Disk utility with no disks

Craig Abruzzese wrote:

Yeah that doesn’t solve the problem. If I close it it will just reopen without any disks available.

Uninstall all third party apps that are Cleaners/Optimizers/Anti-Virus

To trouble shoot further you can:

 —Try a SafeBoot https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

  Takes noticeable longer to get to the login screen, does a 5-15 minute disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, including dynamic loader cache,  etc.  Login and test. Reboot  as normal and test as caches get rebuilt.

In Safe mode third party system modifications and system accelerations are disabled, it removes malware, etc hampering smooth operation, however a  reboot will put it back to normal mode.

This test will tell you if third party interference; extensions etc are not loaded in safe boot mode. 

 —Test issue in another user (or guest user) account  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204443

  This will tell you if it a universal issue or isolated to your user/admin account. 

If no resolve or insight, the way forward would be to reinstall the macOS on top of your existing macOS

How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904

I have found that Disk Utility sometimes does not refresh the display. Try quitting/reopening the app.

Craig Abruzzese wrote:

Hey all,

I upgraded to Big Sur the other day. No real problems once I got it installed except one. Disk utility has a habit of not showing any disks. First time it happened I rebooted the computer and they all came back. However, yesterday I went in to disk utility and they are gone again. I have show all devices and all the normal options set correctly. Is there a known issue with disk utility and Big Sur? Anyway to remedy this without rebooting? I am currently have some encoding going on and some uploading to a server. I opened it last night and left it opened thinking maybe it was just having problems displaying with the other tasks going on but it is still blank this morning.

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/f7b1d247-5e0e-45a6-910a-09cf9c579423

Alternatively—

You can get to Disk Utility via Recovery, Internet Recovery, BootableUSB installer, Time Machine ** (bootable)

You can always re-install the macOS on top of your existing macOS to sort anomalies.

How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904

Well I unfortunately ran into this 'bug' myself when I most needed to format a drive. Just an empty screen. Some of the troubleshooting steps on here, like completely erasing and completely reinstalling is not realistic when I have to get work done. The whole process would take about 24 hours for me which I don't have. Hope this is fixed in an update, in the meantime I'll try safe boot.

Craig Abruzzese wrote:

Is there any processes that I can force quit and restart in order to reactivate disk utility? Rebooting is a bit of a bummer, especially when I just want to pop into disk utility for a quick first aid or image tools?

?

Command Q quits the Application

>Force Quit if necessary.

Craig Abruzzese wrote:

Well I did reinstall. It is working better but it keeps happening. I’m hoping a new update might fix it.

Please submit Apple Feedback/bug report http://www.apple.com/feedback