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

As I said before on this forum, I'm using 3TB drives, a couple of them are Apricorn secure drives, one for work and the other a back up. They have trouble loading, but haven't 'failed' and I haven't lost any data (thus far!). To get them to work I run disc repair on Windows (at work). That usually helps. I also try Disc utility on an old Mac with OS<Sonoma (I have two, one works but it takes ages, the other won't work if the drive has already failed to connect in the Sonoma Mac.

Just a question, all my drives are formatted ExFat (purely for Mac/Windows compatibility). Is the problem also happening with Mac formatted drives (apfs)? My only option, as I see it at the moment, is to buy a Windows based laptop from home and wait until such time Apple wants my computer business back. Between the wife and I we are on our seventh or eighth Mac so we are pretty ensconced, but this issue and the failure to rectify it (after a number of updates) may be a dealbreaker?

Update: OS 14.3.1. Five external SSDs ranging from 1 to 2TB, using AFPS, Mac OS Extended (Journaled) connected through a TB4 4 port hub.

So far everything appears stable day 2. I reloaded all of my audio samples on to one 2TB drive, and it is holding steady. I have used apps that access these samples and they appear to be working fine for me.

Speed tests are within nominal operating limits

Disk Utility reports no errors on any of the drives.

My system updated to Sonoma 14.3.1 on 2-9-24, it still causes failure of the Thunderbolt/USB-4 ports to function properly. The ports worked perfectly with Ventura OS. This is my second attempt to upgrade to Sonoma on my 2023 Mac Mini M2 8G with 250G with Ventura installed. This time, in addition to my 2-T NVM drive disappearing, my USB-C connection to my monitor failed. In other words, both of my Thunderbolt/USB-4 ports would not work correctly. I spent a few hours with Apple support on this issue and it became apparent that they didn't have a clue what was wrong. Documented and recorded the malfunctions and sent to Apple engineering for escalated assistance, expecting a call back on 2/13. Not holding my breath, I canceled Sonoma, wiped my internal drive and clean installed Ventura 13.4 then restored files and settings with Time Machine. Both ports are now working perfectly!

Another information:

During all the time the EXFAT is not showed , The DiskUtility app is completely freezed.

Is impossible to open also diskutil from Terminal.

After 20 minutes the disk appears. And Diskutility app back to life

So is clear . Apple have a big problem with EXfat Drivers.

And no interest to solve.

I never Seen an operating system bugged like this since Microsoft Longhorn.

In addition to ejecting my ExFAT partition of my external drive on Sonoma I've also been using Disk Utility to eject the external drive as well just to make sure the light on the drive turns off and spins down the drive (maybe that is the issue?). You have to first enable the "Show All Devices" view in Disk Utility to see the external drive and not just the partition(s).

During all the time the EXFAT is not showed , The DiskUtility app is completely freezed.

Disc utility has done that forever when the format of the drive is corrupt. It may be corrupt “because of the new file system driver for ExIt may be corrupt “because of the new file system driver for ExFAT, but it is nothing new for disk utility

I’m using a 4TB Western Digital storage drive which, after upgrading my Mac Mini to Sonoma, fails to “see” this drive. I have not had trouble opening and running Disk Utility. Having said that, it takes a few minutes for Disk Utility to have more than a blank window but when the various disks are eventually displayed, the storage drive is now visible and fully accessible.

The first time I noticed this issue, immediately after upgrading to Sonoma and the drive was not visible, I had to use Disk Utility to first find the drive and then also perform first aid but only that first time.

Now, it is normal practice to use Disk Utility to get the drive visible and It doesn’t matter whether I “eject” the drive before shutting down or not.

I only use a stand alone networked, I have been stable since Christmas reformatted all external drives and ssd's to APFS, things are working a treat! The drives are a lot faster, it must be something to do with the file system.

I've spent too much money and man hours trying to repair what is beyond my scope, I certainly am not in any hurry to update after the mess of Sonoma.

So long as my continuous cloud backups are taking place and Time Machine works; otherwise the Mac on my desk might just have an unfortunate accident and well I may have to replace it with something a little more reliable at present.

So upset.

Running a M1 macbook pro, I do animation and filmography so my internal drive is usually a working drive. I have many various sized portable HDD/SSD's I store projects and personal files on. One of which contained all my photos, only partially mirrored on another drive. All in all I lost a 350gb photo/video library the entire duration of my wife and my relationship, the least important but still heartbreaking was many backed up movies and music library including my pesonal Ableton music projects, plus several thousand PDF and Epub books I have collected over the years.

Never had an issue prior to updating to Sonoma. I tried doing first aid on the drive when it first stopped responding and the drive label went from "Nvme2tb" to "Nvme1 2(insert random character)N" I grew very concerned and attempted file recovery , dropped $$$ on software to attempt to fix an issue I never had before. Upon "successful" recovery, I was greeted by 100% of my photos showing mostly grey, every video corrupted beyond recognition and a massive negative flood of emotion as my heart sank upon the realization that I have just lost a massive part of my history. 1.65 tb of media and documents, poof.

"ShOuLd HaVe ClOuD bAcKuP" I hear as I write this issue. Fact is I do have a library backed up in the cloud, just not THAT one as it contains sensitive information/documents I don't want on the cloud. Plus the sheer volume of data I work with is not feasible to store on the cloud.

I can stand losing a 1tb drive with client/project files, I wasn't so upset about that, at first I thought It was just the drive, but when I started to back my personal stuff I wasn't expecting to lose it all.

This is beyond money, and all because I thought apple software was stable. Had I known there were such bugs I never would have updated. Trying to carve out time to downgrade so I don't have this issue anymore.

ps: First post deleted since mentioning something legal, suspicious.

Since "upgrading" to Sonoma 14.3.1 I no longer have "permission" to do activities that I used to do before as the Administrator. I can't use Photo to edit and share. I can't move things around on the desktop, etc. I tried disk utility but it changed nothing after running first aid. When is Apple gonna fix this problem??

The Sonoma Update Saga Continues. Maybe found an old windows trick that works.

The recent Mac OS Sonoma 14.3.1 update did not change to problem. I have a 2023 Mac Mini M2 8G ram 250 G internal drive with 2 Thunderbolt/USB-4 Ports. After this Sonoma update, my externals still do not function properly. External 2-T NVMe drive with USB-C connection unreadable/unreliable-keeps ejecting/disappears completely. But Sonoma just keeps on giving, now my Samsung 32" 4k TV/monitor display stopped working on a USB-C cable. The HDMI connection works.

Everything was fine on Ventura 13.6.3 until I updated to Sonoma 14.2 in January, then the external HD went haywire. I tried all the fixes, nothing worked. Thankful for Time Machine. TM backups are on my external 2-T drive, which was accessible in Recovery Mode. Rolled back to Ventura 13.6.3 and the external drive worked as before, no problems.

Along comes the new Sonoma update 14.3.1, so I rolled the dice and updated via a clean install hoping to avoid any conflicts with Ventura OS updating to Sonoma.

Same old same old, the external drive became unusable, same as before. The new thing with Sonoma 14.3.1 was my monitor quit working as well on the same USB-C cable it had been working on since March 2023. I had to connect via HDMI which worked just fine. I opened up a support case with Apple and we tried many things but nothing worked. On advice from Apple, I purchased a new Belkin USB-4 cable, but still no monitor.

I made an appointment for a week later with the Genius Bar at the Apple Store 60 miles away. In the meantime, I rolled my Mac Mini back to a clean install of Ventura 13.6.3, my monitor still had the same problem, but my external drive was working again just like before.

At the store, my Mac Mini connected to a Thunderbolt display with no problem. My 2-T drive worked perfectly on 2 different MacBook Pros running Sonoma that the store had. They tried a firmware revive on my Mac Mini but it made no apparent difference.

Back home my monitor still didn't work, so I chatted with Samsung support for hours and tried all sorts of stuff, but my monitor refused to work on the USB-C cable. I read an old support forum article that suggested an old school Windows Millenium trick I remembered well. Shut down the PC, unplug the power cord, then hold the on/off button in. You would hear the fans spin as the residual power in PC was discharged. Apparently, the PC held some static memory in the RAM that was causing all sorts of crazy behavior in Windows ME. Back to today, I tried it with my monitor, and to my amazement, it worked, my USB-C cable connection was back. I had turned my monitor on and off many times to no effect. But by unplugging my monitor and then pressing and holding the on/off switch, cleared something in the monitor that was causing the USB-C malfunction. The Samsung support guy had never heard of such a thing!

I thought, what if I try this to my Mac Mini? I shut it down with my 2-T HD attached, pulled the power cord, and then I held the power button down. The Startup light came on for a few seconds and went out. Apparently, my 2023 Mac Mini also holds some residual electrical power. Will this help with Sonoma Hard Drive issues? I don't know, I am back and happy with Ventura and there is no way I'm upgrading to Sonoma 14.3.1 just to check out this theory to see if it works. But I will try again when 14.4 comes out.

I've had problems with two external hard drives for some time.

The MacBook Pro M1 recognizes them and I can work with them, but it does not allow you to expel them or turn off the computer if they are connected (one or both).

It also doesn't allow me to apply "First Help" in Disk Utility.

It's as if a program was working with them and didn't allow them to be expelled, first aid, or turned off the Mac.

I just did a test on another old MacBook, with an operating system prior to Sonoma and the hard drives work perfectly.

It seems that it is Sonoma 14.3.1 that gives the problem.

A solution that worked for me:

Connect the ssd using usb-c to my Android phone, after a few secs just unplug it and connect it to the mac and problem solve, not the best, but at least this allows you to keep working and just loose a few secs every time

Update; 4 march 2024. I had been using Disk Utility every time when restarting this Mac Mini (Sonoma 14.3) if I wanted to access my 4TB Western Digital drive or my other drive that I use for back ups (4TB Seagate). However, the most recent time I wanted to back up, I had to step away from the desk just after plugging up the Seagate and came back after a few minutes to find that it had loaded up okay, without running Disk Utility. I then plugged up the Western Digital which didn't immediately load up but again, after a few minutes, it appeared and I could access as normal.

I guess I was just too impatient, or maybe I'm just fortunate, that my drives are now all loading normally as long I give them time.

I already back to Ventura and upto now no issue on it, but Sonoma having the issue for drives above 1TB, even with same enclosure 500GB and 1TB NVME working fine , when 2TB not recognise the drive, but other OS detect and working without zero issues as well as in Ventura, so I think Apple purposefully do this limitation to buy machines with high SSD capcity