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External drives not automatically mounting


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External drives not automatically mounting
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noleli2
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Chicago
 
2020-05-14, 10:04

Hey, y’all. I’ve been having an issue where none of my external drives mount when I plug them in. The Mount button in Disk Utility doesn’t do the trick, either. Importantly (I think), the drives do use FileVault. A couple things I’ve figured out:
  • It works fine for a while after I reboot the machine
  • Even after it stops working automatically, and stops working in Disk Utility, I can still do it manually by doing
    $ diskutil cs unlockVolume [UUID of volume]

It’s very annoying to have to go into a terminal and do this every time. Since it works after rebooting, there’s probably a process that needs to be restarted, but I have no idea what.

2015 13” MBP, 10.12.6 Sierra (yeah, yeah, I know. reasons. hoping to update the OS soon.)

Thanks!
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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2020-05-14, 10:49

Have you tried restarting Finder? I have to every now and then for some of my NAS connections.
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kscherer
Which way is up?
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Boyzeee
 
2020-05-14, 11:18

Might be something in Launch Agents or Launch Daemons. Have a look in there (in both the user library and system library folders) and nuke anything suspicious and/or old.

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noleli2
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Chicago
 
2020-05-14, 21:49

I hadn’t tried restarting Finder, but just did, and it didn’t work. I have checked LaunchAgents / LaunchDaemons and nothing seemed amiss. Strange…. Thanks for the suggestions!
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kscherer
Which way is up?
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Boyzeee
 
2020-05-14, 22:57

And this is happening on all the drives, and all USB ports?

Try a different cable.

Try a different port.

Try the drives on a different computer.

Try a hub.

Try the fifth dimension …

- AppleNova is the best Mac-users forum on the internet. We are smart, educated, capable, and helpful. We are also loaded with smart-alecks! :)
- Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. (Mat 5:9)
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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2020-05-15, 09:50

I was thinking you just need to buy a new computer, external drive and data connection.
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kscherer
Which way is up?
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Boyzeee
 
2020-05-15, 15:04

Good news is that we are very helpful around here!
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noleli2
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Chicago
 
2020-05-20, 20:44

Quote:
Originally Posted by kscherer View Post
And this is happening on all the drives, and all USB ports?

Try a different cable.

Try a different port.

Try the drives on a different computer.

Try a hub.

Try the fifth dimension …
Tried all that, including the fifth dimension. No luck, but thanks anyway!
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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2020-05-21, 07:48

Just curious, are these drives self powered or is there an external power adapter for them? Are the drives powering down when removed from the system?
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Dr. Bobsky
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: UK's most densely packed city. It's not London...
 
2020-05-21, 13:11

I've only seen something similar when drives have begun to fail. When you have them mounted, what does the SMART status say in disk utils?

What is the manufacturer of the drive(s)?
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noleli2
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Chicago
 
2020-05-25, 09:16

I experience this with 4 different WD drives bought at different times. Some are USB bus powered, some have external power. None support SMART (I haven’t seen any external drives that do afaik).

Like I said in the original post, they mount and work fine after I do it manually from a terminal, and it resolves after a reboot (for a while, anyway). My guess is that there’s some process that’s supposed to unlock FileVault-encrypted volumes when they’re plugged in, but it stops doing that on my machine for some reason.
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drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2020-05-26, 00:48

You know your drives better than we do, so that sounds plausible.

I had a G-Technology drive that could do USB or Firewire, but it would only mount via Firewire if I first mounted it via USB - super crazy weird (and scary).


...

Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2020-05-26, 13:18

Try removing the encryption from one of them and see if its symptoms continue. I'm curious and assuming that it is an issue with the encryption but it would be nice to know for sure.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
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noleli2
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Chicago
 
2020-05-26, 17:08

Quote:
Originally Posted by turtle View Post
Try removing the encryption from one of them and see if its symptoms continue. I'm curious and assuming that it is an issue with the encryption but it would be nice to know for sure.
I agree that it’s probably encription, but have been nervous to do that. Is it a long/potentially* destructive process?

* everything is backed up (that’s why there are so many drives), but still want to save myself a PITA
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kscherer
Which way is up?
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Boyzeee
 
2020-05-26, 18:31

It's a long process, but not destructive if there is enough space to break down the encryption.
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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2020-05-27, 12:35

Well, you could alway move content to a different drive and repartition. Do it with the smallest drive you have to minimize how much you have to transfer. Use rsync instead of Finder.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
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