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

Mount external hard drive on Mac

How to Mount External Hard Drive on Mac | Mac Mount Command

Learn how to (force) mount external hard drives on Mac via Disk Utility or mount commands in Terminal and how to fix 8 common external hard drive mounting problems.

How to Tips

macOS Sequoia external drives not mounting

Mac Sequoia External Drives Not Mounting/Showing Up [Fixed]

Understand different cases of external hard drives not showing up on macOS Sequoia and fix Mac Sequoia external drives not mounting, or not recognizable.

How to Tips

Wie man Daten von einer ausgeworfenen SD-Karte wiederherstellt

Wie kann man gelöschte & verlorene Daten von einem nicht eingehängten SD-Karte wiederherstellen?

Lesen Sie diesen Beitrag, um zu erfahren, wie Sie Daten von einer nicht eingehängten SD-Karte mit iBoysoft Data Recovery wiederherstellen können. Außerdem werden in diesem Beitrag die Ursachen und Lösungen erläutert, um eine nicht eingehängte SD-Karte zu beheben.