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[Solved] APFS container won't mount, how to fix?

Updated on Monday, March 18, 2024

iBoysoft author Vain Rowe

Written by

Vain Rowe
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Jessica Shee

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APFS Container Won't Mount, How to Fix?

Summary: APFS container won't mount? The best way is to recover lost data from an unmountable APFS container and then fix unable to mount corrupted APFS containers by reformatting.

APFS container will not mount

Table of Contents:

APFS has replaced the older HFS+ as the default files system on Mac. The most vital improvement of APFS is to introduce space sharing, which helps us manage free space more efficiently. APFS indicates that volumes within a common container can share available free space. But if the APFS container won't mount, all files stored on these volumes turn out to be inaccessible. Unable to mount corrupted APFS container? This passage will show you three feasible solutions.

Why APFS container can't be mounted?

If the APFS container won't mount, there may be corruption on the volume header, catalog record, or file directory. For example, the fsroot tree of an APFS volume is invalid. Because whenever we want to view the existing files or save new data on an APFS volume, the operating system has to check these three parts, and then the APFS container can be mounted. These corruptions can be caused by virus attacks, accidental deletion of important system files, power failure, unsafe ejection, and other improper operations.

How to fix the APFS container that won't mount?

If we didn't back up useful data before, when the APFS container can't be mounted, the first thing is to retrieve all files from the APFS drive/volume. In this case, a professional APFS data recovery program can be helpful, here iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery is highly recommended.

Step 1: Recover lost data from unmountable APFS container

iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is the best APFS data recovery software that enables us to recover lost data from unmountable/corrupted APFS containers. Also, it can recover deleted/lost data from APFS volume, recover lost data from formatted APFS drive, recover lost data from unmountable, unreadable, inaccessible APFS hard drive, external hard drive, USB flash drive, SD card, memory card, pen drive, etc., recover deleted/lost partition.

Apart from APFS data recovery, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is able to recover lost data from HFS+, HFS, exFAT, FAT32 drives on macOS 13/12/11/10.15/10.14/10.13/10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7 and works fine on M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max Mac.

1. Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on Mac.

2. Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac, and choose "Find Lost APFS Partitions" on the upper right corner of the interface.

Recover lost data when APFS container will not mount

3. Select the drive where the unmountable APFS container exists and click "Next" to continue.

4. Choose the APFS container which can't be mounted then click "Next" to scan the data.

5. Preview the listed searching files, choose the files we need, and click "Recover".

Step 2: Repair unmountable APFS container with Disk Utility

1. Launch Disk Utility.

2. Choose the unmountable APFS container.

3. Select First Aid in the top center and click Run.

Step 3: Repair the unmountable APFS container with the fsck command

1. Start your Mac in single-user mode. Restart it, and then press and hold the Command+S keys while it boots.

2. Type the command /sbin/fsck -fy into the terminal and press Enter to start a file system check.

3. When the fsck command has your disk checked and repaired, type reboot and press Enter. Your Mac will reboot and return to the usual login screen.

Step 4: Reformat the unmountable APFS container

If you can't repair the APFS container, you need to erase it in Disk Utility.

1. Launch Disk Utility.

2. Select the unmountable container on the left part of the window.

3. Click Erase on the top of the window.

4. Complete related information (name, format), then click Erase.

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