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Disk Utility

Initializing a new 6TB HDD, I get the message "Unable to write to the last block of the device."

The disk is in a USB 3 external drive enclosure.

Using Mac OS Mojave 10.14.6 on a MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2015)


Thanks for help


jack




Posted on Aug 8, 2019 8:17 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 15, 2019 6:52 AM

1) Yes - I am using an ANKER 7-port usb 3 hub


2) Got the same response using 50%


=================

Restored session: Sat Aug 10 17:51:41 CEST 2019


mbr-10:~ jc$ diskutil  partitionDisk  /dev/disk2  GPT  JHFS+   VolumeName 50%

Started partitioning on disk2

Unmounting disk

Creating the partition map

Error: -69760: Unable to write to the last block of the device

mbr-10:~ jc$ 


3) installed Drive DX and spacial USB driver


After Driver installation the cask appeared in Disk Utility as "ASMT TOSHIBA HDWE160 Media"


The Drive Report is attached as additional text.


I didn't see any obvious errors. I does seem that SMART data is withheld.


Unless you see something in the Drive DX report I will return the drive.


I guess I wouldn't replace with the same drive again as this may be an inherent problem on Mac's with these drive.


Thanks again ( I checked that you solved they problem, which was -

should I return the drive?


7 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 15, 2019 6:52 AM in response to HWTech

1) Yes - I am using an ANKER 7-port usb 3 hub


2) Got the same response using 50%


=================

Restored session: Sat Aug 10 17:51:41 CEST 2019


mbr-10:~ jc$ diskutil  partitionDisk  /dev/disk2  GPT  JHFS+   VolumeName 50%

Started partitioning on disk2

Unmounting disk

Creating the partition map

Error: -69760: Unable to write to the last block of the device

mbr-10:~ jc$ 


3) installed Drive DX and spacial USB driver


After Driver installation the cask appeared in Disk Utility as "ASMT TOSHIBA HDWE160 Media"


The Drive Report is attached as additional text.


I didn't see any obvious errors. I does seem that SMART data is withheld.


Unless you see something in the Drive DX report I will return the drive.


I guess I wouldn't replace with the same drive again as this may be an inherent problem on Mac's with these drive.


Thanks again ( I checked that you solved they problem, which was -

should I return the drive?


Aug 8, 2019 2:40 PM in response to sierra52

Did you select the physical drive in the left pane of Disk Utility when you erased it? If you only erased the pre-formatted volume, then it may cause issues on a Mac. To see the physical drive in the left pane of Disk Utility you need to click on "View" within Disk Utility and select "Show all devices". When erasing the drive select GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled).


If this does not work, report back on what happened with this technique.

Aug 9, 2019 8:51 PM in response to sierra52

Try manually partitioning the drive using the Terminal command line. Try this one first:

diskutil  partitionDisk  /dev/diskN  GPT  JHFS+   VolumeName  R


If it does not work, then try this command:

diskutil  partitionDisk  /dev/diskN  GPT  JHFS+   VolumeName  99%


Replace the "N" in "/dev/diskN" with the proper drive ID for the external drive. In your screenshot this was "disk2", but check for the correct ID before running the command since the drive ID may be different each time the drive is connected.


The first command should use the entire drive, while the second command will only use 99%.

Aug 10, 2019 8:33 AM in response to HWTech

Thanks for your continued suggestions.


Here's the terminal response

Last login: Sat Aug 10 14:44:37 on console

mbr-10:~ jc$ diskutil  partitionDisk  /dev/disk2  GPT  JHFS+   VolumeName  R

Started partitioning on disk2

Unmounting disk

Creating the partition map

Error: -69760: Unable to write to the last block of the device

mbr-10:~ jc$ diskutil  partitionDisk  /dev/disk2  GPT  JHFS+   VolumeName  99%

Started partitioning on disk2

Unmounting disk

Creating the partition map

Error: -69760: Unable to write to the last block of the device

mbr-10:~ jc$ 


So no joy yet:(


I hope you are not out of possibilities


BTW - I didn't mention that it is a new HDD Toshiba Performance X300 6TB from Amazon. I they normally would be initialized already with FAT. I guess not in this case. I don't have a Unix Box or Windows machine to try initialization on, as I have seen suggested.

I could probably stir one up somewhere nearby if you think that might be a solution.


Thanks again for your help


Aug 10, 2019 4:18 PM in response to sierra52

Try the last command again, but use 50% or even 25% instead of 99%. If it fails with a much smaller size partition, then either you have found a very odd bug in macOS or perhaps your new drive is defective in some way.


You could try running DriveDX (using the special USB driver to communicate with a USB drive) to see if you can get the health status of the external drive. Unfortunately many external USB drive's controllers do not allow the necessary SMART commands to be passed to the external drive. Might be worth a try to see if any blatant errors show up on your external drive. Even if DriveDX reports the drive as healthy, please post the DriveDX report here using the "Additional Text" icon which looks like a piece of paper.


You can also try writing zeroes to the entire drive to see if it is possible. Sometimes writing to a drive will force the drive to reallocate a defective sector which could "repair" the drive and make it functional again. Here is the command to write zeroes to the entire drive. Again replace the "N" with the correct drive identifier. The drive needs to be unmounted first (not ejected). Erasing a 6TB drive may take a day or two.


Unmount any and all volumes on the drive (replace "<volume-name>" with the actual volume name. If the volume name includes spaces, then enclose the volume name in double quotes " ".

diskutil  unmount  <volume-name>

example with a volume name containing spaces (Untitled 1):
diskutil  unmount  "Untitled 1"


Write zeroes to the whole drive:

sudo  dd  if=/dev/zero   of=/dev/diskN


Once the command finishes, make sure it wrote 6TB of data. Anything significantly less would mean you have a hardware issue with the new drive. You may need to do a little math.


If you are still within the return period, you may want to exchange this drive for another one. Otherwise try writing zeroes to the whole drive. If it works, great. If not, then you can create an RMA with Toshiba to get it replaced under warranty.


Do you have a powered USB3 hub you can use just in case the drive needs extra power and to have the hub act as a buffer between the drive and the computer? I've had intermittent issues using USB3 drives connected to a Mac and the powered hub makes everything just work.

Disk Utility

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