In this guide, we will show you various methods to fix the issue of being unable to mount an external drive on macOS Sonoma. The newest OS build from the Cupertino giant has just made its way and so has been a plethora of intriguing features. But as has been the case with OS releases, a few bugs manage to creep in, even if it is a stable build. And that has been the case with the fourteenth iteration of the OS.
While issues with Ethernet and Printers were yet to settle down, a new one has already made its way. As of now, numerous users have voiced their concern that they are unable to mount their external drive on macOS Sonoma. They have removed the saved password in Keychain and when they go to mount, it just hangs after they type in the password.
Moreover, when they try to run First Aid on the disk, the Disk Utility just hangs on the Unlocking Disk. It never even asks for the password. On the other hand, some have said that the Disk utility shows all the missing drives as “unmounted” – i.e. greyed out. If they try to mount one, they get the error: com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error 49229. If you are also getting bugged by these issues, then this guide will help you out. Follow along.
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Fix Cannot Mount External Drive on macOS Sonoma
It is recommended that you try out each of the below-mentioned workarounds and then see which one spells out success. So with that in mind, let’s get started. Droidwin and its members wouldn’t be held responsible in case of a thermonuclear war, your alarm doesn’t wake you up, or if anything happens to your drive and data by performing the below steps.
FIX 1: Try Basic Workarounds
Let’s start off with the simplest of fixes. You just need to shut down your Mac, wait a few minutes, and then restart it. The external drives should now ask for the password and should then be mounted.
FIX 2: Using Recovery Mode
- Boot macOS Sonoma into Recovery <ode [Intel | Silicon].
- Then select the Disk Utility from the options provided.
- Now mount all the affected disks, providing the FileVault password.
- Finally, restart your Mac. The drives should now mount.
FIX 3: Via a New User Profile
Create a new user user, log into it, and then enter the encrypted password. Check if the drives are being mounted now or not on your macOS 14 Sonoma.
FIX 4: Delete “Encrypted Volume Password” Keys
- Delete all keys of “encrypted volume password” type in “Keychain access” .
- Then reboot your Mac. The OS will now ask for encryption keys for all drives.
- So type in the passwords and drives should now be mounted on macOS Sonoma.
FIX 5: Format HFS to APFS
Many affected users were using the HFS file system and after formatting it to APFS, the issue was rectified. So do give it a try and check if it works out in your favor.
That’s it. These were the various methods that should help you fix the issue of being unable to mount an external drive on macOS Sonoma. If you have any queries concerning the aforementioned steps, do let us know in the comments. We will get back to you with a solution at the earliest.
