disk utility post

content/post/20210801-macos-format/index.md

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+title = "Formatting MacOS Disk on Command Line"
+date = 2021-08-01T00:00:00
+lastmod = 2021-08-01T00:00:00
+draft = false
+
+# Authors. Comma separated list, e.g. `["Bob Smith", "David Jones"]`.
+authors = ["Carl Pearson"]
+
+tags = ["c3sr"]
+
+summary = "What to do when Disk Utility won't"
+
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+
+For reasons beyond my comprehension, MacOS'd Disk Utility randomly won't format external drives.
+
+For example, here's what disk utility shows when I first plug in the flash drive.
+
+![](step1.png)
+
+Here's the error when I try to format it as ExFAT.
+
+![](step2.png)
+
+Instead, use the `diskutil` command to first `list` the disks to find out which one is the offending disk `disk4` in this case) and then reformat it with something like `diskutil eraseDisk [format] [name] [disk]`.
+
+![](step3.png)