Hi, I recently updated my MacBook Air (13 inch 2020) to Monterey, and now, when I connect an external hard drive, it does not mount one of the partitions and it causes the computer to crash and reboot. The worst part: it is my backup drive.
Any hints?
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.0
USB Hubs seem, from what is appearing on the Monterey Forums, are somewhat problematic and very dependent on the chipset in the HUB.
Yes, do try without the Hub and see what occurs - time permitting- give use an update on the progress.
Does this happen if you boot to Safe Mode?
How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support
Are you using the drives as your ™ backup?
What is format of the rest of the drive?
Hi everyone,
update: I connected my drive to an old MacBook Pro I have (Sierra), and after leaving it connected some hours, the problematic partition reappeared and I could use it again. I connected it to my MacBook Air running Monterey (This time using a simple cable adapter, no Hub) and it seems to work fine for now.
I hope Apple solves this issue with the USB hubs.
Time Machine Backup likes to use the Entire Drive for that one purpose.
Partitioning the One Drive into more than one maybe the possible source of the issue.
That and Drives do Fail without notice. Having one TM Backup and purposed for other reasons like storage / archives - and it fails - presto - everything is lost.
What happens if the HUB is removed from the equation ? Does it function as expected ?
Just For Information.
I have a 24" M1 iMac running Monterey and here are the Hard Drives which work fine on my machine using one USB 3 supporting SATA slot-in dock and a USB 2 HD in an enclosure.
The following work in the USB 3 SATA dock
The USB 2 is an IBook (Western Digital) 1TB - Time Machine (circa 2009)
I hope this is of use.
Same issue here (MacBook Air 13-inch, 2020). I've tried a
WD My Passport for Mac (2TB)
Samsung Portable SSD T5 (2TB)
SanDisk Professional 4TB G-Drive ArmorATD
First two mounted, copied a few files over, then freezes and there is a message that say it cannot complete as the drive disappeared, then the whole system freezes and reboots
No issue prior to the Monterey upgrade
As far as I know there is a problem with some USB connections under Monterey and Apple are aware of it.
Hopefully it will be fixed in an update.
Hi everyone
Thanks for you replies. To answer some of the questions:
No, I don't use the drive I have issues with as a TM backup. I do use another partition in the same physical drive as backup (formatted in extended journal).
I tried booting in safe mode and the same thing happens.
It seems that the problem might be compatibility of Monterrey with the hardware (generic USB hub) I use to connect the drive. I would have to test other hardware and update. However, I hope apple addresses the issue.
Hi! Thanks for the answer. However, I think if the cause was the partition, it would have failed over 3 years ago, when I started using it like that. However, it only started failing when I updated to Monterey some weeks ago.
I will let you know what happens when I remove the hub from the equation. I have to get another one to try out first: The Drives are USB 3.0 and the Mac has only USB-C
What brand of disk? Some users have reported here that some brands of external drives have problems with Monterey.
What is format?
What partition does not mount?
Hi,
thanks for your reply. I have a Western Digital Elements external hard drive. The partition that does not mount is formatted as EXFAT.
You are not alone, I can not mount my Sandisk/USB c Time Machine SSD ext drive as well https://www.iphonetricks.org/fix-usb-ports-not-working-in-macos-monterey/
I can't wait for this issue to be fixed : (
Thanks for the replies. However, I do not think that the solution should be to change the hardware
Found out the cause of my Mac Air (2020) freezing was my Satechi hub, connected to My Passport Time Machine and my Air Pods Pro, which had not been a problem before Monterey. Changing to an Apple USB2 to USB3 adapter fixed the problem.
Connecting external drive causes crash on mac
