Startup disk not working after automatic update

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Level 1

4 points

Startup disk not working after automatic update

Last night computer was working fine. This morning I received the folder with question mark screen. Nearest I can tell there was an update attempted last night. I suspect an update because there are several files that were created last evening when I search the disk.

I've been running Ventura on my 2017 iMac using an external SSD as my startup disk and using my internal drive as the time machine backup. I've been able to get back into the computer using an old SSD with Catalina, but it doesn't recognize the Time Machine backup on the internal drive (though I can access the internal drive it doesn't show a time machine backup). I've run disk first aid on the external SSD that was my startup disk and several errors of the same type popped up "warning: inode_val: object (oid 0x67db84): invalid internal_flags (0x2008000/valid-flags are: 0x3fffdf)" with the oid number changing with each warning, but in the end it says operation successful. Even though the subject disk appears readable, when I try to open it I don't see any of the data files that I would hope to see. I've swapped cables, powered down, etc. to no avail.

I don't know where to go from here. Is there a way of undoing whatever update that might've caused this?

iMac, OS X 10.11

Posted on Jun 6, 2024 5:09 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 6, 2024 1:08 PM in response to ChuckFM

With macOS 10.15+, the drive layout changed where there is a System volume and a Data volume which macOS combines so that they appear as a single "Macintosh HD" volume to the user. However, when you boot from a different drive and try to access the data on a macOS 10.15+ boot drive, things are a bit tricky. It is usually easiest 7 best to boot from the same or newer version of macOS as it may automatically combine those two volumes for you (unfortunately not always....why Apple!?).

However, all is not lost. You just need to make sure the "Data" volume of that drive is mounted. macOS does not always mount it automatically. Use Disk Utility to make sure the "Data" volume is mounted, then note the mount point listed by Disk Utility. Use the Finder to navigate to that volume's mount point. It should be in the "/Volumes" folder. You want to look into the "Data" volume listed for that "broken" drive. If you navigate the "Data" volume, then you should see the "/Users" folder populated with your macOS user account(s) which should contain the main folders you normally see such as "Desktop", "Documents", "Downloads", etc. The read-only system volume (the one without the "Data" part) also contains a "/Users" folder, but with nothing inside of it and is only used as a mount point by macOS to make the system & data volumes appear as a single entity.

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Answer 2

ChuckFM Author

Level 1

4 points

Jun 6, 2024 2:08 PM in response to HWTech

Well, your comments made great sense. Went in there looking for the data volume and though I could see it in Disk Utility, I could not see it in Finder. So decided to repair that particular volume again and received the same errors. But this time when I shut down and restarted, everything came back to life! Thank you!! And now to figure out how to extricate myself from a mess so this doesn't happen again.

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Startup disk not working after automatic update

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