Sonoma won't mount external drives

[jabbo5150]

Hi all, so my dad just got a 2023 iMac running Sonoma 14.5. It has the USB-C ports, so he got a Via Labs USB hub (says Satechi on it) so he could connect devices to it, such as his reader for his SD card for his camera (He is a photographer).

The system report seems to recognize that these devices are plugged in, however, they will not mount and I cannot access the data on his SD card and therefore cannot transfer his pictures over and/or make CDs for him.

This seems to be a known issue in Sonoma. I have already gone to privacy and security and the only options I am given are for allowing apps from unknown developers (See photo)

Is he out of luck until Apple fixes this or is there something I am not doing that I can do to fix this. My computer is an old Mac Pro 1,1 running el capitan and it runs better than this!

I hope someone has the answer!

 

[jabbo5150]

Disk Utility seems to recognize that there is an SD card attached where it says other volumes (Or I assume that is what that is)

 

[Mike Boreham]

Hi all, so my dad just got a 2023 iMac running Sonoma 14.5. It has the USB-C ports, so he got a Via Labs USB hub (says Satechi on it) so he could connect devices to it, such as his reader for his SD card for his camera (He is a photographer).

The system report seems to recognize that these devices are plugged in, however, they will not mount and I cannot access the data on his SD card and therefore cannot transfer his pictures over and/or make CDs for him.

This seems to be a known issue in Sonoma. I have already gone to privacy and security and the only options I am given are for allowing apps from unknown developers (See photo)

Is he out of luck until Apple fixes this or is there something I am not doing that I can do to fix this. My computer is an old Mac Pro 1,1 running el capitan and it runs better than this!

I hope someone has the answer!

Sorry if these are really dumb suggestions, but best to check basics first:

1. Does his Finder > Settings > General look like this:

2. What do you see in Disk Utility sidebar? If the Mac is seeing a drive but it is unmounted the volumes on it will be greyed out as the three volumes on one of my externals is in the screenshot below. If they show but are greyed out you should be able to mount them by clicking "Mount" at top of right side window.

3. How are the externals formatted? This probably isn't the reason they are not appearing, since you say the SD card isn't showing either and that will probably be formatted EX-FAT or FAT32 which should mount.

 

[jabbo5150]

Sorry if these are really dumb suggestions, but best to check basics first:

1. Does his Finder > Settings > General look like this:

View attachment 2382563

2. What do you see in Disk Utility sidebar? If the Mac is seeing a drive but it is unmounted the volumes on it will be greyed out as the three volumes on one of my externals is in the screenshot below. If they show but are greyed out you should be able to mount them by clicking "Mount" at top of right side window.

View attachment 2382564

3. How are the externals formatted? This probably isn't the reason they are not appearing, since you say the SD card isn't showing either and that will probably be formatted EX-FAT or FAT32 which should mount.

He doesn't have any external drives aside from the SD card reader. It is not showing up whatsoever in the disk utility, grayed out or otherwise. It just is not mounting. The reader works and mounts fine on my older mac. His finder settings look identical to what you posted. A USB flash drive I plugged into the hub mounted immediately. It seems to be his card reader that it is not playing nice with

 

[profdraper]

He doesn't have any external drives aside from the SD card reader. It is not showing up whatsoever in the disk utility, grayed out or otherwise. It just is not mounting. The reader works and mounts fine on my older mac. His finder settings look identical to what you posted. A USB flash drive I plugged into the hub mounted immediately. It seems to be his card reader that it is not playing nice with

Now sounds like you’ve covered it all & given it mounts a USB flash drive, I don’t see this as related to the occasional Sonoma non-mounting issue. Seems to be specifically related to either the Satechi hub /sd slot OR the sd card itself - but you have also confirmen that this works on another mac.

Try this:
1) power down the new iMac & disconnect the power supply from the back of it for 20 secs or so (an SME reset), then
2) plug it back it then restart - while restarting, immediately hold down Command-Option-P-R keys & keep them held down until the mac chimes for a second time & restarts again (zap PRAM).

 

[Mike Boreham]

It seems to be his card reader that it is not playing nice with

Sounds like that is the case. I don't have any suggestions except get another one.

I assumed external drives were involved because of thread title.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Now sounds like you’ve covered it all & given it mounts a USB flash drive, I don’t see this as related to the occasional Sonoma non-mounting issue. Seems to be specifically related to either the Satechi hub /sd slot OR the sd card itself - but you have also confirmen that this works on another mac.

Try this:
1) power down the new iMac & disconnect the power supply from the back of it for 20 secs or so (an SME reset), then
2) plug it back it then restart - while restarting, immediately hold down Command-Option-P-R keys & keep them held down until the mac chimes for a second time & restarts again (zap PRAM).

Silicon Macs don't have PRAM or NVRAM. EG this article. As it says there the Silicon Mac way is to shut down (not reboot) wait and start up again.

 

[Fishrrman]

One thing about disk utility:

Make sure you go to the "view" menu and select "show ALL devices".
Otherwise you may not be able to "see" certain items (like the internal hard drive, etc.).

 

[jabbo5150]

Sounds like that is the case. I don't have any suggestions except get another one.

I assumed external drives were involved because of thread title.

Well it won't mount external drives either

Cheap flash drive from microcenter mounted no problem

external usb hard drive in an inland enclosure did not mount whatsoever

 

[jabbo5150]

One thing about disk utility:

Make sure you go to the "view" menu and select "show ALL devices".
Otherwise you may not be able to "see" certain items (like the internal hard drive, etc.).

Did that and the external drive in an enclosure is still not mounting

 

[jabbo5150]

It also would not mount the hard drive I pulled out of my old macbook pro that is now in an enclosure as well. I know there is nothing wrong with the drive, yet it mounts USB flash drives 1-2-3.

 

[Mike Boreham]

It also would not mount the hard drive I pulled out of my old macbook pro that is now in an enclosure as well. I know there is nothing wrong with the drive, yet it mounts USB flash drives 1-2-3.

Very strange. You could try running Apple Diagnostics but given that a cheap USB flash drive mounted it doesn’t sound like a USB port failure.

Other things you might try are Disk Utility First Aid and whether things mount whan started in Safe Boot.

 

[cocoua]

Today I got my 3rd broken drive since 1 year ago with MacStudio Ventura and Sonoma.

I got 2 more broken that I could open with the rMBP/ Mojave, but the other 3 are broke on both systems, one I had to spend 900USD in recover it as I didnt have an updated backup.

I have external 25 HHD since 2014 and none got this problems, BUT in the latest 2 years 5 disk (all APFS encrypted) were unable to mount due to encryption problems.

I'd like a full downgrade to Monterey as I cant live with this tension but FC ad Adobe require the latest OS

I dont know what to do

 

[gank41]

Today I got my 3rd broken drive since 1 year ago with MacStudio Ventura and Sonoma.

I got 2 more broken that I could open with the rMBP/ Mojave, but the other 3 are broke on both systems, one I had to spend 900USD in recover it as I didnt have an updated backup.

I have external 25 HHD since 2014 and none got this problems, BUT in the latest 2 years 5 disk (all APFS encrypted) were unable to mount due to encryption problems.

I'd like a full downgrade to Monterey as I cant live with this tension but FC ad Adobe require the latest OS

I dont know what to do

I've gone thru 3 drives this year myself.

 

[Fishrrman]

cocoua wrote:
"BUT in the latest 2 years 5 disk (all APFS encrypted) were unable to mount due to encryption problems."

I see a problem there, but it's NOT with the Mac OS...

 

[grad]

All sorts of problem with disks (2.5" SSDs) have occurred the last 1+ month since I upgraded to Sonoma. As externals USBs or SATAs in hackintoshes, as USBs in real Macs and Macbooks. Not just formatted as ExFAT or APFS, most drives were HFS+, none of these were encrypted. Drives not mounting, others reporting errors in Disk Utility beyond ability to repair even though this is not the case when checking SMART health reports, etc. It is insane. Lots of TBs inaccessible or in the brink of corruption. I really need to go back to High Sierra until I fully migrate to Linux, I can not trust Apple anymore.

 

[cocoua]

All sorts of problem with disks (2.5" SSDs) have occurred the last 1+ month since I upgraded to Sonoma. As externals USBs or SATAs (in hackintoshes), as USBs in real Macs and Macbooks. Not just formatted as ExFAT or APFS, most drives were HFS+, none of these were encrypted. Drives not mounting, others reporting errors in Disk Utility beyond ability to repair even though this is not the case when checking SMART health reports, etc. At best It is insane. Lots of TBs inaccessible or in the brink of corruption. I really need to go back to High Sierra until I fully migrate to Linux, I can not trust Apple anymore.

UF! this is much worse than I though, I was hoping APFS encrypted were the culprit

now I'm scary to the point moving to Windows. Cant downgrade because some software only works with Sonoma. I've been 24 years in Apple ecosystem, but I recently bought a Windows machine for renders and maybe I'll buy a better one as main computer.

 

[cocoua]

cocoua wrote:
"BUT in the latest 2 years 5 disk (all APFS encrypted) were unable to mount due to encryption problems."

I see a problem there, but it's NOT with the Mac OS...

could be the wires or connections? or you mean the HDD itself?

 

[Fishrrman]

Re the reply above this one:
"could be the wires or connections? or you mean the HDD itself?"

(sigh)

Did you ever stop to consider that it might be THE ENCRYPTION that is getting in the way of the drives mounting and running properly?

Fishrrman's "Mac Rule Number 7":
NEVER use encryption on a drive unless you have a rock-solid and compelling reason to do so. What if you have an emergency and the encryption prevents you from accessing it?

 

[gank41]

Re the reply above this one:
"could be the wires or connections? or you mean the HDD itself?"

(sigh)

Did you ever stop to consider that it might be THE ENCRYPTION that is getting in the way of the drives mounting and running properly?

Fishrrman's "Mac Rule Number 7":
NEVER use encryption on a drive unless you have a rock-solid and compelling reason to do so. What if you have an emergency and the encryption prevents you from accessing it?

All Time Machine drives are encrypted.

 

[cocoua]

Re the reply above this one:
"could be the wires or connections? or you mean the HDD itself?"

(sigh)

Did you ever stop to consider that it might be THE ENCRYPTION that is getting in the way of the drives mounting and running properly?

Fishrrman's "Mac Rule Number 7":
NEVER use encryption on a drive unless you have a rock-solid and compelling reason to do so. What if you have an emergency and the encryption prevents you from accessing it?

This statement makes no sense at all.

On Mac laptops, FileVault is enabled by default.

And most important thing, I've been working with all my drives encrypted since long time ago (14 years ago maybe) never had problems but after Ventura-Sonoma, so >20 encrypted drives in 18 years until 3 dead drives in 2 years right after upgrading to Ventura-Sonoma (1 Ventura, 2 Sonoma).

I mean... 100% there is a pattern here.

 

[Macnewuseer2023]

I have a OWC Mercury Elite Pro Quad with four 4 TB HDD in it connected to my M1 Mac Studio. All drives encrypted. Since Sonoma, none will mount. Even from disk utility they won't mount. I removed the stored password in Keychain and when I go to mount it just hangs after I enter the password.

I can move the enclosure to my MacBook Pro (Intel) on Montery and they mount fine.

Anyone experience anything similar?

Yes I am also I have a Seagate 3 TB, Samsung 2 TB SSD and a HP one terabyte SSD drive which worked fine prior to the update. Now they will not load also. I have tried several of the fixes suggested none will work if it’s encrypted hard drive that will work on either PC or Apple will not work now after latest update

 

[cocoua]

Yes I am also I have a Seagate 3 TB, Samsung 2 TB SSD and a HP one terabyte SSD drive which worked fine prior to the update. Now they will not load also. I have tried several of the fixes suggested none will work if it’s encrypted hard drive that will work on either PC or Apple will not work now after latest update

have you tried connecting them to a Mojave Mac? one of the 3 drives could be opened in Mojave, then Using Disk Utility and now I'm using the drive in Sonoma with a backup daily basis.

 

[Fishrrman]

gank wrote:
"All Time Machine drives are encrypted."

I've never used time machine, not once, ever.
(I use either SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner for backups)

Re cocoua:
"On Mac laptops, FileVault is enabled by default"

Huh?
Something's wrong here.
I have owned 3 Mac laptops (2010 MBP, 2015 MBP, now 2021 MBP 14").
I've NEVER "disabled" filevault "manually", to my recollection.
Nor have I EVER turned filevault "on"... on any Mac I've owned (of many).

I just booted up the 2021 MBP, went to "privacy and security", and from there to filevault, and...
... filevault is OFF.

I didn't turn it off.
How did it get that way?

 

[gank41]

I've never used time machine, not once, ever.
(I use either SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner for backups)

Well, considering my drives are encrypted, and your's aren't, we can probably rule that out then
I use SuperDuper & CCC, too. Both great apps.