Could not mount “Seagate”. (com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error 49223.) message

Have you ever used this Seagate drive before? If you previously used the Seagate software to manage the drive, then the software may have locked or encrypted the drive. You would then need to use the Seagate software to unlock, decrypt, or disable the security features before you can use it on the new computer.

If the Seagate drive is brand new it may be formatted as NTFS for use on Windows. While Macs can read an NTFS formatted drive, Macs are unable to write to them. If the drive is formatted with ExFAT, then perhaps it is using a block size incompatible with macOS.

If the Seagate drive is brand new, then just use Disk Utility to erase the physical drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled). If you need to share this drive with a Windows computer, then erase the drive with ExFAT instead of MacOS Extended (Journaled). Within Disk Utility you may need to click on "View" and select "Show all devices" before the physical drive will appear in the left pane of Disk Utility.

If the drive has been used previously, then connect it to your other computer and back up the contents of the drive so you can reformat (aka erase) it on the Mac using Disk Utility as I described previously. Then transfer the files back to the newly formatted/erased Seagate drive.

It is not necessary to use the Seagate software to use or manage the external Seagate drive. The proprietary drive software usually will just cause problems. It is better to just let macOS manage the external drive. If you need to encrypt the external drive, then let macOS use software encryption to encrypt the drive.

It is also possible you have a defective cable or adapter, or the Seagate drive could be defective/failing.

sin-yaw wrote:

I have read the whole thread and now concluded this is on Apple, not Seagate.

I bought the Seagate drive before Catalina. After installing the Paragon driver, from Seagate, everything worked. When I upgraded to Catalina, I needed to install a newer version (64-bit). Then it continued to work. A week ago, it stopped working on one of my computers. But it continued to work on the other. Before I triage, the other computer auto-upgraded itself to a newer Catalina. Now both computers stopped working for the drive.

I uninstalled Seagate's paragon driver, the disk mounts but read-only. I reinstalled the previously working driver (same version) and the problem reproduced.

I guess Apple may claim the Paragon driver is now incompatible with one of the later Catalina patches and I will accept that. The point is still that Apple's patch broke the driver, not the other way around.

I now have a 5TB drive that is basically useless.

Guess Seagate, Paragon, or Apple need to do something.

[Edited by Moderator]

And so many other users in this thread have blasted me for recommending people not to use the proprietary software which ships with external drives! Seems I might know what I'm talking about!

You cannot expect Apple to make sure every piece of third party software works in macOS. It is up to the hardware manufacturers to update their third party software. It is the way it has ALWAYS been. It is the same for Windows & Linux systems as well. If you have an issue with a third party app provided by the drive manufacturer, then contact the manufacturer of your external drive for support and to complain about not having a timely software update to the app.

You do have options here. You can report the issue to Seagate and wait for an update to their app. Or you can transfer everything from the now read-only external drive to another drive or computer. Then erase the external drive using Disk Utility. Erase the drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled) if you will only be using it on Macs. Or if you will be using the drive with Windows as well, then erase it as GUID partition and exFAT using Disk Utility. If you erase it as exFAT on Windows, then macOS may not be able to read the drive. Once the external drive has been erased using Disk Utility, then you can transfer all the files back to the external drive.

dchura7734 wrote:

This isn't useful. I don't think you have any actual experience with a seagate drive on MacOS.

No I haven't, but I understand how it works and I've seen other threads on these forums where the proprietary drive software causes problems.

MacOS will mount seagate drives as read-only without the seagate (paragon) software.

That is because the drive is formatted as NTFS which is a Windows file system. Why use a Windows file system on a Mac? It is much better to use Disk Utility to reformat the drive as MacOS Extended (Journaled) for use on a Mac or as ExFAT if you need to have a Windows system access the drive. No extra software required.

You say "The proprietary drive software usually will just cause problems" which indicates to me you don't know anything about this - I've used paragon for years without any problem until Catalina.

Exactly and now you have problems because the proprietary Seagate software is not working with Catalina. Now you have to wait and hope that Seagate will update their software to work with Catalina. It is up to the third party developers to make sure all their software works with newer versions of macOS.

Suggesting you back up your back up drive somewhere else is also bad advice as the issue is likely Catalina. Catalina seems to break many things that previously worked, so perhaps the actual problem is the opposite of what you believe - Apple software, not seagate software.

How is it bad advice to instruct someone on how to make their currently "broken" drive work again? By erasing the drive using a built-in native file system macOS understands simplifies the computer setup and should provider a more stable & reliable experience. Apple is allowed to make any changes they want to macOS whether it breaks third party apps or not. Apple has made multiple changes to macOS over the years that break apps until the app developers update their software. Nothing new here except for what broke.

I had the same problem with Catalina when I upgraded and fixed it in 10 minutes. I responded a while ago, but I don't see it here. Here's my solution:

I downloaded the Seagate software from their site, which I believe was updated for Catalina. Install the software and the seagate drive mounts properly for read and write, just as it did prior to Catalina. No re-formatting or backing up necessary. I've been using the drive fine for a long time now.

Hope this works for you.

-dave

Windows formats ExFAT volumes using block sizes which macOS does not recognize. Erase the drive with ExFAT on the Mac using Disk Utility with the directions I provided earlier so you can erase the whole physical drive. Doing this on a Mac should allow the drive to be usable on both macOS and Windows.

dchura7734 wrote:

I had the same problem with Catalina when I upgraded and fixed it in 10 minutes. I responded a while ago, but I don't see it here. Here's my solution:

I downloaded the Seagate software from their site, which I believe was updated for Catalina. Install the software and the seagate drive mounts properly for read and write, just as it did prior to Catalina. No re-formatting or backing up necessary. I've been using the drive fine for a long time now.

Hope this works for you.

-dave

This solution should only be used by those people who already had the Seagate software installed before the Catalina upgrade. For those people who have been using the Seagate drive before the Catalina upgrade, but never installed the Seagate software this is not the proper solution.

unnsteinngardars wrote:

It is not a Catalina thing, I have a Seagate Backup Plus Hub drive that was formatted as exFAT on a windows computer and will not mount on a mac and gives me the exact same error as this thread. And it started to happen on my mac before Catalina and also was an issue on another mac with a mac os Sierra.

Windows can format the drive using different block sizes some of which macOS does not recognize. Backup any files on this drive and use the Mac's Disk Utility to erase the drive as GUID partition and ExFAT. You need to erase the physical drive so you may need to click on "View" within Disk Utility and select "Show all devices" before the physical drive appears in the left pane of Disk Utility. This should allow the drive to be used on both Windows & Mac.

When you say Seagate Software, are you referring to the Paragon or something else?

I've never used the Seagate external drives or their proprietary software, so I am not sure what is included. Did you run a Seagate app which was included on or with the drive? If so uninstall it using the included uninstaller or by following Seagate's instructions. I know Paragon software is sometimes included with the Seagate software to allow writing to NTFS volumes.

If you downloaded the Paragon software separately, then yes uninstall it according to the developer's instructions since it is not needed on a Mac unless you need to write to an NTFS volume or access a Linux file system.

dchura7734 wrote:

1. Yes I was referring to paragon software. Here's what I know:

I have a seagate drive I've used for a few years now. When I bought it, it would only mount as read-only on my Mac. I installed the Paragon software and it worked fine after that.

2. I have backed up 100+ GB of data to that drive over those years

3. I updated to Catalina. The seagate drive would no longer work, mounting as read-only. I updated the Paragon software and the drive worked fine. Just as before, I don't have to do anything, as it mounts automatically when I plug it into my mac.

It continues to work fine now. I understand from other posts that this won't work for everyone, but I can't comment on those posts. I'm just passing on what I did. I don't worry about disk formats or Mac vs. PC, I'm just a guy using a disk drive for backups.

-dave

Unless you are using an external drive for access with both Mac & Windows you should always use macOS Disk Utility to erase the drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled) so that only macOS is managing the drive using a native macOS file system. If a drive needs to be shared between Mac & Windows, then erasing the drive as ExFAT on a Mac using Disk Utility is an acceptable alternative since both macOS & Windows support read+write ExFAT file system (it must be erased on a Mac since Windows may format ExFAT with options currently incompatible with macOS).

Third party software is not needed to use an external drive on a Mac unless you want to use the built-in hardware encryption feature found on some external SSD drives. Third party software usually ends up causing issues at some point, but especially during system updates or upgrades. Plus access to the drive may become lost if the proprietary third party software is no longer supported.

Unfortunately this is a Windows only world when it comes to third party hardware so hardware manufacturers default everything to work with a Windows system which means many external drives are shipped using the Windows NTFS file system. It is always best to use the operating system's built-in native file systems whenever possible to reduce the risk of problems and compatibility issues.

Just something to consider and I hope this information may help others.

Yes I was referring to paragon software. Here's what I know:

1. I have a seagate drive I've used for a few years now. When I bought it, it would only mount as read-only on my Mac. I installed the Paragon software and it worked fine after that.
2. I have backed up 100+ GB of data to that drive over those years
3. I updated to Catalina. The seagate drive would no longer work, mounting as read-only. I updated the Paragon software and the drive worked fine. Just as before, I don't have to do anything, as it mounts automatically when I plug it into my mac.

It continues to work fine now. I understand from other posts that this won't work for everyone, but I can't comment on those posts. I'm just passing on what I did. I don't worry about disk formats or Mac vs. PC, I'm just a guy using a disk drive for backups.

-dave

I'm pretty sure it's a Catalina thing. I formatted my Seagate 5TB drive with exFAT on Windows, my Mac didn't mount it. My other WD usb drives with NTFS are fine. I reformatted the Seagate with NTFS, Mac has no problem mounting it, but of course it's read-only. It looks like Catalina abandons exFAT, sad!

It is not a Catalina thing, I have a Seagate Backup Plus Hub drive that was formatted as exFAT on a windows computer and will not mount on a mac and gives me the exact same error as this thread. And it started to happen on my mac before Catalina and also was an issue on another mac with a mac os Sierra.

This isn't useful. I don't think you have any actual experience with a seagate drive on MacOS. MacOS will mount seagate drives as read-only without the seagate (paragon) software. You say "The proprietary drive software usually will just cause problems" which indicates to me you don't know anything about this - I've used paragon for years without any problem until Catalina.

Suggesting you back up your back up drive somewhere else is also bad advice as the issue is likely Catalina. Catalina seems to break many things that previously worked, so perhaps the actual problem is the opposite of what you believe - Apple software, not seagate software.

dchura7734 wrote:

Fair enough. I'm just sharing my first hand experience.

-dave

Your contribution is appreciated. I just wanted to provide clarification to improve your solution since installing third party software can cause problems for users.

stay friendly, be happy. we are not in the 1980's anymore where any manufacturer made his own thing and almost nothing did fit well together. I personally refuse to use third party tools only to access well known, simple devices. to buy any harddrive in the next shop and use it without trouble should be no magic anymore today. not even when using an apple computer ...

I have been an OS developers for decades and, in general, agree with you that the manufacturer must ultimately bear the responsibility to make things work.

In this case, however, it was working and got broken by a minor OS patch. Therefore, the patch failed the regression tests against the vendors.

Nearly all OS vendors maintain a large lab and developed a comprehensive regression test suite to prevent things like this from happening. Simply, what was working should continue so. Either Apple did not find such failure, didn't warn Seagate on this failure, or expect a different relationship than what us customers expect. Probably Apple expects Seagate to test against all patches on its own and remedy any issue. From what I read from Seagate's website, they appeared completely oblivious to this failure.

Apple must manage its ecosystem as a platform vendor. Your reply basically stated that Apple bears no responsibility. It's either Seagate's or customer's problem. That attitude is really disappointing.

The industry is saying that "Apple is becoming Microsoft faster than Microsoft becoming Apple." Remember that consumers have choices. Being arrogant will hurt you.