Home > Questions

External HDs Slow to Mount on Mac, Any Fixes?

Hello, I have threee WD My Book HDs stored files and file backups. After I updated my Mac to OS 13, I found two of them taking a while to mount. One (1-1/2 years old and has 1.5TB of data on it out of 6TB capacity) takes 5-10 minutes and the other (4TBs and 5+ years old) uses 30 seconds to several minutes. The third one (4TBs and 5+ years old) mounts immediately on Mac as before. And I found that the two problematic HDs are running "fsck_exfat" in Activity Monitor after mounting. Does it mean something going bad on the drives? Any solutions to fix the trouble? Thanks.

Best Answered by

iBoysoft author Connie Yang

Connie Yang

Answered on Tuesday, December 3, 2024

From your description, I get a rough idea of what your problem is.  The external HDDs that are slow to mount on Mac may be due to Time Machine, system issues, software conflicts, file system errors, etc. Here are my suggestions to fix the problem. Hope this helps you out.

1. Bypass Time Machine verification

You say that you use these hard drives for file backups, so what you see in Activity Monitor about the two drives doesn't mean they have any problems. It probably indicates Time Machine is verifying your external hard drives before start backing up files. You can click on the Time Machine icon in the Apple menu bar and select "Skip verification".

2. Boot Mac into Safe Mode and then connect the two drives

If that makes no changes, test the performance of the two drives in Mac Safe Mode. This is to exclude the recently installed software conflicts.

3. Connect the drives to another Mac

And you are also suggested to connect the two HDDs to another Mac that's not running macOS 13 to verify if it is the macOS Ventura problem causing the external hard drive not mounting on Mac.

4. Run First Aid to check the two HDDs

The external hard drive that takes a long time to mount on Mac can also result from file system errors. You can use Disk Utility First Aid to check and repair errors on your external hard drives.

To run Mac First Aid to repair the disk, you need to:

  1. Open "Disk Utility" in the Applications folder.
  2. Select the drive on the left sidebar.
  3. Click "First Aid" on the top.
  4. Wait for First Aid to complete checking.

People Also Ask

Read More Questions

Read More Advice From iBoysoft's Computer Experts

how to recover data from unmounted SD card

How to Recover Deleted & Lost Data from Unmounted SD Card?

Read this post to know how to recover data from unmounted SD card with iBoysoft Data Recovery. Plus, this post explains the causes and fixes to troubleshoot an unmounted SD card.

SD Card Recovery

Externe Festplatte auf dem Mac einbinden

Wie man eine externe Festplatte auf dem Mac einbindet | Mac Mount-Befehl

Erfahren Sie, wie Sie externe Festplatten auf dem Mac über das Festplatten-Dienstprogramm oder Mount-Befehle im Terminal erzwingen können und wie Sie 8 häufige Probleme beim Einbinden externer Festplatten beheben können.

Montar disco rígido externo no Mac

Como Montar um Disco Rígido Externo no Mac | Comando de Montagem do Mac

Aprenda como montar (forçar) discos rígidos externos no Mac via Utilitário de Disco ou comandos de montagem no Terminal e como corrigir 8 problemas comuns de montagem de discos rígidos externos.