Please help! cannot mount external encrypted apfs HD.

[fsck123]

It was working perfect today all of a sudden wont mount, installed little snitch and now it wont mount.
when i go into disk utility it just says loading disks.... and doesnt do anything

diskutil shows the disk/volume

but wont mount.

i have tried mounting in recovery.
diskutil doesn't show it in terminal in recovery.

i have tried diskutil repairVolume & diskutil repairDisk
** update** it will now not show when i run diskutil list.

any ideas ?? please help has all my photography work on the drive !

 

[chscag]

It sounds like you had a drive failure. Drives can suddenly fail without warning. It would also help if you told the forum what drive you have.

Do you have that drive backed up since it contains your photo work on it?

 

[fsck123]

It sounds like you had a drive failure. Drives can suddenly fail without warning. It would also help if you told the forum what drive you have.

Do you have that drive backed up since it contains your photo work on it?

no i dont have it backed up ! im not sure what type of a drive it is... its covered in stickers so i cant see...
at a total loss now.

 

[fsck123]

It sounds like you had a drive failure. Drives can suddenly fail without warning. It would also help if you told the forum what drive you have.

Do you have that drive backed up since it contains your photo work on it?

is there any commands i can run in terminal that i have not tried yet ? or running something in linux like gparted or something to try mount/repair the drive

 

[fsck123]

i took the stickers off it is a Seagate HD

 

[fsck123]

it appears when Under USB when i open system profiler. so its not dead yet. how can i mount it.

its apfs encrypted - GUID

 

[fsck123]

Problem solved ran repair disk / volume in diskutil and then found this article https://www.macworld.com/article/23...t-mount-on-your-mac-after-a-bad-ejection.html

i killed quicklook process(s) and it Poped up right away.

 

[fsck123]

OK problem not solved. i ejected it and then tried to remount and got a pop up sat the disk cant be unlocked A problem was detected with the disk which prevents it from being unlocked

 

[chscag]

It doesn't look good for that drive. If it has failed somehow and also is encrypted, it may be a total loss of your data. I hope for your sake that the drive has not completely failed.

Drive recovery services are very expensive and are not effective when the failed drive was encrypted.

Sorry for such bad news

 

[Wando64]

It was working perfect today … installed little snitch and now it wont mount.

It shouldn’t make any difference, but I would uninstall Little Stitch, unplug the disk, reboot the Mac and try again.

…oh, and I would do a backup.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:
"any ideas ?? please help has all my photography work on the drive !"

Yes, I have some ideas.

Is your "photography work" the primary stuff stored on this drive?
If so, is it really, REALLY necessary to encrypt the drive?

Why don't you reach for your backup?

"no i dont have it backed up !"

Then go forth from this day and learn -- a sadder, but wiser man.
In the future, I'd suggest CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to create an exact duplicate of your external storage drive onto a backup.

After this "experience" with encryption, is this a risk you will continue to take in the future?
Encryption can protect files. But if things go wrong, and you can't "get to your stuff".... where does that leave you...?

You should be looking for another drive RIGHT NOW.
I recommend that you DO NOT buy WD or Seagate.
I'd suggest a USB3 SSD.
Either buy one "put together"
or
Buy a "bare" SSD and a USB3 enclosure and "build it yourself" (as I do).

You might consider an nvme "blade" SSD (I like Crucial)
and
A USB3.1 gen2 enclosure (many available, cheap).

This setup will work fine with either USB3 or USB3.1 gen2 (as you get with USBc ports).

Hmmm
A LITTLE MORE ADVICE:
STOP FOOLING WITH THIS DRIVE FOR THE MOMENT.
Disconnect it and set it aside.
Now, GET A REPLACEMENT as I suggested above, get it formatted (I recommend HFS+ also called "Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format".)
DO NOT ENCRYPT THIS DRIVE !!!!!
Have this within reach.

NOW, connect the problem drive -- see if you can get it mounted.
IF YOU CAN, IMMEDIATELY use either CCC or SD to "clone the contents" to the backup drive.

That MIGHT be "the way out of" your predicament...