Mac – Cannot read external hard drive after installing Linux

external-diskmacunix

Please help. I wanted to install linux so I follow this guide: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-mac-osx
I used my external hard drive to do this but then after I finished everything, when I plugged in my external hard drive I get "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" and I cannot see my external hard drive in Finder, but I could see it in the Disk Utility. Does this mean all my data was erased? How do I get my external hard drive back? Thank you.

Best Answer

Well, if you had data already on the drive, it's gone. You could use a data recover, or ship it off somewhere. But, I'll just go into formatting the drive.

A. Sorta. Generally Linux uses a diffrent type of format for drives (ext4, and a couple others) so it could be that it did work, and your Mac just can't read it. B. If it really did get messed up (you can't boot it into it) then :

  1. Go to Disk Utility.
  2. Click on your drive.
  3. Click on the "Erase" tab.
  4. If you'd like to, enter a name for the drive. Or, just keep it as Untiled if you'd like to try Linux again.
  5. Select a format type, if you'd like to. Fat works best for cross-device compatibility.
  6. Click the "Erase" button.
  7. Get some coffee, or water, depending on the size of your drive.
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