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Can't Mount External Drives

Hello,


I recently used Migration Assistant to move, system, apps, and data from 2017 iMac Pro to a Studio Max.


All my external drives were working with the iMac Pro, which included two thunderbolt 2 powered enclosures, a USB powered enclosure, a OWC Thunderblade, and an external Samsung NVme drive. All drives are also readable with my 2019 intel MacBook Pro.


Now only the Thunderblade and Samsung drives are readable. The drives in the Thunderbolt two enclosures show up in Disc Utility, but no disc icons are displayed on the desktop. (Hooked to Studio Max via Apple's Thunderbolt 2 to 3 adapter cable.) Drives in my USB enclosure don't show up in Disc Utility or as disc icons on the desktop.


"External Drives" is checked in the finder general and sidebar preferences.


Under "Info" the drives in the Thunderbolt enclosure show as not writeable and as "can be verified."


The Thunderblade and external Samsung NVme drives are the only drives formatted with APFS, which was done with Disc Utility. All the other drives were formatted with Softraid, which currently isn't working on the Studio Max.


Any suggestions please. I have some 25 drives with archived data from clients that I now cannot mount!


Thanks, Drew Harty



Mac Studio, macOS 12.4

Posted on Jul 20, 2022 7:43 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 20, 2022 9:00 AM

It's an interesting guess, but not accurate to say that only drives formatted as Apple File System (APFS) can be read on the Mac Studio.


Macs in general and your Mac Studio in particular can read a variety of drives using MANY different formats, including MacOS Extended HFS and many different makers' formats.


However, if you used a third-party formatter such as the aforementioned SoftRaid, or drives that came from the factory with The manufacturer's Drivers on board, you may need to Re-Install those same Drivers into MacOS (not physically onto the Drives) to access that data.


Windows New Technology File System (NTFS) presents a special problem because Microsoft has said that format is Microsoft proprietary, and threatened to sue anyone who writes it without first paying them royalties. Apple can READ, but not WRITE that format natively. There are several low-cost third-party add-ons that can provide that function.


Some drive makers include complex software that simulates a Mac files system inside a NFTS Volume structure. This is nominally "save you the trouble of reformatting" (which is preferable and actually no trouble at all). These drives will not be readable until you install all the original Drivers involved to re-create that environment.


Best Practice is, and has always been, to ERASE a new Drive with Disk Utility so that MacOS "owns' the drive with its built-in MacOS Driver.


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8 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 20, 2022 9:00 AM in response to acadia2022

It's an interesting guess, but not accurate to say that only drives formatted as Apple File System (APFS) can be read on the Mac Studio.


Macs in general and your Mac Studio in particular can read a variety of drives using MANY different formats, including MacOS Extended HFS and many different makers' formats.


However, if you used a third-party formatter such as the aforementioned SoftRaid, or drives that came from the factory with The manufacturer's Drivers on board, you may need to Re-Install those same Drivers into MacOS (not physically onto the Drives) to access that data.


Windows New Technology File System (NTFS) presents a special problem because Microsoft has said that format is Microsoft proprietary, and threatened to sue anyone who writes it without first paying them royalties. Apple can READ, but not WRITE that format natively. There are several low-cost third-party add-ons that can provide that function.


Some drive makers include complex software that simulates a Mac files system inside a NFTS Volume structure. This is nominally "save you the trouble of reformatting" (which is preferable and actually no trouble at all). These drives will not be readable until you install all the original Drivers involved to re-create that environment.


Best Practice is, and has always been, to ERASE a new Drive with Disk Utility so that MacOS "owns' the drive with its built-in MacOS Driver.


Jul 20, 2022 8:28 AM in response to Owen_1001

Hi,


Thanks for the quick reply. "Only drives with APFS will work?" How can Apple possibly have made the untold number of drives people archive on unreadable and obsolete?


As I mentioned, I have some 25 - 30 drives full of data from past projects. There is no way I can can copy data from each one, reformat the drive, and copy the data back to the drive. It would take months, if even possible!


I thought the Mac Studio was for professionals? Apple failed to mention all drives formatted before APFS was available will no longer be readable.


Is there no other work around?


Drew

Jul 20, 2022 8:34 AM in response to acadia2022

I personally have never used SoftRAID drives, and so I probably don't have the best answers for you, but there might be a driver or software that you can install that would allow you to access these drives. You could see if anything like that works for you.


Let me know if you have any success with my suggestion - sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

Jul 20, 2022 10:44 AM in response to acadia2022

In general SoftRAID drives do not use the regular Disk Utility Drivers. Instead, a SoftRAID driver is installed on the drive. So those drives might show up as "Un-identifed" format type inside Disk Utility, and may not be immediately accessible when you change versions of MacOS.


Have you run SoftRAID Utility and had it check the drive(s), and update the Drivers On the Drive as needed?


If you think that is a SoftRaid issue, contact SoftRaid or OWC for further assistance.

Jul 20, 2022 11:29 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

"you may need to Re-Install those same Drivers into MacOS (not physically onto the Drives) to access that data."


Your statement made me rethink the problem. With the help with Softraid tech support I changed the start up disk security and added Softraid to Full Disk Access in system preferences. This fixed the problem and Monterey is not recognizing all Softraid formatted hard drives.



Thanks, Drew Harty

Jul 20, 2022 11:46 AM in response to acadia2022

That is great that you got that sorted out!


We sometimes hear from Users whose Macs have crashed, and they want to restore from a backup drive, bt the drive seems to be suddenly unreadable.


That backup drive may be inaccessible unless Disk Utility alone "owns" the drive, so that it can be read in Recovery mode (where no add-ons are loaded) -- without added Drivers.

Can't Mount External Drives

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