Sonoma won't mount external drives

[Clix Pix]

I just got a couple of new Sandisk external SSDs today and have had absolutely no problem in mounting and immediately using them on my 16" M1 MBP (Sonoma, 14.5). I do not encrypt anything, there is no need for me to do so. FileVault is off on my machine. I never have and never will use Time Machine for my backups.

First thing I always do when I buy a new external SSD is to format it in Disk Utility, even though Sandisk drives are already formatted for Macs. This clears out anything I don't want on the drive (their proprietary files) and I get my full 2 TB or 4 TB, whatever it is I'm using. Right from the start, each drive mounted promptly, I clicked "Allow" on the message which always pops up when an unfamiliar, new or unused-for-a-period-of-time device is plugged into the machine, and gave the device permission to mount as expected.

Next, I went into Disk Utility and erased each drive, gave it a new, appropriate name for the use to which I will be putting it, and formatted it again as APFS like the computer and my other external drives. Once that was done, I immediately put one new drive to work immediately, transferring some folders and files to it, which went smoothly, as expected, and this evening I'll be working with the other new drive.

Very straightforward, speedy and smooth procedure: no fuss, no muss. No messing with encryption and all of that, either. I am wondering if for those who do use encryption, there is some sort of conflict between Apple's own FileVault and the encryption also available on whatever new drive has just been purchased. ?? I wouldn't think one would need the proprietary encryption from a drive manufacturer when Apple has already covered that base with its own FileVault.

I suspect that somewhere in there is the issue people are discussing with Sonoma and their new or older drives...... ??

 

[cocoua]

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?

you are right, I said Filevault, where I should said the SSD is encrypted by default, as Macs with T2 chip or Apple Silicon are encrypted by default at hardware level.

Anyway, I understand encrypted options in MacOS are a higher level of security, so it should works flawlessly, not the opposite!

Whats the point of offer this service if your drive could be off at anytime?
Does Filevault have the same flaw?
or it works better with internal drive?
is this designed just to work with internal drives?
and moreover, how is it possible that for so many years it was working nice and then since Ventura/Mac Studio so many fails?

Is this a problem with Apple Silicon Macs? or is this because something in the OS?

 

[gank41]

I see this every day in the morning when I wake my MBP

I'm sure this is contributing to the physical drives having issues, if they keep getting disconnected...

 

[Fishrrman]

gank:
"I see this every day in the morning when I wake my MBP"

My suggestion (and yes, it is serious):
SHUT DOWN the MBP each night.
Reboot in the morning.
Takes only a minute or so.
Then you won't see those messages any more.

 

[Clix Pix]

Unless there is some really strong reason to keep external drives always attached to the computer, it may be safer to simply eject them when they are not going to be in use. It only takes a minute to plug one back in when needed.....

 

[gank41]

There's no way that "my Time Machine drives are being ejected when my Mac goes into Sleep" should be resolved by turning the computer off or just unplug the drives 🤣

 

[ChildOfTheWW]

Hey,

i am pretty sure my problem is not directly linked to the problem here, but maybe someone can help.
I have a M1 Pro 16" on Sonoma with a Crucial X9 Pro 4TB SSD taped behind the screen. I am using it for pictures, movies and Logic/DAW files. 1 Container APFS with 2 volumes (1 encrypted, 1 unencrypted).
I connected the SSD yesterday and suddenly got the message: The disk "x9 Pro" cant be unlocked - a Problem was detected with the disk that prevents it from being unlocked"
When i tried to mount the unencrypted volume in disk utility nothing happened, when i tried to unlock the encrypted one the message above appears. Disc Utility First Aid ended with a failure. Googled much but couldnt get access to the SSD, so i have "erased" it since i have it mostly backed up.
I have filled the SSD again with around 2,5TB of files and after that tried to install the Logic Sound Library onto the SSD (unencrypted volume). Suddenly the download failed and i had to start over again. Logic was kind of messy because of that and i had to restart the macbook. Now I again get the message that the disk cant be unlocked and got the same problem as yesterday.
I lately often got the message that i cant eject the drive because it was in use (no idea by what exactly). When i shut down the macbook when this happens can this easily corrupt the Container and making it impossible to access encrypted and unencrypted volumes? Or does this sound more like a SSD failure?
Thanks for reading, I hope anyone has any ideas.

 

[pshufd]

Hey,

i am pretty sure my problem is not directly linked to the problem here, but maybe someone can help.
I have a M1 Pro 16" on Sonoma with a Crucial X9 Pro 4TB SSD taped behind the screen. I am using it for pictures, movies and Logic/DAW files. 1 Container APFS with 2 volumes (1 encrypted, 1 unencrypted).
I connected the SSD yesterday and suddenly got the message: The disk "x9 Pro" cant be unlocked - a Problem was detected with the disk that prevents it from being unlocked"
When i tried to mount the unencrypted volume in disk utility nothing happened, when i tried to unlock the encrypted one the message above appears. Disc Utility First Aid ended with a failure. Googled much but couldnt get access to the SSD, so i have "erased" it since i have it mostly backed up.
I have filled the SSD again with around 2,5TB of files and after that tried to install the Logic Sound Library onto the SSD (unencrypted volume). Suddenly the download failed and i had to start over again. Logic was kind of messy because of that and i had to restart the macbook. Now I again get the message that the disk cant be unlocked and got the same problem as yesterday.
I lately often got the message that i cant eject the drive because it was in use (no idea by what exactly). When i shut down the macbook when this happens can this easily corrupt the Container and making it impossible to access encrypted and unencrypted volumes? Or does this sound more like a SSD failure?
Thanks for reading, I hope anyone has any ideas.

I have a 4 TB USB-C NVMe on my Studio and haven't had these problems since I got the drive. I had a few issues with it and then it settled down and hasn't given me any problems for a long time. I watch this thread in case there are problems introduced.

 

[Shun13]

The message "Can't eject the drive because it is in use" is definitely helpful information. It probably means that macOS had to force eject your SSD repeatedly on restart or shutdown, which can indeed lead to drive corruption (especially for encrypted partitions, I would guess). So there is likely to be some piece of software installed on your system that keeps files open and does not close them. (perhaps some security suite?)

I would check if uninstalling any extra software that you can do without helps with the "in use" problem, ideally reformatting the SDD one more time afterwards. You could also reinstall macOS on the internal SSD after backing up and erasing that, to make sure no additional software is installed and running in the background. Perhaps the System Information app also gives you clues on any unnecessary kexts or other kinds of extensions that are running on your system.

Hope that helps, good luck!

 

[ChildOfTheWW]

The message "Can't eject the drive because it is in use" is definitely helpful information. It probably means that macOS had to force eject your SSD repeatedly on restart or shutdown, which can indeed lead to drive corruption (especially for encrypted partitions, I would guess). So there is likely to be some piece of software installed on your system that keeps files open and does not close them. (perhaps some security suite?)

I would check if uninstalling any extra software that you can do without helps with the "in use" problem, ideally reformatting the SDD one more time afterwards. You could also reinstall macOS on the internal SSD after backing up and erasing that, to make sure no additional software is installed and running in the background. Perhaps the System Information app also gives you clues on any unnecessary kexts or other kinds of extensions that are running on your system.

Hope that helps, good luck!

Thanks for your answer! Funny enough yesterday I set up my Macbook completely new without migration assistant or time machine, and it still happened again. Never used fancy programs like cleaners, Anti-Virus etc. . "Cant eject drive because it is in use" happened quite frequently lately and the X9 Pro rarely went into standby, despite not using data on it. Did a terminal command once and it seemed like my photo library was the culprit (Pictures and apple photo library are both on the encrypted volume). Should have looked into it more serious further.
I have erased the X9 Pro again and run "h2testw" on windows. Full 4TB went through without detecting corrupt files, so it seems like the SSD itself is fine.
Now i am not sure what to do, the problem is very time consuming and i always have to be prepared to suddenly completely lose access to the whole drive (both encrypted and unencrypted volume)

 

[Shun13]

You're welcome! That's funny. Perhaps there's an incompatibility between macOS's drivers and the Crucial X9 Pro drive's firmware after all. I have two Samsung T7 Portable SSD 2 TB external USB-C drives on an M1 Max Studio and never ran into any issues—both of them are encrypted using FileVault. (only occasionally, they wouldn't mount automatically after startup, but the Disk Utility will mount them). On a Mac mini M2 Pro with a Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield 4TB, no trouble either. Also encrypted using FileVault.

Perhaps you could try to sell your current SSD? (If you do, just be sure to erase it thoroughly so the buyer can't access any data.) Or are the Samsung ones a lot slower?

 

[ChildOfTheWW]

You're welcome! That's funny. Perhaps there's an incompatibility between macOS's drivers and the Crucial X9 Pro drive's firmware after all. I have two Samsung T7 Portable SSD 2 TB external USB-C drives on an M1 Max Studio and never ran into any issues—both of them are encrypted using FileVault. (only occasionally, they wouldn't mount automatically after startup, but the Disk Utility will mount them). On a Mac mini M2 Pro with a Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield 4TB, no trouble either. Also encrypted using FileVault.

Perhaps you could try to sell your current SSD? (If you do, just be sure to erase it thoroughly so the buyer can't access any data.) Or are the Samsung ones a lot slower?

Never ran into that issue before myself. I have a 512GB Samsung Evo SD Card plugged in 24/7 and never had issues with Samsung T5s and T7s as well. I am using the X9 Pro since November and updated the firmware on windows around 2 months ago. The Crucial Software is only available on windows and so far it was the only firmware update. Drive worked great till lately, and so far cant find many issues online with the X9 Pro. I like it because of the size and weight, its great to tape it behind the macbook screen.

 

[gank41]

I’m pretty sure my issues were due to the dock I was using. I recently replaced my old Vangree hub with the OWC hub MacRumors had a recent deal/promo on, and I haven’t had any drives disconnect since.

I even had a back and forth with Vangree’s support, they sent me a free replacement, and I still had the same issue. Tested and found other things like a Blue Yeti USB mic was disconnecting, too. Hubs fault on my end, not the drives.

Although now I have to worry about any damage done due to the drives constantly disconnecting/reconnecting over and over and over… I do like this OWC dock.

 

[Shun13]

Never ran into that issue before myself. I have a 512GB Samsung Evo SD Card plugged in 24/7 and never had issues with Samsung T5s and T7s as well. I am using the X9 Pro since November and updated the firmware on windows around 2 months ago. The Crucial Software is only available on windows and so far it was the only firmware update. Drive worked great till lately, and so far cant find many issues online with the X9 Pro. I like it because of the size and weight, its great to tape it behind the macbook screen.

Have you tried erasing the Crucial SSD on a Windows machine and then partitioning it on a Mac? Then the partition map may be even more pristine. It just appears that if you reinstalled the macOS, have a clean system, and checked the SSD, the only part that remains would be a hardware incompatibility of some kind. You could report your issue to Crucial perhaps, and then perhaps wait until they come out with a new firmware update later.

I’m pretty sure my issues were due to the dock I was using. I recently replaced my old Vangree hub with the OWC hub MacRumors had a recent deal/promo on, and I haven’t had any drives disconnect since.

I even had a back and forth with Vangree’s support, they sent me a free replacement, and I still had the same issue. Tested and found other things like a Blue Yeti USB mic was disconnecting, too. Hubs fault on my end, not the drives.

Although now I have to worry about any damage done due to the drives constantly disconnecting/reconnecting over and over and over… I do like this OWC dock.

Oh, that's a pain. I have a number of USB devices that will only work well when connected directly to a Mac (such as Logitech keyboard dongles or the Apple USB SuperDrive).

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

Do you have any reason why you need to use APFS on the x9?**

My suggestion is to re-format it.
But THIS TIME, choose HFS+ (Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format).

REASON WHY:
An external drive formatted to APFS may be fine -- so long as it works.
If there's a problem, however -- could be directory problems, could be something else -- you could be stuck because there's nothing that can assist in "fixing" it other than Apple's disk utility ("first aid").

IF it's in HFS+, there are 3rd party utilities that CAN "get to it", and may help you out in a moment of need.

** SOME drive situations REQUIRE APFS, such as
- boot drive
- time machine backup
- other backups of boot drives (such as those created by CarbonCopyCloner and SuperDuper).

But for a drive that's NOT a boot drive, and NOT a backup, and will be used ONLY "for data"...
... HFS+ is STILL "the better way to go".

 

[ChildOfTheWW]

Have you tried erasing the Crucial SSD on a Windows machine and then partitioning it on a Mac? Then the partition map may be even more pristine. It just appears that if you reinstalled the macOS, have a clean system, and checked the SSD, the only part that remains would be a hardware incompatibility of some kind. You could report your issue to Crucial perhaps, and then perhaps wait until they come out with a new firmware update later.

Could also be the cable, am using this one with an additional angle adapter. Couldnt try this one on the windows SSD test (2012 iMac without USB-C). If it happens again i will install "F3" Flash test on the macbook to rule that one out. But dont think its the problem yet, never had corrupted files or even disconnects once.
Am currently filling it again without the photo library file.
When i remember correctly the first "cant be unlocked" problem happend after plugging it in the first time while using Sonoma 14.6. The second time after updating to 14.6.1. Could be a coinsidence...

OP:

Do you have any reason why you need to use APFS on the x9?**

My suggestion is to re-format it.
But THIS TIME, choose HFS+ (Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format).

REASON WHY:
An external drive formatted to APFS may be fine -- so long as it works.
If there's a problem, however -- could be directory problems, could be something else -- you could be stuck because there's nothing that can assist in "fixing" it other than Apple's disk utility ("first aid").

IF it's in HFS+, there are 3rd party utilities that CAN "get to it", and may help you out in a moment of need.

** SOME drive situations REQUIRE APFS, such as
- boot drive
- time machine backup
- other backups of boot drives (such as those created by CarbonCopyCloner and SuperDuper).

But for a drive that's NOT a boot drive, and NOT a backup, and will be used ONLY "for data"...
... HFS+ is STILL "the better way to go".

I like the resize option with APFS because i am using two volumes, dont think its possible with Mac OS Extended. However i will try it with one Mac OS Extended Volume if the SSD fails again.

 

[ChildOfTheWW]

Sorry for the SPAM regarding my X9 Pro Issue.
So i have filled it again. First 1TB and Logic Library (only Logic Library goes to the unencrypted volume) went through well. Then i created a new folder and filled it with big files (around 5-15GB) each time with around 200GB. Then the SSD reached about 2,2TB i got the message that the file cant be written or read and no more writes were possible. Files on the encrypted volume were still possible to read fast, but the unencrypted volume was extremely slow. I have waited around 1 hour and the unencrypted volume got fast to read again, but still no more writes were possible on both. I thought it needed serious garbage collection and let the SSD idle for around 10 hours. Wasnt able to unmount the SSD since the "file cant be written" message, so i restartet the macbook. To my surprise both volumes mounted again, but the last folder with the big files is completely missing. "Safe unmounting" is never possible, even directly after plugging it in. "sufo lsof" doesnt show any programs accessing it. I can write both volumes again and access the data, but after unplugging the SSD that data is gone.

 

[Shun13]

Have you also tried erasing the SSD using the manufacturer's admin tool (like "Samsung Magician" for Samsung SSDs)? In Samsung's case, there is a Secure Erase feature which more or less reverts the drive to its factory state. Nice that you did a "sudo lsof" with no open files, so we have another clue that it's an issue a bit closer to the hardware.

(Copied from Google:

"Our Storage Executive tool offers a Sanitize Drive function and a PSID Revert function, both of which will erase an SSD's contents. Please note that the PSID Revert function works only if you have hardware encryption enabled and configured on the SSD.")

 

[ChildOfTheWW]

Have you tried erasing the SSD using the manufacturer's admin tool (like "Samsung Magician" for Samsung SSDs)? In Samsung's case, there is a Secure Erase feature which more or less reverts the drive to its factory state. Nice that you did a "sudo lsof" with no open files, so we have another clue that it's an issue a bit closer to the hardware.

Crucials program is called "Crucial Storage Executive" and only available on windows. Its a terrible program and nothing works there with the X9 Pro (except the only firmware update available till now). For example the self test.
I find the SSD tech fascinating and the manifacturing buildings look amazing, but when it comes to software...

Called micron support, was very very hard to understand and not helpful at all, but he gave ma an email adress where i can make a warranty claim.

 

[Fishrrman]

Child -

Once more, some advice.

REformat the x9 to HFS+ (Mac OS extended, journaling enabled, GUID partition format).

Then, PARTITION it into two "pieces". I KNOW you can't change the size of HFS+ partitions**, give it your best guess.

Finally, DO NOT use encryption. If there is material on the drive that is sensitive, either hide the drive when not in use or lock it up.

** Actually, it IS possible to change partition sizes "on the fly" on an HFS+ drive, IF you have the right software.

The software you need is "iPartition", and you can find it here:

Coriolis Systems

iPartition (along with iDefrag) is now FREE to download and use.
Make sure you follow the instructions re installing "the key".

 

[Norsean]

All my external NVMe exFAT SSDs stopped working on both a m1 MacBook Air and a m1 max MacBook Pro with Sonoma.

They worked flawlessly on both of them before the OS upgrade.
And they are still working flawless now on Windows and on an old MacBook Pro running Catalina.

Apple seems to deliberately not fixing this to incentivize their 4tb/8TB high-end machine sales.

The cause seems to relate to the power draw of external NVMe SSD not allowed by the new kernel. See the error message here:

Unable to access External Drives and Disk… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

As of right now, Aug 25th, 2024. NO solutions seem can be found except to downgrade your system to Ventura or earlier:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/16um2co

 

[Shun13]

@Norsean Interesting thought regarding power draw and Apple's motivations. But then, why are there users in this thread with RAIDs experiencing the same issue, whose RAIDs don't draw any power from their USB ports, since these have their own power supplies?

Hasn't the situation improved significantly with Sonoma 14.6, and perhaps even more so with the Sequoia beta? At least that's the sense I got from the MacRumors forums.

 

[weckart]

I recently noticed this issue with one of my particular drives: The LaCie rugged drive. This is the silver and orange drive as depicted below. I have four of these, spinning hard drives with FW800 and USB3.0 ports. None of my Macs with Sonoma will mount or even recognise these drives via USB 3.0. If I boot into recovery, I can see the drive but it still won't mount. However the same drive works absolutely fine with Monterey on the same Mac and in Sonoma over FW800. Flash drives mount fine, too.

There seems, therefore to be an issue in Sonoma with USB 3.0 and certain drives. I have other branded drives with both SSD and spinning HDDs, which mount and operate fine over USB 3.0 in Sonoma. For the record, all my Macs are Intel and run Sonoma via OCLP, so there may be an issue within that and USB 3.0. or the drives' firmware and OCLP. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what.

 

[Jay-Jacob]

I updated recent update last week and now my Mac cannot see my desktop external hard drive. It was working and I can see it before update and now I cannot. I have unplugged it, switch power off, reboot Mac as well and plug all back in and still cannot see it. Apple better release update get external drive working again. I never had this problem before.

 

[netnothing]

I updated recent update last week and now my Mac cannot see my desktop external hard drive. It was working and I can see it before update and now I cannot. I have unplugged it, switch power off, reboot Mac as well and plug all back in and still cannot see it. Apple better release update get external drive working again. I never had this problem before.

Can you manually mount the drive through Disk Utility?