External hard drive stopped working. pls HELP

[LiamR_77]

Hello forum members! 🙋‍♀️

 

I’ve run into an issue and can’t seem to find a solution.

 

I have some trouble mounting my external hard drive. I tried several methods to make it work again, but no luck so far. I hope someone here can help me fix this problem, and maybe others who had the same issue can share their experiences.

 

My external drive was working fine about a week ago. At some point, I ejected the hard drive using safe removal, and its icon disappeared, so I figured it was safe to unplug. When I did that, I got a message saying the drive was removed incorrectly. The next day, the drive worked again, but the same problem happened. After I ejected the drive, waited for the icon to disappear, and then unplugged it, I received another message saying the drive was removed incorrectly. Since then, the drive has not worked at all.

 

Please help, and thanks in advance!
💻 Computer: MacBook Pro - MacOS Monterey
💽 External hard drive: WD_Black 4TB, encrypted with APFS.

[PixelDreamer5]

I had the same issue. An external SSD for Time Machine, formatted in APFS. The initial backup went fine, the drive worked for a while, and suddenly it stopped mounting. This might have happened after a restart, although I usually never restart my Mac.

 

The same external drive worked perfectly for over a year before Monterey. After updating, Time Machine could not complete the backup due to a file conflict. I reformatted the drive and started over, but now I face this new issue. I think there is a serious bug in Monterey.

[TechieGuru99]

3 hours ago, LiamR_77 said:

Hello forum members! 🙋‍♀️

 

I’ve run into an issue and can’t seem to find a solution.

 

I have some trouble mounting my external hard drive. I tried several methods to make it work again, but no luck so far. I hope someone here can help me fix this problem, and maybe others who had the same issue can share their experiences.

 

My external drive was working fine about a week ago. At some point, I ejected the hard drive using safe removal, and its icon disappeared, so I figured it was safe to unplug. When I did that, I got a message saying the drive was removed incorrectly. The next day, the drive worked again, but the same problem happened. After I ejected the drive, waited for the icon to disappear, and then unplugged it, I received another message saying the drive was removed incorrectly. Since then, the drive has not worked at all.

 

Please help, and thanks in advance!
💻 Computer: MacBook Pro - MacOS Monterey
💽 External hard drive: WD_Black 4TB, encrypted with APFS.

I had a similar issue with my external drives. I had an external hard drive for photos and couldn’t access it. I tried to recover it through Terminal with every possible command, but nothing worked. Eventually, I gave up and purchased a Disk Drill to access my files. I transferred all the photos to a new external drive, but about two weeks later, the same error occurred again.

I suspect there might be a strange bug in Monterey.

[D_Harris_05]

Here’s what happened to me with a 4TB WD My Passport on Big Sur 11.6.2: the 1TB partition for Time Machine wouldn’t mount and displayed the error "disenter error 49218" while mounting. Here’s what helped me (at least for now):  
https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/680500?answerId=676624022#676624022

Quote

"Try mounting the disk, switch to Terminal, and type `sudo pkill -f fsck`."  

I tried to run First-Aid on the partition, restarted the computer, and…  
After that, Time Machine came back. I’m not sure which of these steps actually fixed the issue, but somehow it worked. I’ll figure it out the next time I encounter this error.

[MikeB76]

6 hours ago, LiamR_77 said:

Hello forum members! 🙋‍♀️

 

I’ve run into an issue and can’t seem to find a solution.

 

I have some trouble mounting my external hard drive. I tried several methods to make it work again, but no luck so far. I hope someone here can help me fix this problem, and maybe others who had the same issue can share their experiences.

 

My external drive was working fine about a week ago. At some point, I ejected the hard drive using safe removal, and its icon disappeared, so I figured it was safe to unplug. When I did that, I got a message saying the drive was removed incorrectly. The next day, the drive worked again, but the same problem happened. After I ejected the drive, waited for the icon to disappear, and then unplugged it, I received another message saying the drive was removed incorrectly. Since then, the drive has not worked at all.

 

Please help, and thanks in advance!
💻 Computer: MacBook Pro - MacOS Monterey
💽 External hard drive: WD_Black 4TB, encrypted with APFS.

I had a similar situation.
I unplugged a 1TB SSD without ejecting it first. When I reconnected it later, it didn't show up in Finder.
I panicked a bit, opened DiskUtil, ran First Aid, got an error (com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error -119930878.), but after closing it, it continued working. A few minutes later, the drive was fixed and showed up in Finder. Now, I always eject drives properly before unplug them. Learned my lesson!
 

[LiamR_77]

1 hour ago, D_Harris_05 said:

Here’s what happened to me with a 4TB WD My Passport on Big Sur 11.6.2: the 1TB partition for Time Machine wouldn’t mount and displayed the error "disenter error 49218" while mounting. Here’s what helped me (at least for now):  
https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/680500?answerId=676624022#676624022

I tried to run First-Aid on the partition, restarted the computer, and…  
After that, Time Machine came back. I’m not sure which of these steps actually fixed the issue, but somehow it worked. I’ll figure it out the next time I encounter this error.

I tried your method, and the system recognized the drive, and I have access to my files now!
Thank you so much! 🙏🙏🙏

[D_Harris_05]

28 minutes ago, MikeB76 said:

I had a similar situation.
I unplugged a 1TB SSD without ejecting it first. When I reconnected it later, it didn't show up in Finder.
I panicked a bit, opened DiskUtil, ran First Aid, got an error (com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error -119930878.), but after closing it, it continued working. A few minutes later, the drive was fixed and showed up in Finder. Now, I always eject drives properly before unplug them. Learned my lesson!
 

You got off easy this time. It seems First Aid was able to fix the errors that had built up from improperly ejecting the disk.

[D_Harris_05]

24 minutes ago, LiamR_77 said:

I tried your method, and the system recognized the drive, and I have access to my files now!
Thank you so much! 🙏🙏🙏

Now, stay alert because this error might come back. 🙃

[D_Harris_05]

2 hours ago, PixelDreamer5 said:

I had the same issue. An external SSD for Time Machine, formatted in APFS. The initial backup went fine, the drive worked for a while, and suddenly it stopped mounting. This might have happened after a restart, although I usually never restart my Mac.

 

The same external drive worked perfectly for over a year before Monterey. After updating, Time Machine could not complete the backup due to a file conflict. I reformatted the drive and started over, but now I face this new issue. I think there is a serious bug in Monterey.

As for whether the issue lies within this particular version of macOS, I can’t say for certain. It requires a more in-depth investigation.

[D_Harris_05]

Another observation on this topic:
Similar errors tend to occur when the file system is either damaged or not supported by macOS. For example, Ext4 isn’t supported at all, and NTFS might not work on older systems without additional support. macOS Catalina supports NTFS reading out of the box, but for earlier versions, you’ll need drivers like MacFUSE or other workarounds.

 

If you don’t need the data on drive, you can simply format the disk using Disk Utility. If the data is important, retrieve it on another device, reformat the disk with a macOS-compatible file system, and copy the data back.

 

Of course, there’s always the possibility of the disk itself being faulty, which would be an entirely different issue.
 

[LiamR_77]

1 minute ago, D_Harris_05 said:

Another observation on this topic:
Similar errors tend to occur when the file system is either damaged or not supported by macOS. For example, Ext4 isn’t supported at all, and NTFS might not work on older systems without additional support. macOS Catalina supports NTFS reading out of the box, but for earlier versions, you’ll need drivers like MacFUSE or other workarounds.

 

If you don’t need the data on drive, you can simply format the disk using Disk Utility. If the data is important, retrieve it on another device, reformat the disk with a macOS-compatible file system, and copy the data back.

 

Of course, there’s always the possibility of the disk itself being faulty, which would be an entirely different issue.
 

Thanks again for the detailed explanation of the possible issues! You really helped a lot!!!

[oleksandr-lukashyn]

Let’s highlight the key aspects of troubleshooting a problematic drive in macOS that may be causing "com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter" error:

1. Run Disk Utility and First Aid: Launch Disk Utility and run First Aid on the problematic disk. If an error occurs, try closing it and see if the recovery process continues. In some cases, the disk may recover and reappear in Finder after a few minutes.
2. Mount the disk manually: Attempt to mount the disk, then switch to Terminal and run sudo pkill - f fsck. This can mount the disk in read-only mode, allowing you to recover it using First Aid in Disk Utility.
3. Check the file system compatibility: If the disk uses an unsupported file system (e.g., Ext4 or an outdated NTFS version), consider reformatting it to a macOS-compatible file system like APFS or HFS +. If the data is important, back it up to another device before the format process.
4. Use data recovery tools: If basic methods fail, tools like Disk Drill can help recover your files and transfer them to a new disk.
5. Verify permissions: Verify you have the correct permissions for the disk by running ls - l/Volumes in Terminal. Use sudo chown and sudo chmod to adjust the permissions if needed.

✅ Best practice reminder: Always eject disks properly before disconnecting them to avoid file system errors.