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User profile for user: Steve Zodiac
Steve Zodiac Author
User level: Level 1
94 points

External Drive will not mount on my Mac Book Pro

I have a 5TB Lacie external hard drive that I use for Time Machine backups of my MacBook Pro. I have named it 'Time Pod'.

Normally I just plug the cable into my Mac and the drive appears on my desktop, and then Time Machine begins an automatic backup. This happened as recently as a week ago.


This morning I cannot get my external drive to appear on my desktop; it will not 'mount'. It is definitely connected, and I can feel it humming slightly. The little light on it is also flashing as it normally does.


The drive does appear in the Disk Utility sidebar, but it shows in the main window as being 'Not Mounted'. And when I try to mount it using the button in Disk Utility it seems to try for a minute or so, and then throws up an error message telling me that it could not be mounted. (See screen shot)


Does anyone have any idea what is happening here, please, and how I can get my external drive mounted to do a backup?


I have a 13" MacBook Pro (2017 model with 4 thunderbolts and touchbar) and it is running macOS 11.1


MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.1

Posted on Dec 23, 2020 5:03 AM

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User profile for user: Steve Zodiac
Steve Zodiac Author
User level: Level 1
94 points

Dec 23, 2020 10:22 AM in response to neuroanatomist

Thanks for that, and it did eventually result in me getting my drive back working again, but it was by no means straightforward.




I ran First Aid but, after taking ages to complete various checks, I received an error message telling me that 'First Aid process has failed. If possible, back up the data on this volume…




I was annoyed at this and, in a huff I pulled out the drive's cable from the MacBook Pro, only to get the 'slap on the wrist'  message about not having ejected the drive correctly. I then realised that, despite the error message about First Aid having failed, the drive had been 'mounted' in the background without me noticing…




But now the thing wouldn’t re-mount when I plugged it back in. Grrr...




I ran First Aid again, and this time it was much quicker, but it still threw up that same message about having failed. This time I saw that the icon was on my desktop, though, and that the drive had been mounted again.




And I can now just plug it in again and the icon appears as it should.

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External Drive will not mount on my Mac Book Pro

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