Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD - Data in my finder window

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Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD - Data in my finder window

Sometime over the past several updates, my Finder window now shows both Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD-Data drives. From what I have read, it had to do with the Catalina update. I am now updated to Monterey 12.7.4. I did not know that I was not supposed to see the HD-Data volume in the finder. It was recommended that I remove the volume that did not have the house on it when viewing in the disk utility. That scares me to death. Attached is an image of my disk utility window showing all the volumes. From this, please advise on what I should do.

iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Mar 14, 2024 10:34 AM

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Answer 1

HWTech

Level 9

60,596 points

Mar 15, 2024 6:48 AM in response to Mike S

Try unmounting the "Macintosh HD" volume, then deleting it. It appears to be an extra APFS volume within the same Container as your boot volume so there should not be any problems deleting it as long as it is not being used.

Here is an Apple article with instructions for deleting an APFS volume:

Add, delete, or erase APFS volumes in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 2

HWTech

Level 9

60,596 points

Mar 15, 2024 10:59 AM in response to Mike S

To address any performance issues, you may want to start a new thread so it may get more attention. I would recommend running the third party app EtreCheck and post the complete report so we can examine it for clues.

Also try disconnecting all external devices in case one of them may be causing a problem.

You can try running the Apple Diagnostics to see if it reports any hardware issues.

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Answer 3

Mike S Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 14, 2024 8:52 PM in response to HWTech

I checked the Macintosh HD volume and all it had was an old applications folder containing old versions of applications that exist in the macintosh SSD Data volume applications folder. I threw all of them out. There is nothing that I can see left in that volume. I then renamed the "Macintosh HD-Data volumes" with Macintosh SSD. I restarted the computer and the below screen shot is what things look like now. I tried to remove the macintosh HD Volume with the disk utility, but it would not let me. What do I do next?

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Answer 4

HWTech

Level 9

60,596 points

Mar 14, 2024 6:39 PM in response to Mike S

It seems that you incorrectly reinstalled macOS at some point which is why you have two multiple volumes with "Data" in the name.

My best guess is that the last item in the list "Macintosh HD" is for an older macOS installation. You can check out what is within that volume by using the Finder. If it is or was a bootable macOS volume, then you can "Get Info" on it within the Finder which should tell you what OS it is associated.

If you right-click or Control-click on the third item on the left pane "Macintosh HD - Data volumes", you should be given an option to rename it. It may not be readily apparent that you have been given a text box for renaming since the interface is quite terrible in my opinion. Just give it a unique name such as "Macintosh SSD" since "Macintosh HD" is already taken by the other volume listed last on the list. Theoretically renaming the item I mentioned should automatically correct the base name of all the other related APFS volumes associated with your macOS boot volume.

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Answer 5

Mike S Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 15, 2024 8:19 AM in response to Mike S

As per your information, I started the computer up in Recovery Mode and opened disk utility and deleted the Macintosh HD volume. That worked fine. I then restarted the computer and went into Disk Utility and renamed the Macintosh SSD volumes to macintosh HD. On restart, Macintosh HD is now what I see on my desktop. All seems to be working. This all started because I was running out of memory on my computer and decided to clean things up. I noticed that my Mail and Safari apps were very sluggish opening. I figured it may be a free memory issue. Things seem to be working better now, but still sluggish. Thanks for your help!

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Answer 6

Mike S Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 14, 2024 9:00 PM in response to HWTech

I also went into system preferences and changed the startup disk to Macintosh SSD, thinking that I may be able to remove the old Macintosh HD volume with the disk utility then. No luck. What's next?

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Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD - Data in my finder window

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