Please help! --how to reformat zfs drive to ntfs??

[rkellyfitz]

I have been using freenas 9.1.1 x64, I want to take one of the hard drives out of my server and use it as an external drive for a windows computer, how can I reformat it to ntfs?

details:

• I have looked all through the freenas console and can't find any option for something like this
• I have searched freenas help, forums, and internet for this topic and have found nothing
• I put the hard drive in an external usb enclosure and connected it to a windows computer, windows can't see the drive either in windows explorer or administrative tools>create and format hard disk partitions, so I can't make windows do anything to reformat the disk
• I have tried Killdisk and other 3rd party software for windows and none of them can even see the drive much less reformat
• I have wasted hours on this task which should be very simple and quick and have gotten nowhere--could it be that my hard drives are imprisoned forever by freenas and can never escape to be used in another format again--please help!

 

[Bidule0hm]

"could it be that my hard drives are imprisoned forever by freenas" No, it just can't happen.

Have you tried to connect it directly on the MB of your PC instead of using an external USB enclosure? The reason is that this kind of USB thing is generally crappy and it can be confused by a unformatted drive.

 

[RobertT]

wonder if the drive is formatted as GPT but the enclosure only can handle MBR..

 

[diedrichg]

I'd try connecting it via SATA and then use EaseUS Partition Manager (free).

 

[jkh]

I have been using freenas 9.1.1 x64, I want to take one of the hard drives out of my server and use it as an external drive for a windows computer, how can I reformat it to ntfs?

By doing it somewhere else. FreeNAS doesn't care what happens to a drive after it leaves, but it also isn't responsible for formatting drives to anything but ZFS. If you want to take a drive out and reformat it as UFS or EXT3FS or NTFS or whatever, do that on the native OS you are targeting, the same as you would a new drive that just arrived in the mail for use in your Windows box. In other words, use Windows to format this drive.

 

[rkellyfitz]

Thanks for all the replies! I don't have a desktop, so I had to drive to a pc repair shop where they connected the drives directly via sata to a motherboard & were able to format the drives, thanks for the help!