Unable to access External Drives and Disk Utility after updating to macOS Sonoma.

My small 2TB WD exfat hdd, suddenly come online this afternoon. Visible in disk utility and terminal; although it won't let me run first aid upon it. I have forensic software pulling all the data I can at the moment but it looks as though it's going to be a long drawn out process. So as soon as anything is pulled off it it loaded up to the cloud as well as putting a copy on my local disk.

I tried running diagnostics and repairs via terminal but it won't allow me - it tells me there is no GUID format on the disk; yet in disk utility confirms it has.

My big 8TB seagate hub is still offline. It's sitting there looking at me in system profile under the USB bus and when I run terminal ioreg -p IOUSB it surely is under the root directory of everything attached to the USB ports.

oneilw@Drs-iMac ~ % ioreg -p IOUSB

+-o Root  <class IORegistryEntry, id 0x100000100, retain 29>

  +-o AppleT8103USBXHCI@01000000  <class AppleT8103USBXHCI, id 0x100000507, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (14269 ms), retain 125>

  | +-o USB2.0 Hub             @01100000  <class IOUSBHostDevice, id 0x10000089d, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (14182 ms), retain 35>

  |   +-o AX88179A@01110000  <class IOUSBHostDevice, id 0x1000008ab, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (2915 ms), retain 32>

  |   +-o My Passport 25E1@01140000  <class IOUSBHostDevice, id 0x1000008ad, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (4644 ms), retain 26>

  |   +-o Expansion HDD@01120000  <class IOUSBHostDevice, id 0x1000008cb, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (7570 ms), retain 25>

  |   +-o Expansion HDD@01130000  <class IOUSBHostDevice, id 0x1000008e3, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (7481 ms), retain 25>

  +-o AppleT8103USBXHCI@00000000  <class AppleT8103USBXHCI, id 0x100000380, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (138765 ms), retain 93>

    +-o One Touch 8TB Hub@00200000  <class IOUSBHostDevice, id 0x10000ba23, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (46328 ms), retain 30>

    | +-o One Touch 8TB Hub@00210000  <class IOUSBHostDevice, id 0x10000ba44, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (46304 ms), retain 23>

    +-o One Touch 8TB Hub@00100000  <class IOUSBHostDevice, id 0x10000ba34, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (6 ms), retain 29>

The extent of my programming and coding skills, stop way back when we just had basic and ms dos, I'm stuck if anyone can point me in the right direction it would be appreciated.

Just in passing looking back on archives there seems to have been a problems as far back as 2018 and maybe farther with ext hdd's not unmounting properly and the drives were then not coming back online again.

I'm an historian - I know history repeats itself, although maybe this has never been sorted out.

This also fixes the problem when you plug the drive into another Mac. I ran First Aid on it, it fixed a few things, then it worked again in the first Mac.

I have not verified that the corruption happens when shutting down. But I will watch for this. I had two drives go bad in two days - I knew that couldn't be a coincidence.

Hello! I just received my iMac M3 with OS Sanoma and indeed; my harddrive was working properly for 1 day but all of a sudden I could not see it anymore in Finder.

Luckily, also a Windows machine nearby and all seems to work fine. No harm to the disk. All in FAT32 format so easy to use on both Windows and Mac (normally)

Obviously very curious what Apple will do to make the use of the Intenso 8TB Harddisk possible.

Following - similar issue. I'm unable to even download graphics from Canva to my external HD now. I have to download to my Mac, drag it over, then delete it off my Mac to save space. I was fine with my old computer and my mom gifted me a new MacBook Pro 14" with Sonoma, but it has now caused me so many issues with my external HD. I've changed permissions to Read & Write for the entire volume. I've added admin read & write access through every folder. Now all of my Premiere Pro video editing templates cannot be opened because it's either saying it needs to be converted from a previous version of Premiere, then says all of the media is offline not allowing me to locate it even though it has the correct path. So much frustration. Debating bringing it into the Genius Bar but based on this forum it seems they're not even aware of this issue? I refuse to format and lose all of my data for the past few years.

Disk Utility:

Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

4 TB

Even running first aid says: Operation failed because volume could not be unmounted. Restoring the original state found as mounted. Unable to unmount volume for repair.

Help!

Those who are able to get windows to run a repair of their drives are they all exFAT or MS Dos (FAT); have any other users who have used apple extended and APFS been able to recover theirs?

Apple have had a problem dating back to around 2015 with external drives and them dropping offline. I noticed on my iMac M1 on Christmas Eve I was plugging in a usb c adaptor to the thunderbolt port and it arced, which was worrying. I didn't have much else to do on Christmas Day so I started looking into if there had been similar problems in the past. In 2012 complaints went out about usb ports sparking, which would indicate poor earth contact or grounding as some may know it as.

This problem was still going on until 2015 with the update of Monterey 12.5, when they issued a software patch - how does a software patch stop a computers usb hubs from shorting? Apple has refused to admit liability; it may well be another class action suit, just like the broken screen on the MacBook Air which has been going on for years. They have now kicked it back to the Plaintiffs wanting more evidence.

What is annoying me is that you see all these promoters on 'YouTube' and the like pushing the products with too many new iPhones , Mac computers and freshly manicured finger nails and not one has said we have a problem.

Anyway I removed Sonoma and reinstalled Ventura, Ive had enough. This computer has cost too much money, in having to replace external drives and maintain separate cloud storage as I no longer feel I can trust it.

A thought, when they updated Sonoma the IPSW (firmware) was updated, could this contribute I wonder?

Looks like Tim's head might be on a platter soon the way things are looking at Apple.

I finally gave up testing my ExFAT external drive. Nothing I could do would cause any corruption in it.

I wrote files, copied files, disconnected it without ejecting, and shut down with it connected.

I would imagine it is either a controller conflict with Sonoma or some other system modification you have installed.

Bought a new Macbook Pro M3 Pro with Sonoma a few days ago. I plugged in my Crucial X8 external SSD and everything was fine until I disconnected it without the safe removal. I did the Windows repair trick and now it works again, but everytime I plug it out without ejecting or I restart my Macbook I got the same issue over and over.

I have the same issue! i connect exFAT external drive to new macbook nov. 2023. via usb-c to usb-a cord. The computer finds the drive. i work then eject properly. IF i try to connect drive again, it is not able to be found.

another computer running windows, finds an error and runs repair to fix. The drive can connect again, but only to not work again after another window repair. PLS fix this issue

I had to buy data recovery software called EaseUS for one month, about $100 w taxes etc. It could then look into my unmountable drive.Took about 10 hours to scan 10 TB. I could then see the files and pull them out to copy onto another drive (that I had formatted APFS). Once I have all the file transferred I could do clean erase on the old ExFAT drive to reformat into APFS.

The problem still persist for me.

Little walkaround working for me:

I noticed if i connect the Drive and wait for 10 or 20 minutes the drive become accessible.

if you want a correct working,The only solution is Rolling back to Ventura Hoping your sw maintain the compatibility.

Sonoma is the worst OS Apple did. Since i update my 2020 imac is Dramatically slow down. Have compatibility issues (my mac is used in music pruduction) and now, this great bug with exFAT drives.

Mac is not anymore adapt to professional use. Too issues if you work with customers with different platform and you had to share . Is unacceptable.

I hope Apple can solve it.

me pasa lo mismo. y la única solución a todos los problemas es volver a ventura. estuve 5 días sufriendo por la perdida de mis discos pero la verdad nunca fueron ellos. siempre fue el mal sistema. Mac debería hacerse responsable de todo esto.

I had high hopes, Ray, but sadly it didn’t work for me. The Thunderbolt SSD will occasionally mount when connected, but still almost immediately disconnects again.

As someone else mentioned, System Information does see that the drive is connected, even when Disk Utility doesn’t see it.

One interesting thing I noticed is that connecting with a cable with Thunderbolt on the drive end and "old-style" USB (2 or 3, I think) on the computer end does mount the drive, but of course it operates only at around 400Mb/s.

It's purely commercial and I have the same probleme :

Apple blocks the use of external drives with premeditation, to market its product. That is to say, if you want more space buy a new MacBook, or trade with Apple. You will give them your old mac, they will give you its price, and you get a new one by paying the difference between the old one and the new laptop of your choice.

As you know, Apple put the SSD and the memory, integrated with the motherboard, so that no one can improve their Mac by only changing its parts. The scam showing up with a tie ;0

I have resolved the issue with my last outstanding external drive that was resisting connection, an older model RocketStor RS6314A from HighPoint that needed a firmware update (done through my old MacBook) before I could run it with the newest driver available using my M1 MacBook Pro running Sonoma 14.2.1; and, everything seems to be working as expected now. Initially I was told this older model RAID external drive would have to be run on my old MacBook, or failing that, that I would need to upgrade to a newer model of external drive case; but after voicing my displeasure at that response, someone higher up in the company sent me an apology along with the instructions on how to update the firmware for the device and then load the newest driver available from their company.

I also have noticed my USB external THINGS not being happy.

Could NOT use my Scarlett 18i20 on the same HUB that it ran on under Monterey. One would think a NEWER computer and OS would continue to work at LEAST as well as the older one.

Have a 4 bay external drive carrier and it indeed DOES go off into the far reaches of space on occasion...

Fortunately i have not lost data...yet.

Truly frustrated, as are you and i imagine Countless others that Apple just cant seem to get it right!