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An external disk refuses to mount, com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error -119930868.

What causes this particular error and what can I do to mount this drive or retrieve the data from it?


iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Oct 9, 2019 3:22 AM

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Posted on Oct 19, 2019 6:53 AM

This doesn't really help. I don't want to lose all the info I have on my external drive. You've made it sound like it's the drive issue but it's really with how the new Catalina update is working to read these drives. Please provide a better fix. I need drive access without reformatting & it's worked fine up till the latest update.

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Oct 19, 2019 6:53 AM in response to chuck_3rd

This doesn't really help. I don't want to lose all the info I have on my external drive. You've made it sound like it's the drive issue but it's really with how the new Catalina update is working to read these drives. Please provide a better fix. I need drive access without reformatting & it's worked fine up till the latest update.

Dec 17, 2019 5:37 PM in response to mhicks

I ran into this issue with a Western Digital 2TB drive... I had seen some irreperable disk errors and was ironically, attempting to back the drive up so I could reformat it... so, I was panicking because I've got some important data on the drive and was starting to research data recovery tools. After messing around and doing some research, I discovered the system was trying to run a filesystem check on it and was getting hung up.


I opened a terminal window and entered the following commands

$ ps -ef | grep fsck  
$ sudo kill [pid from above] 


BAM! Disk mounted just like that.


At this point, I opened Disk Utility and ran First Aid... which ironically unmounted the drive and then got hung up again... DUH! So had to repeat the process. At this point, with the drive mounted, I backed up the drive and reformatted it.


Hope this helps.


May 6, 2020 4:35 PM in response to RH65

Try this, it worked for me:


  1. With the device (disk) inserted, open Utilities → Disk Utility. You will see the disk shown as /dev/diskxax (x=numeric a=alpha) i.e. /dev/disk5s2
  2. Click on View (top left of window) and select “Show all devices” from the drop-down. The name of the actual physical device will be shown (i.e. “ScanDisk Cruzer Blade... or whatever your device is).
  3. The /dev/diskxax is shown under the name of the physical disk. It will present as faded (grayed out) text. It will not be mounted.
  4. Select the physical disk. It will present in the main box with a red bar with the legend underneath the bar in small letters with the size of the drive.
  5. Select “Erase” from the options at the top of the Disk Utility window.
  6. Enter the desired name for the device and select your desired filesystem.
  7. Click on “Erase” and then select “Show details”.
  8. Once the erase and format of the disk is completed the disk will present as mounted and the /dev/diskxax will be shown in a normal state (i.e. not grayed out).
  9. The device is now ready for use


May 8, 2021 12:07 PM in response to Argee77

I first tried to repair the drive (go to Utility > Disk Utility) then finding and selecting my external drive (which was displayed but greyed out) then hit the first aid button and then wait for the first aid repair to fail. This would fail on the fsck.hsl. Find the fsck.hsl file in your activity monitor (open this app) then under the 'disk' tab force quit this file name (search for it) and the drive should mount immediately. You can now copy your files to another external drive. Good luck

Jan 2, 2020 11:18 AM in response to mhicks

I was getting a volume that refused to mount and was 'greyed out' in the disk utility.


  • I ran First Aid on the Disk
    • It Returned with "Invalid Content in Journal" bla bla bla and then it said successfully repaired.
    • It was not repaired
  • Then I turned off Journaling for the drive in question using steps found here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/invalid-content-in-journal.1941721/
  • The disk Immediately mounted upon the next attempt all data in-tact.


Hope this helps someone with similar symptoms (i.e. Drive won't mount + First Aid returns "Invalid Journal Contents")


Cheers



Dec 7, 2020 1:58 PM in response to Starburns

@Starburns we shouldn't have to look for alternative solutions to get assets off of external drives. It's insane. @Apple needs to respond to this thread. There's 13 pages of 'try this' and 'try that', most of which fail. I work with video files that are on multiple drives and I need to swap out drives daily. I should just be able to plug in the hard drive and bam, there it is on my desktop and ready to use.

Mar 2, 2021 2:12 AM in response to mhicks

The reason for this is that Apple removed support for HFS file system in MacOS Catalina.


Various options exist to access CDs, HDs or other images with this file system.


For a discussion, see:

http://www.matthewhughes.co.uk/how-to-mount-hfs-classic-drives-on-macos-catalina-and-later/

and

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/389186/reading-hfs-standard-and-mfs-on-catalina



Oct 19, 2019 6:52 PM in response to mhicks

I recently purchased a new IMac and upgraded it to Catalina. BIG mistake!! I have this same problem and it will not mount any external hard drives. These drives all still work fine on my old macBook running Mojave 10.14.1. This problem started when I Accidentally unplugged a drive and didn't trash the icon first. Another problem is Disk Utility and some other programs will not respond to a QUIT command. The only way to get them to quit is to force quit them. I assume you will have a fix soon???

Oct 25, 2019 1:42 AM in response to chuck_3rd

I'm having a similar issue - "com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error 0." since the Catalina upgrade.


I've a partitioned 2Tb drive - half I drag & drop files to, the other half is for Time Machine. I have another disc that I use as a backup for the files/data but not as Time Machine.


My partition for dragging files into mounts but the Time Machine partition won't. It wt was last seen in action trying to backup a few days ago but announced it had insufficient space.


An ideas?


I'll also post on a Time Machine forum

Dec 16, 2019 2:10 AM in response to mhicks

Ok so its been a week since i pressed the "i have this problem too button"

i spent most of my days not being able to write on the disk only read it and last night i tried to repair the disk again in disk utility. it didnt seem to do anything but this morning i noticed it finished the process and i pressed mount and it worked.

Sharing & permissions changed to " you have custom access". what i want to say is ease us and tuxera didnt do anything or the western digital discovery. The only thing that worked was my patience.


Dec 26, 2019 1:12 AM in response to mhicks

Yesterday I connected my device external hard disk and it seems it doesn't work anymore ore both in Pro than in MacBook Air after upgrading in Catalina 10.15.2. Now I checked trying through the utility to verify if the computer reads the hard disk and it is the message I received "com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter errore 49217" how Can I restore the problem ?

what does it mean ?



An external disk refuses to mount, com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error -119930868.

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