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I have an external HD that died on me a while ago and I'm trying to see if I can format / erase it to start using it again.The disk does not show up in Finder but I can see it in Disk Utility. When I try to erase it from there I get Disk Erase failed with the error:POSIX reports: The operation couldn’t be completed. Cannot allocate memoryWhen I try to verify the volume: diskutil verifyVolume /dev/disk2Error starting filesystem verification for disk2: Unrecognized filesystem (-9958)I've tried running a surface scan in Techtools Pro, it processed 650 blocks and all were bad. Before trashing it try this:In disk utility Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button.Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.)Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.Next step:Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list.Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.)Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window. Click on the Erase button.The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
The first method of rebuilding a Recovery partition is to simply reinstall OS X onto the Mac, of course the obvious difficulty with that approach is that unless you use Internet Recovery mode or a USB installer, you can’t access the reinstall function. While using a bootable USB Mac OS X installer or Internet Recovery works just fine for those with good internet access or a separate install drive, another option is available as well by using a third party tool that is freely available on.
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