Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

boredandlonely

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 28, 2008
128
19
I have 2 ghost drives that only show up in the Open Core option-boot screen, and I want to repair whatever is causing them.
If I select them to boot, one loops back to the same screen almost immediately, and the other loops back as soon as you let go of the option key.

The two with weird names:
IMG_4897.jpeg


From the icons, they appear to be external drives, and I finally did track them down tonight to an External 5TB APFS USB 2.0 drive I have.

Disk Utility First Aid has no effect.

My instinct would be to back up that drive, reformat it, and then put the contents back on. However, that takes FOREVER for 5TB over USB 2.0.

Any suggestions on a quicker solution that might repair the problem without needing data transfer?
 
Last edited:
Hmm, it could be some hidden EFI boot volumes.
diskutil list says:

/dev/disk5 (external, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *5.0 TB disk5
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk5s1
2: Apple_APFS Container disk6 5.0 TB disk5s2
/dev/disk6 (synthesized):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: APFS Container Scheme - +5.0 TB disk6
Physical Store disk5s2
1: APFS Volume 4 3 Data BU 3.2 TB disk6s1
2: APFS Volume Preboot 70.5 MB disk6s2
3: APFS Volume Recovery 2.1 GB disk6s3
4: APFS Volume VM 4.3 GB disk6s4
5: APFS Volume 4 1 Mojave BU 14.4 GB disk6s5
6: APFS Volume 4 5 High Sierra BAD BU 396.7 GB disk6s6
7: APFS Volume 4 2 High Sierra BU 455.7 GB disk6s7
Forgot to mention, Disk Utility shows nothing irregular.

I actually had a previous ghost drive (named after a previous drive name on that hardware) on a different external drive. Disk Utility showed nothing irregular on this one too. There was nothing obvious in diskutil list. It DID show up in MacOS option-boot, but it DID NOT show up in OCLP option-boot. I tried to experiment fix it, and made the situation worse, and ended up reformatting. I'm STILL transferring all my data back onto that drive.
 
Last edited:
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.