Any App or TSR (runs when you boot in the background) That'll Forces a Volume to Mount?

[Alvin777]

Hello Apple and Mac friends.

There seems to a major bug with macOS Monterey whereby it doesn't mount .dmg .iso and images when you double click it, it also doesn't mount the external volumes, like USB external drives or USB flashdrives. This wasn't a problem in Big Sur or Catalina.

I'm using an app called FastDMG to mount the .dmg I download but is there an equivalent for external volumes like a flashdrive (coz' I need to install a previous macOS and use DiskMaker for it but I Monterey won't mount my flashdrive to be able to do that)?

Thank you in advance.

 

[DeltaMac]

Are you saying that your external/flash drive will not boot the Mac where you want to install?

I always do a quick run through with Disk Warrior on any macOS bootable installer. That will sometimes report that the drive was "blessed".
That's more relevant than mounting, at least for a drive or partition that is supposed to be bootable.
But then, I don't experience any problems with external drives that won't mount under Monterey, and I regularly use drives that have 10 or more bootable partitions. Many of those will be bootable macOS installers of various versions.

 

[Alvin777]

Hi, I mean Monterey won't mount my external drives (USB, Flashdrive, etc.) as well as any image like .dmg .iso when I double click it. Terminal won't see it my external drives (if you type diskutil list), Windows Bootcamp, no problems it mounts it and also System Information sees it as disk2. I've not had a backup to Time Machine (USB 3) since I upgraded to Monterey.

I'm downloading a Monterey upgrade that just appeared now though, I deeply pray, fast & hope it'll mount the .dmg and external drives but if not I may use an app if that exists to force mount external drives.

It could be that that files have been messed up coz' I've always updated (not fresh install) from previous macOSes as far back as I think macOS Lion. I wish I could fresh install everything but I don't have that luxury at the moment (mission critical stuff).

Thank you.

 

[DeltaMac]

One step that you could try is to reinstall your current macOS: Download the current full install. If you do that through your App Store, the installer will launch automatically when the download completes. When you see that, you should QUIT the installer app, then use that app to make a bootable external installer (either to a USB flash drive, or other external drive partition), boot to that bootable installer, and follow the steps to reinstall your current version.
That reinstall reloads your system, also checks for possible firmware updates that need to be applied.
It is a reload - not an erase-and-install, so should not affect the apps and files that you currently have on the drive.
(As with any reinstall, you should have a current backup before beginning any reinstall.)
Expect the reinstall to complete within about 30 minutes (not counting downloading the installer, and creating the bootable drive), when you will reboot to exactly the same setup/background picture, etc. The system files are just reloaded, and the process can often refresh parts of your system that might fix your image and disk mounting issues.

 

[Slartibart]

Which Mac model? Are you using a hub? You could try restarting the usb daemon in the terminal:

sudo launchctl stop com.apple.usbd; sudo launchctl start com.apple.usbd

Or you try using an older program - USB prober -> http://v6download.touch-base.com/downloads/MacProber/USB_Prober_Mac_OS_X_10.7.3.zip to rescan the USB ports.

 

[Taz Mangus]

Try creating a new user account. Reboot the computer and login to the new user account. See if you are still having the issue with drives not auto-mounting. If the issue does not happen in the new user account, you could try to recreate the user account t that is having the issue. Another thing to try is to boot into Safe Mode and see if the drives auto-mount.

 

[Alvin777]

Thanks. I've tried the Terminal code ones, a USB refresher app, booting to a new account and safe mode but the external drives still won't mount but System Information sees it, I've tried partitioning the volume and fresh install Monterey but it still won't mount anything external.

I wish I could fresh install everything (dragging just the documents manually then fresh installing all apps, not using Time Machine coz' that might have too much old files and could get mixed in the system) including the Bootcamp Windows (Windows' not that important, I just use it for games and benchmarks) but until I can back it up, I guess I'll wait for the next major release (not the update) after June WWDC, hopefully it's all fixed. Or just use Windows Bootcamp coz' the external USB drives are working fine there.

Next time, I'll always have a bootable external macOS and a backup macOS of the last perfectly working version, all the time, so when I update the main volume and new update is not working, I have two backup proven macOS to use. X-D

If only Time Machine could back up to a volume on a same drive, I could erase as many as possible and back it up there and then fresh install and then restore from than Time Machine volume.

Stay safe. I'll just wait for the next major update (pray nothing bad happens X-D ), it'll be a risk of almost a year of no backups.