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Two Volumes Named "Macintosh HD - Data" Now Appear in Disk Utility in Addition to "Macintosh HD".

I am familiar with the creation of Macintosh HD - Data. Indeed, this volume, plus Macintosh HD appeared in my system after updating to Catalina.


In trying to fix generic icons that have now appeared in my Finder file system, I opened Disk Utility and found that I now have two Macintosh HD - Data volumes:



Is this supposed to happen?


Update:

Time Machine just presented this error message, which indicates that there should NOT be two Macintosh HD - Data volumes:


iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Oct 11, 2019 2:27 PM

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Posted on Nov 6, 2019 4:03 PM

Each time you put a copy of Catalina on it installs another HD Data and may double your other data creating multiple Volumes with the container.


you must erase each HD Data drive in recovery (world spins) then erase the top layer (your physical drive). Then download Catalina in recovery NOT your copy. That is what is creating the multi volumes. Then set up your Mac from your time machine backup

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 6, 2019 4:03 PM in response to Cancerinform

Each time you put a copy of Catalina on it installs another HD Data and may double your other data creating multiple Volumes with the container.


you must erase each HD Data drive in recovery (world spins) then erase the top layer (your physical drive). Then download Catalina in recovery NOT your copy. That is what is creating the multi volumes. Then set up your Mac from your time machine backup

Jan 31, 2020 8:49 AM in response to StefsterHB

I can't say for sure, but I doubt your fan running has anything to do with this new hard drive structure.


What do you mean by "the same thing" - you are supposed to have two hard drives:

Macintosh HD

Macintosh HD Data

(see https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210650)


FWIW: I had this structure after upgrading to Catalina

Macintosh HD

Macintosh HD Data

Macintosh HD Data


I removed the last instance of HD Data in Disk Utility (right-click and choose Delete volume), and now things look as they should. And don't worry: you won't be able to delete a drive you're not supposed to delete.


Oct 15, 2019 6:53 AM in response to Zardon

Same here: I did a clean install of Catalina, and at first I had two volumes:

[Mac HD]

[Mac HD] - Data


Then I reinstalled my apps and ended up with three volumes (included space used for comparison)

[Mac HD] uses 10.56GB

[Mac HD] - Data uses 515.08GB

[Mac HD] - Data uses 774 KB



I went ahead and removed the third (774KB) volume in Disk Utility. It hasn't come back yet, and so far I haven't noticed any odd behavior.


Appreciate it if anyone could shed some light on this.

Oct 15, 2019 9:41 AM in response to Brallen01

To follow up: I have an iMac and a MBP. I did a clean install on both systems — and both exhibit the behavior described above (two HD - Data volumes).


I followed @Brallen01's tip and got... nothing (see screenshot); no vol identified (note also: Forklift does NOT show the rogue second data volume).



For completeness, the third-party apps I installed are:

A Better Finder Rename

Bartender

Default Folder X

Dropzone

Little Snitch

LaunchBar

Lyn

Marked2

Microsoft Office 365

Omnigraffle

Printopia

Scrivener

Studiometry

Typinator


As I did on my iMac — I'm going to delete the second volume, and see what happens :)


Oct 28, 2019 5:16 AM in response to mkpub

I had the same issue as well. I saw this after going back to Mojave (via TM) to update some iPhoto-to-Photos files. I rebooted via option-command-R (Restore), and used TM to go back to Catalina. I found this (via Disk Utility)...



Seeing this as an error I then did a restore using the same option-command-R, but asking for Catalina. Now, I have 2 Data drives. I took snapshots of all 3. Note that I somehow have 6 volumes!




Can someone help?!?


Oct 11, 2019 3:30 PM in response to Brallen01

Thanks.


That's not encouraging, as I did a clean install with the assistance of Apple's Help Desk late Wednesday. So far, I have NOT restored any settings from Time Machine, as the person at the Help Desk suggested that maybe the problem I was having then (an inability to log into my Apple account) might have had something to do with file corruption.


So, I am working with a totally clean install with no carry over of file settings from Mojave.

Oct 11, 2019 3:37 PM in response to Zardon

Bizarre, I'd give it another go but when you're erasing the disk, make sure you select "Show all devices" from the "View" option. and then erase the whole hard drive, not just a volume.


If it does it again, try internet recovery, not a normal recovery as this will download the OS from the internet and not use your recovery partition.

Nov 6, 2019 3:23 PM in response to Zardon

I boot into Mojave and launch Disk Utility. Then to Containers and select the destination drive to use the minus on that data drive and the read only drive that use to be Catalina. then proceed with the Catalina install after creating using the plus sign on that container. Case closed no more dups.

Dec 16, 2019 7:20 AM in response to anjo108

One of the two volumes should be of normal size; the other should be very small, less than one megabyte. (It was in my case, anyway.) The small one is the one to delete.

If memory serves, Disk Utility displayed a delete box for that second, smaller one, but not for the first, larger one. (It's been a while, so my memory is not perfect.) If you do see such a box for the smaller one, use it to delete the volume.

I assume you have everything backed up, BTW.

Dec 19, 2019 5:10 AM in response to Kotje

Hi,

After trying different ideas, the one that worked for me, which was simple, was to just rename the smaller of the two duplicate hard drives another name. Someone earlier mentioned ghost so that is what I named it. Then I opened time machine preferences and chose the real hard drive to back up. No problems since. So thank you, ghost writer.

Two Volumes Named "Macintosh HD - Data" Now Appear in Disk Utility in Addition to "Macintosh HD".

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