External HD shows up as multiple devices

[tscoke]

I have a 1TB external Toshiba HD that I want to reformat into a clean, single partition. This drive was previously used with the now defunct Transporter Sync.

When I connect the drive to my Macbook Air running High Sierra it shows up as four separate volumes. I cant' figure out how to remove all that to have a single, empty 1TB drive.The partition option isn't available for any of the four.

In from diskutil list command:
/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: FDisk_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk2
1: Apple_HFS 1 1000.0 MB disk2s1
2: Apple_HFS 2 999.3 MB disk2s2
3: Apple_HFS 3 2.0 GB disk2s3
4: Apple_HFS 4 996.2 GB disk2s4

 

[Fishrrman]

Things I'd try:

- take it to a Windows PC, erase it to one of the PC format schemes, then bring it back to the Mac and try again.
- use a version of the Mac OS -earlier than- High Sierra (which seems fraught with problems).
- download "Parted Magic", burn a boot CD, boot from the Parted Magic CD, and try to initialize the drive that way.

 

[Weaselboy]

I cant' figure out how to remove all that to have a single, empty 1TB drive.

Click at the top left of Disk Utility and select show all devices to see the hardware device itself instead of just the volumes. Now go to the erase tab and select the drive at the top of the tree (asmedia in my case) then erase to whatever format you want. That will make one volume filling the whole drive.

 

[tscoke]

@Weaselboy thanks! That was it!