Kernel Panic when connecting TM disk

Good, there is some update, though I guess they are not encouraging.

I removed Macintosh HD from Spotlight, connected the external drive and removed it from Spotlight (though only 1 of the 2 volumes is mounted, the other one is not). Here is what I see in volumes (and also what is inside the drive so that you can tell me if some of the hidden files may be the cause — I still think the issue is the TM partition that somehow got corrupted—).

Now, after doing this, 1-maximum2 minutes passed and the computer froze.

Nothing could be done until I disconnected the USB cable, at which point the computer rebooted on its own.

At login I got a crash report which looks different from the previous ones (here it is):

Quite scarily this looks like my CPU has something... but I will wait for your diagnose.

Anyway, let's say that I purchase DiskWarrior. The issue still is that I cannot keep the drive connected to the Mac for more than 2 minutes without causing a kernel panic. How can I access it? I do not want to ruin the machine I work on with endless kernel panics (which I guess are not that healthy for the machine as well).

Thank you for your help!

I don't know if upgrading to Mojave would have helped but my nose says no...

I am still the happiest I have not sold that old MBP.

No, I had not tried to attach it to the newer Mac.

Yes, on the old Mac it gave me these three messages:

1. This was the partition that contained my 900GB of extra data

• This is the other partition being scanned for SOS

• This is the result after the repair (of course I formatted it):

I am now in touch with the LaCie technical support to have this disk substituted but I will make new tests on the newer Mac to see if I still get kernel panics. What irritates me the most is the inaptitude of the Apple Store assistants. Are they really able to spot an issue or not?

Anyway, from now henceforth, I will not risk anymore having a Time Machine partition on another disk. It seems too dangerous.

Thank you for your help, don't even know which answer to put the solved mark on!

Thank you, Barney, for this most informative answer.

I am starting to get a clearer picture of all this.

One thing at a time: I have updated the Luna Display software from version 1.1.2 to 3.0.1, but I have a feeling that will not help the failing disk. Anyway, how do I find a list of all kext?

USB: I have connected the failing disk to all 4 T3 ports and got the same result. Other peripherals work just fine.

try on another Mac: at home I have a 2018-Mac mini but it runs 10.14 and I am on 10.13.6, I wonder if I reinstall of macOS here and/or an upgrade to 10.14 could help (I don't think so as everything was running smoothly until the evening before the failure of the disk and, as far as I can tell, the Mac is running just fine without the disk connected).

I have a scheduled appointment at my local Apple Store for this Wednesday at 4.40pm and I hope they will shed some hardware light on this, at least.

Backstory

Anyway, I think in this post I had just written about kernel-panics and in another I wrote about the TM failure (but that post never got any attention). Here is how things went before this post:

• Saturday morning: woke up with a warning from Time Machine saying "Failed to complete backup"
  • I removed the .inprogress file, rebooted and tried to "Back up now" with the same result (marked with a red circle and a white exclamation mark inside). At that time the system was still seeing both volumes.
    • TM said it needed 65GB to complete backup and I had only 30 free. Freed some old backups and launched "Back up now", with same result.
  • Tried to eject both volume > spinning wheel for a few minutes then I just unplugged the drive (there was no data transfer at that time).
  • Rebooted Mac > connected disk > macOS saw both volumes > went into Disk Utility and hit repair on the whole disk which succeeded, then on the 1.5TB partition (which I use for archive purposes) which succeeded, then on the TM partition which failed! At that point the TM volume remained unmounted and, upon clicking mount I got the first kernel panic.
  • I rebooted in Recovery Mode, I managed there to re-mount the volume and hit repair. I got an "error at -8" and a suggestion to back up my data and "trash" the drive (not worded exactly in this way!). After a few seconds I got the second kernel panic.

At this point we are at the beginning of this thread.

I hope this can shed some light on the situation.

Thank you for this thorough explanation.

It seems that Disk Warrior has no trial version.

Anyway, I will try your ideas and come back with a report.

When you say that we cannot tell if it is an HW or SW issue, how can be a SW issue on the external HDD? Or could it be something with my MacBook Pro?

Just to know, now the disk is not connected but my Mac is running very hot and the energy indicator says that Spotlight is the cause. Going into Activity Monitor, though, I cannot see spotlight doing too much in the Energy tab while in the CPU tab I see this...

What can I do for this?

Thank you

Fine, let's try to solve this Mac's issues first.

The drive can be recovered in one way or the other with the tools you have suggested me.

Here is the report from the fan speed monitor

What happens when I exclude the drive (only the inner one right now) from Spotlight?

Does it reset the indexing?

Should I reboot after that?

Thanks

This is what I see when I look for that folder.

Also pressing Cmd-Shift-(dot) to show hidden files doesn't show anything else.

Right now the energy indicator does not say anything about the Spotlight anymore, but I will try to reindex it anyway.

Going to update this in some minutes after reboot.

Also, should I see something particular in this /volumes folder when I connect the failing exHDD?

New update on energy consumption: Spotlight is always indicated as the one task using a lot of energy. Here are my snapshots from the Activity Monitor. I have already reset the indexing as suggested:

Right now no external drive is connected.

Thank you.

Sorry for the long wait, I guess we are quite a few timezones apart!

I just came back home and the MacBook Pro has been running on its own all day with no other task than the Backblaze first backup (which will take the next two weeks approximately).

In any case, at 20.53 my time here is the situation, which to me appears quite better, but tell me:

A small update: I uninstalled LunaDisplay. The developer didn't have any instruction on how to remove the software.

I used the AppDelete application and noticed that there were two .kext files, one in Extensions and one in the StagedExtensions folder. Somehow I managed to remove both of them and rebooted.

Upon reboot I opened the Seagate Recovery Suite (which asks me to restart my system to test a drive even after I have already restarted... so I cannot test it) and connected the drive. This time both partitions were correctly seen and, as soon as that happened, I got this message from macOS:

We already know that reformatting is not working at the moment because of the kernel panic.

I tried to open the disk to copy some files but with no luck... there is the first level of folders and then nothing inside them. Which means everything is still there just macOS cannot see it.

I don't know if removing LunaDisplay helped but there is another extension that gave a problem in the latest crash (which sadly I didn't manage to save) which is: SATSMARTDriver.kext

What is this?

Normally it doesn't. Please notice that now the drive is not connected so the EtreCheck may have run while the system was snapshotting, or something similar.

For example, right now Activity Monitor gives a 0,0 energy usage for Spotlight but the dropdown menu of the battery says that Spotlight is using a lot of energy.

The only USB attached to the Thunderbolt 3 ports is the LaCie Porsche Design 9227 model, 2TB.

This is the drive which is failing.

I tried a desperate move to take some files from it but it kernel-panicked.

I tried, as soon as I try to access it and, select or copy files the kernel panic occurs.

Is this a hardware issue or a software issue?

Please tell me what my chances are, both free and paid. I need to know what I can do to access those file.

Assume that I will for sure buy another drive in the nearest future, but I would like not to lose 1TB of data like that.

Thank you