With Monterey update, can't see certain hard drives

Also, if I have the G-Drive connected during boot, the boot process just hangs. Same thing happens if I have my USB hub connected and my old Wacom (USB). I have hard power the MacBook Pro down, remove the power cable, let it sit a few minutes and then power it back on. The bootup works fine then. This is definitely an OS issue. I just hope it didn't trash my G-Drive.

I am having the same issue with a brand new G-drive external drive (5 TB) on Monterey. Finder shows none of the partitions of the drive. Disk Utility sees the partitions, but will not activate them. Have tried First Aid, but it does not detect any issues.

I'm having the same issue with my iMac Late 2019 (Intel i9).

External Gdrive worked fine before the Monterey update and now it won't read it. It does read it on my M1 MacBook air which I haven't updated to Monterey yet (still running Big Sur).

What's weird is that it's only the Gdrive that it won't read, it reads my Toshiba and Seagate external hard drives plus USB sticks. So I really don't know what to do.

When I plug it in it does show on the disk utility but it shows that it is not mounted and I try first aid and nothing happens, it finds no errors. I've tried unplugging everything else and restarting it and still nothing.

I had the same issue too and thought the same lol. But I checked on my other mac that I haven't updated yet and everything is still there. I do think it's an OS issue too I just hope they can patch it quickly or have a workaround.

I am running into the same issues on a 2017 iMac. The drives all need to be unplugged the plugged back in. BUT when they do show up on my desktop and I attempt to copy files or add files and they crash every time. This is the worst update I HAVE EVER SEEN ON A MAC. Happens with all Drives WD, SanDisk, G-Tech, & Seagate. APPLE IF YOU READ THIS FIX THIS!

I HAVE two portable WD usb-a drives(with USB-C adapter). Both of them connect fine to my M1Pro OS Monterey 12.0. Are we talking about the 12.01 update? I never never never update OS’s unless something is broken, until they are stable at about .4. Been doing this successfully since System 6.

So not all WD drives.

Jono Slack wrote:

Hmm

I was looking for such a cable (I agree, the charge cables are really slow). I'm not sure which part number this might be, presumably it's a thunderbolt cable? Any advice welcome!

The Apple charging cable only supports USB2 according to the Apple documentation. An official Apple UBC-C Thunderbolt cable which can handle the Thunderbolt protocol and USB3/4 protocols have a lightning bolt on them to indicate Thunderbolt. Some other manufacturers may use the same marking, but others may not. See this Apple article (see the section "Charging"):

About the Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) Cable - Apple Support

pdtnyc wrote:

Thanks. I will end up pulling data from the hard drives using another computer. Will try the command line instructions tomorrow. What’s puzzling to me is that older G-Drives have no problem mounting to this computer. I would expect the exact opposite result.

Same thing. I looked at the manufacture date on bnoth my G-DRIVEs. The newest one, from 2020, is affected; the older one, manufactured in 2019, is working and mounted. Let's keep bumping this. The charge cable solution — it tops out at USB 2.0 speeds — is not a viable solution.

Ach - I was going to bite the bullet and buy a 4TB SanDisk SSD . . . but if they are all having troubles then surely Apple are going to have to fix it (sometimes I say stupid things 😂).

Basically, we're all dooooomed to slower than USB-2 speeds until somebody sorts it out!

Jagbird1 wrote:

Yes but then what do you buy?? Apple support told me that owners of Lacie, Seagate, and ScanDisk (and those are just the ones he rattled off) are all experiencing the same issues. I was going to take mine back and get another but if it's affecting all the new models you won't know if you are buying another drive with the same issue.

If it’s that widespread, and they’re admitting it, that bodes well for a fix coming sooner rather than later.

I've spent hours over two days with Apple support to no avail. They say it's a WD issues. I called WD and they claim it's an Apple problem with the new Monterey 12.0.1 update. They both say they're working on it but it's been over 1 week and all of my documents are inaccessible. They're slow attention to a workaround is not helping me one bit. Totally frustrated!!!!!

They’re still taking that position, despite this bug affecting USB-C drives regardless of manufacturer? If WD drives seem to be disproportionately afflicted, it may be because they are disproportionately represented in the Apple Stores.

Again, this is on Apple.

I know. It’s just that this solution has been marked as “solved” in other threads, when it clearly hasn’t solved anything. People get all excited that this is the magic pill, but it’s all smoke and mirrors — he says, making a metaphor salad ;-)

I'm just an Apple user like all of you, I'm not a technician and I don't work for Apple…

I tried to share a solution (although poor for me it is and it's better than “it doesn't work”).

For all other complaints (and I agree with you that such a thing is unacceptable) you have to blame Apple.

I’m as frustrated as all of you and appreciate the posts that show me I’m not alone. I’ve taken the G-drive to different Best Buys for assistance and now they’re telling me the drive is inoperable and I have to send it to their lab for document retrieval which will take up to 6 weeks and unknown cost. WD has been unhelpful as has Apple.