Ventura 13.6 external hard drives won't stay mounted.

Question

Level 1

27 points

Ventura 13.6 external hard drives won't stay mounted.

The drives simply mount and dismount themselves over and over, sometimes causing a restart but most often not. I have tried a brand-new Toshiba Canvio drive, which I had great difficulty in formatting because it wouldn't stay mounted. I finally got it formatted, and set it up for Time Machine but, again, although a backup starts off okay, it will not be completed because the disk was disconnected.

The same thing happened when trying to format and back up to an M1 Macbook Air, also running Ventura 13.6

Please note that the same thing also happened on both computers with a newly formatted WD passport external drive. I see that in this forum there isn't necessarily a lot of love for WD disks, but this is clearly not an individual disk problem.

I'm pretty sure the crash reports were sent to Apple, but I'm sorry to say that I am not sophisticated enough to find them on the computer. I looked at Console, but didn't know what was relevant.

Help!

Mac mini (M2, 2023)

Posted on Apr 26, 2024 11:24 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Apr 26, 2024 11:59 PM in response to historydoll

Try working with this disk in safe mode or booting from an external SSD with a clean system. I've had issues with some disks due to software installed by vendors like WD, LaCie, and others.

Reply

Answer 2

Apr 26, 2024 12:53 PM in response to historydoll

Hi @historydoll,

I'm having a similar issue formatting a new Toshiba Canvio 4TB for APFS on my Mac Mini M2 (very slow - over 5 hours). Sorry I can't offer a solution for your situation, but you mentioned difficulty formatting your Toshiba Canvio drive.

Could you share with me :

How long did yours take to format (and what size is your drive)?
Any tips for successful formatting?

Also curious about your comment on the drive disconnecting during Time Machine. Did that happen during formatting or backup? Does this mean a Toshiba drive might not work correctly on Mac Mini M2?

Thank you in advance.

Reply

Answer 3

historydoll Author

Level 1

27 points

Apr 26, 2024 8:23 PM in response to tbirdvet

I have tried another cable. It didn’t help. And this is not a question of the TM machine drive being ejected as the result of a single event. Sitting in front of the computer I can watch the drive disconnecting and reconnecting over and over. Nor is this any kind of normal event, as each time it disconnects I get a message saying it’s been improperly ejected.

Reply