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Monterey cannot erase external SSD
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So your SSD TM is working now off your monitor? Unfortunately, I have no monitor but my Sandisk SSD is USB C or A I will try the A adapter from my dongle.
Did you continue your TM backup from your previous OS or did you start a new TM?
Thank You
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Yea, well, using the A cable with LaCie SSD gave me no resolution to the problem. This leads me to the conclusion that it has something to do with the cable itself (and it's protocol support - data transfer speed).
I have just tried to connect the problematic LaCie SSD drive using an IKEA USB-A / C cable link (not sure about the data transfer speeds, but defninitely not as fast as the original LaCie supplied cables) and to my surprise it works as fast as it can through that cable (approx 38MB/s transfer speeds) - apparently the cable is slower, but the point here is that it is possible to work with the drive without any beach balls and freezes (Finder, Disk Utility), although the transfer speeds are 10x slower.
I have no further knowledge how exactly the USB works under the hood regarding the protocols and speeds, but it seems like slower cable (IKEA brand) make's the drive at least usable without any beach balling and using LaCie SUPPLIED cables makes the drive utterly slow and basically not usable. Great job team which worked on Monterey. ?
EDIT:
Again, I do not use TM (Time Machine) but Carbon Copy Clone - and I have created a new clone on the no-name drive for the time being (better than nothing).
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my SSD drive worked with its C/C cable without any issues on a BigSur VM that I created via VMWARE Fusion in OS Monterey
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if you can find 2.0 USB-C to USB cable (slow speed) you can use that to erase your LaCie SSD with APFS file system
and then put back the cable that came with your enclosure and plug it back to your MacBook that has macOS Monterey and your LaCie SSD should work with full read & write speed.
No problem that's what I had to do with my WD 4TB SSD to make it work, but I give up on macOS Monterey because I installed on my late 2013 iMac with OCLP and it was nothing but problems so I'm back to Big Sur with Patched Sur and my iMac runs so good right now.
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I have seen issues with erasing, partitioning and imaging disks on Catalina and newer versions of Mac OS. Multiple different disks on multiple different Macs.
It’s gotten to a point where I’ll just format them on an older Mac running Mojave or Mavericks, or do it on a Linux box with Gnome Disks or gparted. That always works without fail.
It’s almost as if it’s trying to get permission to touch the disk and failing instantly.
It’s gotten to a point where I’ll just format them on an older Mac running Mojave or Mavericks, or do it on a Linux box with Gnome Disks or gparted. That always works without fail.
It’s almost as if it’s trying to get permission to touch the disk and failing instantly.
Further confirmation...
I had this same issue, i.e. Disc utility hangs at "creating the partition map" when trying to initialise a new Samsung 870 QVO 4TB SSD connected via External USB 3.1 Enclosure on macOS Monterey 12.0.1, formatting with APFS Encrypted and GUID scheme. I tried multiple different enclosures and cables* with no difference.
I left it overnight (~12 hrs) and both laptop and drive got warm but zero progress. Interestingly iStat was showing very low utilisation on anything, yet the Mac and dive were both noticeably warm. The drive & enclosure was new but the Mac & cables are ones I've used many times for formatting drives.
Luckily I had another Mac in the house on Big Sur 11.6.1 and the same process completed without error and near immediately (few seconds). Having completed the initialisation on the Big Sur MacBook, the drive is now fully usable as normal on the Monterey MacBook. But the Monterey MacBook was not capable of completing the initialise procedure.
So I would say this confirms it as a Monterey bug wrt drive initialisation / formatting / partitioning.
* I did not have a USB 2.0 cable to hand - that would have been what I would have tried next had I not had a Big Sur Mac available to use.
I had this same issue, i.e. Disc utility hangs at "creating the partition map" when trying to initialise a new Samsung 870 QVO 4TB SSD connected via External USB 3.1 Enclosure on macOS Monterey 12.0.1, formatting with APFS Encrypted and GUID scheme. I tried multiple different enclosures and cables* with no difference.
I left it overnight (~12 hrs) and both laptop and drive got warm but zero progress. Interestingly iStat was showing very low utilisation on anything, yet the Mac and dive were both noticeably warm. The drive & enclosure was new but the Mac & cables are ones I've used many times for formatting drives.
Luckily I had another Mac in the house on Big Sur 11.6.1 and the same process completed without error and near immediately (few seconds). Having completed the initialisation on the Big Sur MacBook, the drive is now fully usable as normal on the Monterey MacBook. But the Monterey MacBook was not capable of completing the initialise procedure.
So I would say this confirms it as a Monterey bug wrt drive initialisation / formatting / partitioning.
* I did not have a USB 2.0 cable to hand - that would have been what I would have tried next had I not had a Big Sur Mac available to use.
I googled the drive and got this on Sandisk forum: "Sandisk just said the drive wasn’t yet certified for use on Monterey." that is weird
I think its Monterey problem because I tried a 4TB Samsung and a 4 TB WD blue and both did not work.
Possible solution:
I too encountered the “unable to unmount” message when attempting to erase an external 1TB Samsung T7 SSD connected via a Thunderbolt 3 port.
I then ‘ejected’ the disk and retried and it worked.
iMac 21.5" Retina 4K 2019 Intel i5 Monterey 12.0.1
I too encountered the “unable to unmount” message when attempting to erase an external 1TB Samsung T7 SSD connected via a Thunderbolt 3 port.
I then ‘ejected’ the disk and retried and it worked.
iMac 21.5" Retina 4K 2019 Intel i5 Monterey 12.0.1
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What's going on with Monterey and the new MacBook Pros brings to mind the early days of firewire, when there was a problem with -some- firewire drives not working/erasing properly because of the drive controller chip inside.
Remember the "Oxford 911" ?? (I think that's what the name of it was...)
Remember the "Oxford 911" ?? (I think that's what the name of it was...)
Just received a new SanDisk Extreme Pro 4TB SSD and discovered this issue. Had to reformat on an iMac running Big Sur. What a hassle! The bigger question: Is it risky running this drive in Montery if there were issues with formatting? Are we risking data loss?
Yes. I‘ve tried it with two different 4 TB drives (Samsung 860 QVO, SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD) in the same IcyBox USB C 3.1 enclosure. Formatting worked on an MacBook Air M1 with Monterey. Accessing the drive from an iMac 27“ with Monterey made the drive unreadable even from the MacBook Air.
I had the same problems on Monterey on M1 machines (MBA and MBP14) with Sandisk Extreme PRO 4TB - couldn't erase/create partitions, both CLI and GUI was stuck on creating partition map etc.
I connected the disk with my ipad's original charging cable (USBc - USBc), and suddenly Disk Utility worked normally. I was able to erase the default ExFAT partition and create APFS container with two APFS encrypted volumes on it without any issues. Then I ejected the disk, connected it with the Sandisk provided cable to my MBP14 and it sees the encrypted APFS volumes correctly and I'm able to use them just fine.
I connected the disk with my ipad's original charging cable (USBc - USBc), and suddenly Disk Utility worked normally. I was able to erase the default ExFAT partition and create APFS container with two APFS encrypted volumes on it without any issues. Then I ejected the disk, connected it with the Sandisk provided cable to my MBP14 and it sees the encrypted APFS volumes correctly and I'm able to use them just fine.
Apparently "the workaround" to the disk formatting problem is to use A SLOWER USB cable.
That is, use a USB2 cable if you have one (NOT a USB3 cable with the blue-tipped end).
Perhaps even an old USB1 cable.
Seems like an odd solution, but others are documenting that this works for them.
That is, use a USB2 cable if you have one (NOT a USB3 cable with the blue-tipped end).
Perhaps even an old USB1 cable.
Seems like an odd solution, but others are documenting that this works for them.
I was having the same issue yesterday.
I had a external 2TB Seagate drive that was exfat, and wanted to use it as a TM drive.
It wouldn't mount at first at all. I saw it in disk utility, but it wasnt mounting. I then ran first aid then it mounted, but wouldn't format. I reset the computer, and tried again. It finally allowed me to reformat it.
I had a external 2TB Seagate drive that was exfat, and wanted to use it as a TM drive.
It wouldn't mount at first at all. I saw it in disk utility, but it wasnt mounting. I then ran first aid then it mounted, but wouldn't format. I reset the computer, and tried again. It finally allowed me to reformat it.
I'm not sure if this is related, but when I try to format a samsung T7 portable SSE (formatted as exfat) on Big Sur through an intel macbook pro using the USBC port, there was no option for APFS. My choices were "Mac OS Case Journaled (case Sensitive/Not case sensitive), FAX and Exfat. When I format it on my 2013 Mac pro, Big Sur, through a USB port. I get APFS as an option...
Now when I take the APFS formatted SSD back to my USBC on my Macbook pro, I can format in APFS (with case-sensitive and encryption options), but the FAT, EXFAT options are GONE!.. WTF?
Now when I take the APFS formatted SSD back to my USBC on my Macbook pro, I can format in APFS (with case-sensitive and encryption options), but the FAT, EXFAT options are GONE!.. WTF?
Make sure you're formatting the disk itself. Not the partition. You know you're wiping the whole disk when it shows the option to change the partition table to MBR or GPT on the erase option..
On why it doesn't have apfs etc I think it's because apfs is only for GPT on Macs
When not being able to erase a drive in Disk Utility what usually works for me on Big Sur is issuing a command like
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/diskX bs=1m count=16 to overwrite the first 16MB of drive number X with zeroes. Then unplug for a couple of seconds, then when trying again Disk Utility will not be confused by some prior partition map because that's gone. Just be VERY CAREFUL and DOUBLE CHECK that X is the number of the drive that you want to erase!
ah, you are right. In my "view" settings on my macbook it was set to display only volumes, so when I set it to "Show all Devices" the "Samsung PSSD T7 Media" showed up with all the formatting options I was missing.
Thanks!
Sorry to go off-topic, would it be possible for you to check whether your T7 supports TRIM over USB using the methods from this discussion? https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/trim-on-usb-external-ssd-supported-now.2322611/
Well, Yes, It appears to be doing a trim..
2021-12-01 19:53:36.516684-0500 0x19d4b Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (apfs) spaceman_metazone_init:189: disk9 metazone for device 0 of size 4601488 blocks (encrypted: 0-2300744 unencrypted: 2300744-4601488)
2021-12-01 19:53:36.516689-0500 0x19d4b Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (apfs) spaceman_datazone_init:442: disk9 allocation zone on dev 0 for allocations of 1 blocks starting at paddr 8224768
2021-12-01 19:53:36.516692-0500 0x19d4b Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (apfs) spaceman_datazone_init:442: disk9 allocation zone on dev 0 for allocations of 2 blocks starting at paddr 4620288
2021-12-01 19:53:36.516696-0500 0x19d4b Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (apfs) spaceman_datazone_init:442: disk9 allocation zone on dev 0 for allocations of 3 blocks starting at paddr 4653056
2021-12-01 19:53:36.516699-0500 0x19d4b Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (apfs) spaceman_datazone_init:442: disk9 allocation zone on dev 0 for allocations of 4 blocks starting at paddr 4685824
2021-12-01 19:53:36.521276-0500 0x19d50 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (apfs) spaceman_trim_free_blocks:3371: disk9 scan took 0.004536 s, trims took 0.000000 s