Thursday, February 14, 2008

Maxtor One Touch III and formatting on OS X

What is it with hard drive makers and the Mac? Western Digital has the same poor software implementation, but at least you can format a WD drive using the OS X Disk Utility. With the Maxtor One Touch III, when you try to format it to a Macintosh Extended Journaled (GUID so its bootable) format, you get an error.

OK, let's fix this one as well. First off, don't install any of that crappy Maxtor software. If you did, then go to your System folder/Library/Extensions and remove these two, MaxtorPowSecDriver.kext and IOFirewireMxBt.kext. Find your startup items folder and remove the MxBtDaemon and any other file that has Mx or Maxtor associated with it. You will also find NotificationExec next to MXBtDaemon, dump that too.
That is the important stuff.

Now, how to format. First, go to the Maxtor support site and find the software package for Mac for the OneTouch4. It's called OneTouch 4 Lite. Here
(UPDATE) Here is the link for the Plus version.

Now unzip this folder of about 200MB, and you will see a bunch of Windows stuff and a Mac application called Mac OneTouch 4 and a disk image called OneTouch 4.dmg.

If you have messed up your OneTouch, you can use disk utility to format it as MS-DOS for now and mount it. Once it is mounted, drag the Mac OneTouch 4 app and the OneTouch 4 DMG to your attached OneTouch III drive. Now launch the Mac OneTouch 4 application from your new drive.

It will run an applescript, mount the disk image and format your drive you as a Macintosh Extended Journaled one. Now, when you launch disk utility, you can reformat any way you want, including MS-DOS or Macintosh.

Now throw out all that Maxtor software. If you want to clone a drive, I recommend Carbon Copy Cloner. You can also use Apples new Time Machine software. Leave the one button stuff alone.

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30 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've just come to the same conclusion about removing the Maxtor-related software, but even if I log in as Admin I can't get rid of NotificationExec - I get a message saying it is open.

I've not connected to a Maxtor disk for months, which is why I'm dumping the software. BUT I want to re-introduce one this week (with other backup software).

Permissions on NotificationExec say System. Maybe I'll have to find my Unix book and remind myself about chmod.

bcnu
Al

Unknown said...

Launch Activity Monitor, kill process, then move to trash. Restart,empty trash.
Batchmod is also handy to change permissions of a sticky file and force empty trash.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the advice, much appreciated.

Just so you know the link you've provided to the software is for the "lite" version, you can download the "Plus" version here if needed:

http://www.seagate.com/support/onetouch/OneTouch4-Plus.zip

JKP said...

Thanks for posting this! I just got a Maxtor onetouch III and couldn't figure out what the heck was going on when I tried to reformat until your article!

:)

Unknown said...

Thanks for the article. This saved me from spending hours searching for a solution. I agree what's up with Maxtor, Seagate and others....their external drives only work out of the box on PCs.

Anonymous said...

This worked great on 2 drives that I got a good deal on from Best Buy. Thanks a ton.

BanJosh said...

THANKS for posting this, Carl! I have tried to follow your instructions to a T, but after the applescript re-formats, I get the same old 'device removal' error towards the end of any data transfer. Any thoughts on what I might be missing out on? Do I have to re-format thru disk utility after this process?

10.4.11

Thank you so much for your time. Feel free to email me if you wish: joshbeard@gmail.com

Anonymous said...

Thank you. I used this method to fix a Maxtor One Touch 4 that I tried to format using Disk Utility before using the Maxtor tool to format the disk. Fortunately I had saved "Maxtor One Touch.app" on my desktop because it is not on the "... Lite version"

Anonymous said...

Hey thanks for this, helped a lot.

Unknown said...

Glad to help out people.

Josh, your email is wrong.

Best,

Carl

Anonymous said...

hey thanks man.

These drive manufacturers have their heads up their asses!!

theres only 2-3 platforms to worry about...? Jezz

Sarah. R. said...

Looks like Seagate has inexplicably PULLED the Plus version, which is what one needs to get the Maxtor application that will allow reformatting of the drive. Do you have any suggestions? I am infuriated that I am being hamstrung in this way for no reason.

Unknown said...

Seems to be still working. Try the link again.

Unknown said...

i can't download the app with the link, only the one file

Unknown said...

Try this page

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=ot4-downloads&vgnextoid=0ed72c9e46914110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD

ML said...

Hmmm, I have two Maxtor One Touch III drives bought in late 2006, early 2007 and I had no trouble using Disk Utility to format them. I partitioned them first - maybe that's the secret.

Both have a partition which I use to boot and image my G5 lab machines. One also has a partition which will boot an Intel iMac - that was a challenge but I found the solution here: http://rentzsch.com/tidbits/intelbasedMacBootIncompatibility

Anonymous said...

I had the same problems with my new maxtor one touch 4 plus, and when I downloaded the zip file from the link here, it didn't have the .app file in it, just the dmg with a programme to install those stupid maxtor programmes again.

Anyway, I did a live chat with seagate support, and they said it was an "apple bug" and told me the work around.
In disk utility, you have to erase it as an MSDOS disk. Then select the drive, go to partition, and change it to 3 partitions (as hsf+), that worked. Then I had to put it back to 1 partition, I clicked into options and changed it to GUID. This worked. Very annoying process to go through with a new hard drive.

exquisituus said...

Hey, Thanks a lot. I got it fixed!

Anonymous said...

Carl -

Full disclosure: I'm not exactly sure what I want to do will work or is even a good idea - I'm not as technically savvy as you or the other posters here seem to be, which is why I'm asking my question.

I've got a Maxtor One Touch 4 Plus, a MacBook, and an XP machine. I want to use time machine to back up the Mac and something similar to back up the XP machine. I've been using the Maxtor One Touch utility to back up the PC for about two months and have had no problems so far and would honestly like something as simple as "push the white button" to back up my files.

Can you help?

Thanks, Josh

Unknown said...

Josh,

My advice is to use Carbon Copy Cloner, and make a full backup every once in a while. I make a bootable 500 GB clone of my iMac 500G drive. That way, if it does go south, I can boot from my external.
It's not "one button", but it's pretty close.

Carl

Josh Glantzberg said...

Carl -

Thanks for the advice, but what about the Windows XP drive? Does CCC work with both Operating Systems?

- Josh

Anonymous said...

Re Anonymous Sep 30- Thanks! Just got a clearance OneTouch 4 from BBuy and of course it didn't work with my Powerbook. Followed your instructions and it is working like a snap. Greatly appreciated but caveat emptor if you want to plug and play

Anonymous said...

i just went through the same thing. I did the 3 partitions to 1 partition + options > GUID thing. Annoying, but i'm sure glad I got it fixed. hell, it was only 130 bucks for a 1 TB drive, so what can you do. But i'm sure as hell not going to store my important data using FAT32.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous' fix worked. Restated and cleaned up a bit.

1) "Erase" drive as MS-DOS / FAT. Allow process to finish and "Cancel" if prompted by Time Machine to use the disk as a backup device.
2) Select the drive (not the volume, i.e. the highest one on the "tree" display) then "Partition" tab.
3) Under "Partition Scheme", select "3 Partitions". For Format, select "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". Just leave default sizes and labels. They'll get changed later.
4) Cancel if prompted by Time Machine to use the disk as a backup device. (you'll have to close 3 requests)
5) After the process is finished, change the "Partition Scheme" back to "1 Partition". Enter your volume label name. Ensure Format is still "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)".
6) Click on "Options..." (Under the volume box) and select GUID (the top selection).
7) Click OK to exit the options window.
8) Click "Apply"

Anonymous said...

Also the reason Maxtor removed the applescript mentioned above is apparently because it was written for OSX 10.4 (Tiger) and will not work properly in Leopard.

Anonymous said...

Well, it worked. Thanks. HAH!

Matthias said...

I erased my drive immediately without thinking that I might need the software on it.. Seagate doesn't provide that utility app anymore.

I did find a workaround by formatting the drive in the terminal.

i typed:

diskutil eraseDisk HFS+ UNTITLED disk1

UNTITLED being the new name of the drive and disk1 being the mount point.

Anonymous said...

I've tried everything above and DU still says error: resource busy. Must be a bad drive.

Anonymous said...

This is the first time I've got any use out of my 1 gb Maxtor One Touch Drive. Thanks enormously for cutting through the issue for me,

Anonymous said...

Thank you very much Carl. Very easy instructions. I reformatted my computer and lost the software and could not access my external. This fixed the problem. Yes!!!!!!