GoFlex Net & GoFlex Home

[wayner53]

 My GoFlex Home 1TB was working fine on Mac Time Machine, but something got stuck and now I only have 218 GB free, but there are no visible files in my backup folder. In addition, Time Machine is stuck on 'cleaning up' for 2 days now with no progress.

How can I erase the drive and start over fresh? I don't see a means to erse and start over in the manual.

Thanks.

[Keithsmythe]

I had problems to begin with as well with time machine backups.

First of all the time machine backup (sparsebundle file) file is hidden.

I suggest you re-boot your mac and reboot the Goflex home drive, this worked for me.

Then try and do a time machine backup again. Make sure you follow the set up guide using the Seagate GFH software.

Keith

[wayner53]

I tried that, but when I start the Time Machine backup, it sits there forever saying 'cleaning up'. I left it overnight with no completion. I'd like to clean off the unit and start fresh if I could, but I don't see any way to do that.

[jopn83]

If you want to format the hard drive back as if you got it brand new go to:

Segate dashboard, then Preferences, go down to Administration, then Storage Devices, select the Hard drive and then selec the option Format, and wait untill it finish and you will have a clean Hard drive again.

Warnning: All information will be erased and you will no longer have your files, you will get a fresh Hard drive just as if you are unboxing it for the first time.

Hope it helps

[macseagate21]

FINALLY. After a month of no success, I found your solution for re-formatting my Seagate backup. THANK YOU!

Similar to others, Time Machine made an excessively large .sparsebundle file (650GB) on my drive, labeled .purgeable. Then Time Machine stopped backing up. Out of room. Purgeable file was never purged. Now I know to have at least twice the size of my original data available on the backup drive.

I wanted to delete the .sparsebundle. Manual file deletion didn't work; the "Deleting .sparsebundle" process went on for 6 days, ending with the extremely unhelpful [ The operation can’t be completed because the item “bands” is in use. ] Other forums suggested using Disk Utility or AirPort Utility to re-format; but neither app could see the wifi drive.

Only by going to the online GoFlex drive setup app was re-formatting finally a success. For others:

PART 1
https://www.seagateshare.com/ - log in as admin
> Preferences > Administration > Storage Devices
Select the Hard drive, choose Format and wait until it finishes. Even with a red error message, check the drive space result - mine worked anyway.
Presto - clean hard drive, all information erased as if unboxing for the first time.

PART 2
'OSStatus error' may appear when you try to assign the drive in Time Machine. Unbelievably, setting up a secondary account via the GoFlex Home app fixes it.  
GoFlex Home Agent > File > Open GoFlex Home > Preferences > Administration > New User
Just don't use any previous user account credentials and don't really ever use this to log on to the drive.

Voila. Drive ready to be re-assigned for Time Machine backup.


Sorry to those who don't want to re-format your drive. This solution is only good for returning the drive to zero. If you don't have a Seagate, but have a similar .sparsebundle Time Machine problem, perhaps your drive also has an online app re-format option at the manufacturer's site.