Kernel Panic when connecting TM disk

Fine... I tried one last time... another kernel panic, this time without any message or report afterwards.

I guess this disk is quite dead.

I will try to connect it to other Macs to see what happens and what can be recovered, but with no illusion.

As I said, the disk is working on my 2009 MacBook Pro and I am being able to rescue all the data.

The issue is the Time Machine partition which somehow got corrupted and therefore endangered the whole disk.

I will see if after moving all the files and formatting via Disk Utility (assuming it lets me do it) if the health of the disk is still low or if there is some hardware fault.

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

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?

Good!

What do you mean by "not too bad"?

Could they be cooler? How should they be on average?

What can I do, in general, to make my MBP snappier again?

Reinstall macOS? Format and restart from a blank slate?

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!

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.

I have been working 3 hours this morning with the exHDD disconnected and I had no issue whatsoever.

I reindexed Spotlight and it seemed to get better. As soon as I get home I’ll send another snapshot of AM.

I have shutdown and restarted several times.

I will have another Mac on Thursday, not before, unless the Apple Store on Wednesday can (and want) to test this for me.

What else can I do to be sure where the issue is?

The LunaDisplay is what allows me to use the iPad as an external display.

What makes you think that this causes the issue?

how can I check that my MacBook pro’s hardware is healthy? So that I can isolate the thing on the disk...

btw: I have not connected the LunaDisplay usbc dongle for months...

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.