I'm seeing rumblings that I'm not the only one here...mid-2015 MBP and upgraded to Monterey and immediately after upgrade my external USB drive (Time Machine) and SD card (in the lost) periodically unmount themselves, give a warning and then randomly remount. This makes these external storages unusable- Time Machine won't even engage in the updated, current state.
MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 12.0
Like just about every large company Apple has both formal technical support and an area where users can discuss technical issues with other users. And, like all of those other companies, Apple does not participate in any significant way in the user-to-user discussions, as that might inhibit the free flow of ideas. The formal name of this area is Apple Support Communities. The “Communities” should be a giveaway that this isn’t a formal support site. And if that doesn’t, the site itself is https://discussions.apple.com. The “discussions” is another giveaway.
Apple’s formal support can be reached several ways:
Note that both of the above have options to receive a callback or chat
My SD slot is filled with a flushed SD card caddy and never comes out. It has my music and media on it and now every time the machine wakes up from sleep I get the message: [Disk Not Ejected Properly, Eject "Media" before disconnecting or turning it off.] Before installing Monterey 12.0.1 it had always worked great. Is this damaging the card??
Hello iROCK! Thank you for participating in the Apple Support Communities.
We understand that your disks are unmounting and mounting again. We'd like to look into this with you to see how we can help.
If you run First Aid on the disks, does First Aid point out any errors? Does running First Aid resolve the issue? Learn how to do that here: Repair a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac
If the issue persists, does changing the cables that connects your drives to your Mac help? Are you connecting directly to your Mac or through a hub?
Make it a great day!
Perryb wrote: "Apple, please fix this..."
Although Apple administers these communities, that doesn't include reading each of thousands of daily posts for possible feedback. However, Apple will "read all feedback carefully" here:
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scottmoore_seattle2 wrote: "Please Apple, you need to do much better..."
scottmoore ~ Although Apple administers these communities, that doesn't include reading each of thousands of daily posts for possible feedback. However, Apple will "read all feedback carefully" here:
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tumbledry65 wrote: "...Apple please fix this."
Again, although Apple administers these communities, that doesn't include reading each of thousands of daily posts for possible feedback. However, Apple will "read all feedback carefully" here:
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Try the following;
1 - boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and test to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.
2 - log into a basic admin user account, Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac, and see if the problem persists. This tells us if the problem is limited to your user account or is system wide.
Jan 24, 2022 1:05 PM in response to Old Toad
this ain't my first rodeo, brother. Did I mention 30 years?
30 years old ain't a lot of experience.
No, thats 30 years of owning macs :)
Just for the squits and giggles, I booted into safe mode before going to bed last night, ejected the sd card - but of course didnt remove it - and this morning on my awakening, it was remounted.
as I said...
I’ve just had a success with a very simple fix. My external drive got to the point that it was disconnecting every few seconds.
The problem: It was dirt in the connectors.
Solution:
That was two days ago, and the external disc has not disconnected since then.
That was me! Thanks for confirming that different cables worked. My working hypothesis is as follows:
Insight: I unintentionally did exactly the above but with a brand-new, non-apple laptop and the manufacturer replaced it because they had no way of knowing if it was an issue with an accessory or their device.
I have a similar issue. Monterey hung on install, and I had to power off. When I fired it up, the installation worked, but my external drive was not seen in the finder or in disk utility.
Eventually, the (parent) drive showed up in DisknUtility, although the child drive, "Time Machine," was greyed out. I ran First Aid, and it seemed okay, but an attempt to erase and reformat failed. Here's a screeshot of what I encountered:
I talked this through with Apple Suypport, and they claimed it was pure coincidence that a drive that had worked perfectly for a year failed immediately after installing Monterey. I've also talked with Western Digital (the drive was a G-DRIVE mobile USB-C) who said they'd had issues like this, but with Macs that were running the M1 chip.
I think this is extremely odd, but am not a wizard with computers. The Mac is a late 2020 iMac i5 3.3Ghz with 32G RAM. Any input gratefully accepted!
Maggot
I have noted this periodically since big sur, get an apple notification that disk ejected improperly and the remounts. Fortunately, it is infrequent and unrelated to cables or drives. I think it is some issue with the OS
^^This. And the solution, bizarre as it seems, is to swap out the USB-C cable that came with your G-Drive for an Apple USB-C to USB-C charging cable, like the ones you find in Macbook Pros and newer iPads.
I just tried this with my son's cable. The drive shows up in the Finder and in Disk Utility. This, after I was assured by Apple Suppoprt that it was a drive failure that was coincidental to the Monterey install. Right.
My dad also has a flush mounted adapter with a microSD card in his MacBook Air. Similar problem. Not sure on age, but he’s only had air a few years, so maybe a 2018 model. Certainly looks like it’s the OS
I need to amend this post. While the USB-C charging cable from Apple will allow the G0Drive to mount and function, its data transfer rates are extremely limited, ~USB 2.0, I believe. I'm going to return the cable and swap it out for an Apple USB-C cable designed for higher speed data transmission, as see how it goes.
Will report back if this proves a better option.
External Drives in Monterey
