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I run MacOS Sierra 10.12.4 and struggling with my external 3.5 Data HDD not mounting after a short circuit in the Hard disk casing. I have purchased a new casing and have seen that the volume / partition still exists, but it is not mounting to the Mac. I had used Disk Drill data recovery and I can see that the partition exists and the data can be recovered.

The problem is:

  1. I am unable to mount the HDD using disk utility as the mount is greyed out. I can see two volumes / partitions but the mount option inside each of them doesn't work.

  2. I am unable to do First Aid on both the disk and the two partitions. The error is enclosed. Error while doing first aid on first partition or volume Error while doing first aid on the whole external HDD

  3. I am not even able to erase the partitions or the disk. It gives the error shown on the screen - "Mediakit reports not enough space on device for requested operation."

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  • Looks like a failing hard drive to me. You may have to get a new one. Were you using this hard drive for anything recently?
    – William T Froggard
    May 26, 2017 at 16:30
  • "short circuit in the casing"... that sounds expensive. Bin the drive & get a new one.
    – Tetsujin
    May 26, 2017 at 17:41

1 Answer 1

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The following error appears if disk has GUID partition table and doesn't have EFI system partition (or it is less than 200 Mb):

Error: -5344: MediaKit reports not enough space on device for requested operation

Even if you are not planning to use this external HDD for booting, Mac OS's Disk Utility requires this partition to exist.

You can create it with gdisk (GUID fdisk):

(First leave some unpartitioned space in start of the disk by moving partitions or backing up data)

Command (? for help): n
Partition number (1-128, default 1):
First sector (34-1953525133, default = 40) or {+-}size{KMGTP}:
Last sector (40-1172342001, default = 1172342001) or {+-}size{KMGTP}: 512M
Current type is 'Apple HFS/HFS+'
Hex code or GUID (L to show codes, Enter = AF00): EF00
Changed type of partition to 'EFI System'

I created it with size of 512 Mb to be sure (200 is enough) and its hex code is EF00.

I'm not sure if it is required for Disk Utility, but it's better to format it with FAT32:

sudo newfs_msdos -F 32 <your partition device, i.e. /dev/disk1s1>

Additional information:

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