Hi, I recently bought a new apple macbook air running Monterey 12.4. When I go to use my external hard drive, it won’t mount. It works on my old apple macbook air running El Capitan 10.11.6 but not on my new mac. I have downloaded NTFS for Mac where it sees the drive but won’t mount it. I tried with disk utility where it gives an error code 49153. Can anyone help please?
MacBook Air
First of all the OS is not up to date. Update macOS to 12.5.1 and see how things work.
FYI, it is best to avoid using NTFS volumes because macOS requires third party drivers to write to NTFS volumes. Relying on third party software to manage a drive eventually leads to issues like this where you may not be able to access your data until someone fixes the software issue. The last time this happened it took several months before people could access the data on their NTFS formatted drives.
It is much better to format your external drives with a file system that macOS actually supports without the use of third party software. If the drive will only be used with Macs, then use Disk Utility to erase the drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled) or GUID partition APFS (top option) depending on the drives used and versions of macOS needed to access the drive. If the drive needs to be shared with Windows, then use Disk Utility to erase the drive as GUID partition and exFAT. Erasing a drive destroys all data on the drive so make sure the data is backed up to other media.
Of course the choice is all yours if you want to risk losing access to your data.
Also try disconnecting all other external devices in case one of them is causing a problem with this drive. I know that some users have confirmed that a Wacom tablet can prevent an external drive from working correctly (both devices may work together if the tablet is connected after the drive, but who knows about other devices).
Another possibility is the external drive may not be compatible with an M1/M2 Mac with Apple Silicon. Unfortunately by using NTFS file system and a third party driver you have compounded the difficulty of troubleshooting the problem. You can try uninstalling the NTFS driver and rebooting to see whether macOS can see & read the NTFS volume (macOS won't be able to write to it though, but this is just a test).
You also have to distinguish between a possible file system issue or a hardware compatibility issue with the drive. You need to check whether the physical drive or enclosure is even seen by the OS. You can use Disk Utility or even the Apple System Profiler to do this. Within Disk Utility you may need to click "View" and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drives appear on the left pane of Disk Utility.
Also try connecting the drive directly to the Mac with no other devices connected. You may also have a problem with an adapter if one is being used or perhaps the USB cable itself if you are using a different cable with this Mac than with the older Mac.
First of all the OS is not up to date. Update macOS to 12.5.1 and see how things work.
FYI, it is best to avoid using NTFS volumes because macOS requires third party drivers to write to NTFS volumes. Relying on third party software to manage a drive eventually leads to issues like this where you may not be able to access your data until someone fixes the software issue. The last time this happened it took several months before people could access the data on their NTFS formatted drives.
It is much better to format your external drives with a file system that macOS actually supports without the use of third party software. If the drive will only be used with Macs, then use Disk Utility to erase the drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled) or GUID partition APFS (top option) depending on the drives used and versions of macOS needed to access the drive. If the drive needs to be shared with Windows, then use Disk Utility to erase the drive as GUID partition and exFAT. Erasing a drive destroys all data on the drive so make sure the data is backed up to other media.
Of course the choice is all yours if you want to risk losing access to your data.
Also try disconnecting all other external devices in case one of them is causing a problem with this drive. I know that some users have confirmed that a Wacom tablet can prevent an external drive from working correctly (both devices may work together if the tablet is connected after the drive, but who knows about other devices).
Another possibility is the external drive may not be compatible with an M1/M2 Mac with Apple Silicon. Unfortunately by using NTFS file system and a third party driver you have compounded the difficulty of troubleshooting the problem. You can try uninstalling the NTFS driver and rebooting to see whether macOS can see & read the NTFS volume (macOS won't be able to write to it though, but this is just a test).
You also have to distinguish between a possible file system issue or a hardware compatibility issue with the drive. You need to check whether the physical drive or enclosure is even seen by the OS. You can use Disk Utility or even the Apple System Profiler to do this. Within Disk Utility you may need to click "View" and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drives appear on the left pane of Disk Utility.
Also try connecting the drive directly to the Mac with no other devices connected. You may also have a problem with an adapter if one is being used or perhaps the USB cable itself if you are using a different cable with this Mac than with the older Mac.
External hard drive not mounting on Monterey 12.4
