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Orphaned APFS container

I have an apparently orphaned APFS container on an external hard disk which is showing as uninitialised as shown in the screenshot below.


Is there a way of fixing this? - first aid cannot run, cannot mount the drive in either the orphaned state or the original container. I'm not too worried about losing the contents of the container, but I want to be able to use it again


MacBook Pro Retina

Posted on Mar 22, 2019 2:02 AM

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Well I never - I had to close down the machine to go to a meeting and all the drives where ejected.


I just tried to erase the APFS partition and this time it worked. So I've not lost the Time Machine partition and I can now access the rest of the drive and use it!


Happy days - but it would be useful to understand what caused the problem in the first place! Too late for RCA now though!

Posted on Mar 22, 2019 10:00 AM

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Question marked as Best answer

Mar 22, 2019 10:00 AM in response to Ally Gill

Well I never - I had to close down the machine to go to a meeting and all the drives where ejected.


I just tried to erase the APFS partition and this time it worked. So I've not lost the Time Machine partition and I can now access the rest of the drive and use it!


Happy days - but it would be useful to understand what caused the problem in the first place! Too late for RCA now though!

Orphaned APFS container

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