External HDD not mounting after Ventura update

Hello Goatzilla,

Before downgrading your software, let's try to narrow this down and isolate it more by testing in safe mode and a new user account.

Safe mode prevents certain software from opening and also forces the computer to run some disk checks similar to First Aid. This can actually resolve some issues. More information on starting to safe mode and steps to take after starting there can be found here: How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

"How to use safe mode

Determine whether you're using a Mac with Apple silicon, then follow the appropriate steps:

Apple silicon

1. Shut down your Mac.

2. Turn on your Mac and continue to press and hold the power button until you see the startup options window.

3. Select your startup disk, then press and hold the Shift key while clicking “Continue in Safe Mode”.

4. Log in to your Mac. You may be asked to log in again.

Intel processor

1. Turn on or restart your Mac, then immediately press and hold the Shift key as your Mac starts up.

2. Release the key when you see the login window, then log in to your Mac. 

3. You may be asked to log in again. On either the first or second login window, you should see "Safe Boot" in the top right-hand corner of the window."

If the issue continues after the steps from safe mode, create a new user account (administrator) to see if the behavior happens there. This will let us know if it is system-wide or something within your user account: Change Users & Groups settings on Mac

Delete a user or group on Mac (to remove the test account once completed)

Let us know what you find.

Cheers!

Ventura 13.3 doesn’t fix it. Don’t upgrade.

I updated from 13.0 to 13.3 and all my external HDDs won’t load now, my NTFS for Mac has been working perfectly fine since this update and it is definitely an Apple problem.

I had to downgrade my system using a Time Machine backup (before which I had to erase the entire hard drive and reinstall Mac because Options wouldn’t let me restore without using migration assistant, also an Apple problem)

Ventura 13.3.1. Ok it’s on a 2013 MBP and runs quite happily with Open Core LP. My TM external Ssd 1tb was getting overly full so I made the decision to start over. Went through the normal procedures using DiskUtil and then it failed. No mount, no show on the desktop, nowt. Thought is was bricked and tried all sorts of nonsense to get it back. Usually ended up with “couldn’t mount” etc Decided Ventura was the problem. Luckily I have my original 256gb Apple SSD running Monterey. Popped that in and booted it up. Connected the “broken” SSD. Guess what? Disk Util recognised and did what Ventura couldn’t do - saved it. It took about 20 seconds to format it to a workable state. Changed back to the Ventura internal SSD and bish bash it made me a new Time Machine. Is Ventura the problem? Is OCLP with it the problem? Don’t know but happy to have my wits back along with my TM 😁

I am having the same issue with a Western Digital Elements SE SSD (FAT 32).

When I plug it into a MacBook Pro (Big Sur 11.6.8) it mounts immediately and I can access my files.

When I plug it into an M2 MacBook Air (Ventura 13.3.1a) it doesn't mount and only sometimes is visible in Disk Utility.

If I use the following command in the terminal:

% system_profiler SPUSBDataType

I can see the SSD connected to the USB 3.1 Bus but if I run:

diskutil list

the device is not listed.

On the odd occasion it is visible in Disk Utility, I get an error if I try to mount the drive & it disappears from Disk Utility. If I try and "First Aid", I also get an error (I don't have details of the error IDs because the disk isn't showing up in Disk Utility any more).

I have successfully ran First Aid on the drive using the Big Sur PowerBook.

This is 100% an issue with MacOS Ventura.

Hey everyone, I've discovered the fix! I encountered the same problem after upgrading to Ventura 13.5 where all my Portable SSD T5 hard drives wouldn't mount. However, by using a USB Hub Type C 3.1 in between, they all mount successfully now! Issue resolved.

Ventura 13.2.1 Update may help.

so I had the exact same problem but with a raid 0 drive thunderbay 8 . 5 out of 8 drives were kind of showing up in the disk utility but I was not able to mount them or unmount them and the "DRIVE" itself was not showing.

I did the following and it works, I don't know how and why it works but it did.

I try the drive on another computer same problem!

I keep plugging it in and out without turning it off or ejecting the drive

I try safe mode and all but no chance

I try to clean NVRAM (I work on M1)

I try to plug the drive with a usb C- to usb A and it was lacking of power to even boot the 5 drives

I run clean my mac.

replug with usb-c to usb-c and it works

this seems random but no formatting and got my drive back

Just updated to Ventura 13.3 and none of my external drives that were formatted as NTFS will mount, only Mac OS formatted drives mount. I have a licensed version of Paragon NTFS, it doesn’t matter. These NTFS drives mount fine on my old Mac running High Sierra, so I know it’s not the drives or cables. Apple needs to fix mounting NTFS drives on Ventura 13.3, I need my drives working on this machine.

So I also made the mistake of updating my MacStudio to 13.2 last night before going to bed, and today, all my external HDs mount beside my Promise Pegasus 32. It shows up as connected under Promis Utility, and disk shows up individually in Disk Utility but does not show up on the Desktop of my Mac nor in finder and non of the files are accessible

Already started in safe mode to no avail; also tried different cables, restarting, and unplugging, but 100% confident it's 13.2 related as it started immediately after I restarted after the update last night

Well, after some considerable amount of effort, (dealing directly with Apple Support, re-installing the system, etc.) I found the problem with my set-up completely by accident & it's probably not the same thing that's happening with anyone else therefore no help whatsoever, but I'll run through it anyway, just in case...

Two of my laptops are on the desk in front of me & I have one keyboard/mouse & a Wacom tablet which both machines share.

Rather than continually unplugging things & swapping them between the laptops, I have a little USB A-B switch. This means that the keyboard/mouse & tablet plug into the A-B switch & there's a USB out to each of the laptops. When I need to use the peripherals on one, I simply press the button & it switches control back & forth between the laptops. Works perfectly.

Each of the laptops also has an ethernet dongle.

So here comes the crucial bit...

For whatever reason (freeing up thunderbolt ports or whatever) I had the output from one of the A-B switch's ports plugged into the ethernet dongle & not directly into the Mac.

Also, FOR WHATEVER REASON (god knows why!!!) this prevented the external hard drive from mounting.

Yes, that's right, an external hard drive that was plugged into a thunderbolt port on one side of the Mac was prevented from being mounted by a completely unrelated, passive switch being plugged into the Mac via the ethernet dongle & not directly into the Mac's own thunderbolt port on the other side of the Mac.

As soon as I plugged the A-B switch's cable directly into the Mac, the hard drive mounted & has had no problem being mounted since.

UNBELIEVABLE!!

I'll just chime in here to say this issue is ongoing... I have my 2020 iMac's primary SSD dual partitioned with Ventura and Windows 10, then I have 2 SSD RAID sets that come in over Thunderbolt... I just upgraded from Big Sur to Ventura 13.6 and how many disks show up on startup is anybody's guess. When I try to mount missing drives thru Disk Utility I get "Invalid Disk" in response. The only fix seems to be rebooting until Ventura wants to play ball and list all 4 disks as it should. I am, of course, open to more enlightened solutions...

Same here.

I have an 18TB WD external hard drive that will no longer mount.

It was the Ventura update that did it. I very stupidly updated my 2017 15" MacBook Pro Intel to Ventura & since then the drive won't mount.

Well, actually that's not entirely accurate. It wouldn't mount following the update, I plugged it into one of my other Macs (a 2021 16" MacBook Pro Apple M1 Max running Monterey) & it mounted fine, so I took the precaution of copying all the data from the hard drive onto Dropbox. I then returned it to the 2017 Mac & it mounted, so I carried on as usual.

Today I restarted the 2017 MacBook & the hard drive just will not mount.

It doesn't show in Disk Utility.

I've tried restarts, different ports, I've updated to the latest incremental update 13.2.1.

I restarted in safe mode & it mounted then, but Disk Utility wouldn't work because "it couldn't unmount the drive". (Sometimes it's the irony that will kill you.) So, I'm unable to scan or repair the drive.

Here's the message I got:

Curious that it mentions something which might prevent booting.

That said, it still mounts perfectly well on the M1 MBP although, oddly, Disk Utility wouldn't work on there either for the same reason. It couldn't unmount the disk.

The HDD is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journalled).

Since I have a full back up of the drive I'm tempted to reformat it but that really sticks in my craw because this is clearly an Apple issue that's messing me up & not something I've done.

If I were to re-format the drive, what would be the best format & what do we think might be wrong with the partition map?

Researching as well, I've been traveling with my iPad 11 Pro, and an external drive, works great together with a dongle I can power, did some updates and the drive mysteriously stopped mounting... I've trouble shot around it as much as possible, though all things are pointing to the issue being with Apple updates. This is a major drag, as I'm on the road, and need to access my drive contents. Buller? Buller? Apple? Apple? Anyone?

The thing that worked for me last time was to plug the external drive into my M1 laptop. It mounts no problem & spends a couple of hours sounding very busy (like it's indexing or something). I left it to do that & when the drive finally fell silent, I ejected it from the M1 & plugged it back into the 2017 MacBook Pro. It mounted immediately.

Unfortunately, I had to restart my 2017 laptop this morning so of course the external didn't mount.

I tried the same method as outlined above & this time it didn't mount.

So that was obviously a total coincidence.

What a complete joke, Apple!

The only option I think I have is to wipe the 2017 MacBook Pro & take it back to Monterey, who I gather was the last stable operating system.

I can't imagine the amount of pain I'm going to have re-installing every bit of software I have.

I wish I had the same luck; I tried the same process on 3 different systems with a reasonably new SSD T5 Mac extended journal I've been using for the last 3 weeks, and it was fine. 09/08/2023 I updated to 13.5 Ventura, and the chaos began. 1. Plugged the T5 into the 23 M2 Mac mini, instant pink screen crash, then restart log in same nonsense. Unplugged all peripherals other than monitor, mouse, and Keyboard, then used direct USB 3.0 for the T5, yet another crash. Following step 2. 22, the M2 Macbook Air using your method and direct USB C and instant crash, reboot running 13.5 V. Step 3. Ol trusty 16 Macbook Pro, like the previous steps, running an earlier version of Ventura. I am unsure of the version, but I didn't update it. It was reading my drive fine prior being used on other updated systems. Unfortunately same issue crash then reboot, so I'm not sure if the update just fried my T5 but no such luck here. My older passport mounts just fine to all systems however my T5 is housing a decade of my lifes work from an older MacBook I didn't back up to any other external drive is in purgatory. It is what it is, but this is wild that your kinda forced to update from one evil to another. My programs will not function properly without the updates and with the updates come new issues like this, its insane how much wizardry has to be put fourth due to a bad update. I'm at a loss with this one and out a bit of money on a product that was known for being fairly reliable as far software goes. 😒😔