GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: mac Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 512B 32.8kB 32.3kB Apple (parted) rm 1 Error: Partition map has no partition map entry! Fix (parted) print Model: ST375064 0NS (scsi) Disk /dev/sdc: 750GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: mac Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 512B 32.8kB 32.3kB Apple This appears to be filed as a for the related gparted program, so I'm guessing that parted has the same problem.

I also tried using fdisk: sudo fdisk -c -u sdc Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel Building a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x23b7e238. Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.

After that, of course, the previous content won't be recoverable. Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite) Is it possible to use any Linux tool to accomplish this?

Use Disk Utility to Format an External Drive. After you connect an external drive to your Mac, open the Applications folder from the Finder window. The Disk Utility application is located in the Utilities sub-folder. Launch Disk Utility and then click to select the external hard drive listed on the left.

This super user seems to indicate the problem is solvable by installing a fresh OS, but I need a generic storage drive rather than a fresh OS install, so I'm hoping for an easier way. Have you read the bug report you mention?

Its says that the 32 kB partition contains the partition table itself, which is why it cannot be removed. (This is what Error: Partition map has no partition map entry! Refers to.) This is an implementation detail of the format, which your disk currently uses. If you want, you can change the disk to use GPT or MBR instead. You can write a new, empty partition table (aka 'disklabel') using parted's mklabel command. This will completely remove all existing partitions, if any.

• mklabel gpt –, used by Intel Macs, supported by Linux, Windows Vista and above. (Recommended, unless you want to install Windows on the disk.) • mklabel msdos –, used by PCs, works practically everywhere, but comes with the 'primary/extended' partition mess. (Use MBR if you need very good OS support, but pick GPT otherwise.) • mklabel mac –, used by older (non-Intel) Macs, although Intel Macs and Linux can read it as well. (APM has been made obsolete by GPT.) In addition to parted, GPT and MBR tables can be created with gdisk and fdisk respectively, similar to the command you tried – it seems that you just forgot to tell fdisk to actually write the new MBR to disk; ' Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.' In fdisk, use c to force creating a new MBR partition table (discarding the old table), and w to write it to disk. (The -c -u command-line options aren't needed.) In gdisk (sometimes gptfdisk), o will create a new GPT ( importing existing partitions from APM or MBR), w will write it to disk.