How can I disable Journaling on an external drive?


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Hi Guys,

I am trying to turn off Journaling on an external hard drive currently formatted as HFS+ (Mac OS Extended, Journaled). For some reason my media centre tv will only support HFS+ with journaling turned off.

I've completed a google search, attempted to turn off journaling through Disk Utility etc, still cannot work it out.

Before suggesting that I use another type partition format:

  • I cannot use FAT32 because file size limitations
  • NTFS is not natively supported by OS X for writing files
  • ExFAT would be perfect but is not supported by my media centre

Does anyone know how I can turn off Journaling without deleting the partition?

Thanks!

OS: Lion OS X 10.7.4

With previous OS X / Disk Utility versions you had the option to format a drive as such, but apparently Apple got rid of it in OS X Lion or Snow Leopard. Since you have a 2010 iMac you could try to startup from the OS X Snow Leopard Install DVD and check if the option is still there in Disk Utility. Otherwise you'll need OS X Leopard or some other solution.

Select the disk, press Option and then the "Disable Journal" will appear in the File menu (Press option, keep it pressed and Click File)

If you don't know what "Option" key is, it's the key between the Ctrl and Command key, left of the Apple logo, now sporting a fancy "Alt" text. :-)

  On 05/06/2012 at 06:15, .Neo said:

With previous OS X / Disk Utility versions you had the option to format a drive as such, but apparently Apple got rid of it in OS X Lion or Snow Leopard. Since you have a 2010 iMac you could try to startup from the OS X Snow Leopard Install DVD and check if the option is still there in Disk Utility. Otherwise you'll need OS X Leopard or some other solution.

  On 05/06/2012 at 06:15, .Neo said:

With previous OS X / Disk Utility versions you had the option to format a drive as such, but apparently Apple got rid of it in OS X Lion or Snow Leopard. Since you have a 2010 iMac you could try to startup from the OS X Snow Leopard Install DVD and check if the option is still there in Disk Utility. Otherwise you'll need OS X Leopard or some other solution.

I don't know where I put my Snow Leopard discs, haven't needed them for ages. But that might be the only solution.

  On 05/06/2012 at 06:20, MiukuMac said:

Select the disk, press Option and then the "Disable Journal" will appear in the File menu (Press option, keep it pressed and Click File)

If you don't know what "Option" key is, it's the key between the Ctrl and Command key, left of the Apple logo, now sporting a fancy "Alt" text. :-)

One of the first things I tried. The option to disable Journaling has been removed from Lion. :(

  On 05/06/2012 at 06:20, MiukuMac said:

Select the disk, press Option and then the "Disable Journal" will appear in the File menu (Press option, keep it pressed and Click File)

If you don't know what "Option" key is, it's the key between the Ctrl and Command key, left of the Apple logo, now sporting a fancy "Alt" text. :-)

Wait!

I re-tried this and held Option before clicking on the File menu. It revealed the Disabled Journaling command. Werid thing is, the partition still states it's journaled.

I will see how the drive works in my media centre now...

Thanks

Yes sorry, I tried to convey that you should have it pressed before going into the menu - my bad.

You may have to dismount/mount it before "Info" in the Disk Utility properly shows the state of the journalling. If it doesn't work, there is one other way to disable it by forcing it from the command line.

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