Unable to unpartition external hardisk (greyed out partition button)

Hi guys,


I'm trying to un-partition my External HD (Seagate), but the Partition button which is meant to allow you to do this is greyed out. Any ideas?


See screenshot attached.

Thanks in advance,

Alex

MacBook Air 13", macOS 10.12

Posted on May 23, 2020 11:35 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 24, 2020 12:56 PM

In addition to what @BDAqua mentions Apple's "partition" tab doesn't do what you think it does. Apple stripped some of its partitioning abilities many years ago so now the partition tab will only add/remove or resize partitions. To completely erase the external drive requires you to use the "Erase" tab as explained here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496

5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 24, 2020 12:56 PM in response to lxqn

In addition to what @BDAqua mentions Apple's "partition" tab doesn't do what you think it does. Apple stripped some of its partitioning abilities many years ago so now the partition tab will only add/remove or resize partitions. To completely erase the external drive requires you to use the "Erase" tab as explained here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496

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Unable to unpartition external hardisk (greyed out partition button)

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