APFS (ENCRYPTED) DRIVE WON'T MOUNT AND HOW TO FIX IT

[cocoua]

Some context :

Based on our studio/office experience, external APFS Encrypted drives suffer from this common issue where they wont mount in modern macOS versions due a error, this article is about this one in particular:

Could not be mounted"AppleAPFSMedia". (error ofcom.apple.DiskManagement.disenter49218.)

It seems similar errors occur mounting APFS drives. (more examples here and here)

In our case, the problem begun since macOS Ventura, but we jumped from Mojave, so the bug could have been introduced earlier and in a few cases, we could access the data via Finder in older Macs.

We send over physical drives from one location to another too often so all drives are Encrypted. Since macOS depreciated HFS+ Encrypted, you are more or less, forced to use APFS Encrypted.

It seems APFS is not designed for HHD and probably never would do, but they removed HFS+ Encrypted from macOS. I dont know where is the problem here, but we didnt got so many errors years ago, APFS, Apple Silicon and new macOS releases are new added elements in the equation, so one of them should be the culprit.

This article is from 2017 but not too much things have changed since then.

We all wish that SSD drives would be same price as HHD… would do? making long last backup on HHD is not a good a idea, but is the most affordable idea most of we have now a days, but looks like doing so on SSD is even worse idea. So you probably want to keep your encrypted data stored on a HHD.

Nobody nows how long HFS is going to stay among us so using an old Mac to format drives as HFS+ Encrypt is a risk. So, we are going to face this error problem for long time I asume...



Solution:

The “good” news is, in our experience, this specific error mounting the External APFS Encrypted drive still allows accessing the data via specific software, in our case, Disk Drill 5.3 did the trick restoring the drive exactly the same as new (except the .DStore files, so no custom icons, labels, folder view options, etc.. but who cares at this point). Older version didnt did it so well, but the latest version restored our drives just as they were.

The simple steps are:
-connecting the faulty drive (A) to the Mac
-run Disk Drill
-copy the data via Disk Drill to a different empty drive (B)
-format faulty drive (A)

I'm pretty sure similar software could do the trick, and probably the problem is how drives are disconnected due to poor hardware implementation (USB connections?, Macs ports failure?, power management?, HHD own nature?, Software issue?) but this points to some common problem to which macOS should come already ready to cope with where Finder cant access the data, but other software can do it perfectly.

 

[NoBoMac]

Might not be APFS per se but your processes. There are different versions of APFS and moving between different OS versions could be mucking things up.

APFS versions, updates and compatibility

What’s in APFS, and what are its tools? How to interpret the version number, and what do we know has changed with different versions? How compatible are they?

eclecticlight.co

Although APFS is designed and implemented to provide as much forward compatibility as possible, backward compatibility is preferred.

Care must be taken to avoid using older APFS tools, including Disk Utility, on newer versions of APFS. This is most critical in Recovery mode.

Encrypted DMGs are an alternative.

 

[cocoua]

Might not be APFS per se but your processes. There are different versions of APFS and moving between different OS versions could be mucking things up.

APFS versions, updates and compatibility

What’s in APFS, and what are its tools? How to interpret the version number, and what do we know has changed with different versions? How compatible are they?

eclecticlight.co

Encrypted DMGs are an alternative.

interesting, so this means to imrpove compatibility fordward, it would be necessary to format again in APFS with the new system? is it possible to update APFS W/O format again (erasing all the data)?

I got another corrupt disk today. I restored it from backup and format in HFS+ Encrypted, lets see if this way last longer or what..

 

[NoBoMac]

nteresting, so this means to imrpove compatibility fordward, it would be necessary to format again in APFS with the new system? is it possible to update APFS W/O format again (erasing all the data)?

A) Not sure. I have not had issues with APFS HDDs so have not needed to do any debugging/testing.
B) Not that I know of. All or nothing with re-formatting.

 

[Adora]

I only use Thunderbolt drives because of permanently self-ejection and corrupted file systems on USB-drives, connected to whatever hub/dock/directly.

Never happened with my Thunderbolt 4 drives again and I can also connect where I want. I tried crazy things like four docks in a row and the drive hanging on a TB2 dock with adapter to TB3, that is hanging on a TB3 dock, that is hanging on a TB4 dock and that one on another TB4 dock.

Sadly it's expensive, docks, cases and cables etc. and now already outdated. TB4 just was new and I didn't know TB5 is already on it's way, when I bought all TB4 stuff a year ago.

But of course fast enough, at least for me. For many displays and/or high resolutions or drives where you don't even find a cooling that fits in an enclosure, TB5 is more interesting.

The text got too long from here... I cut it out. Just experiences. Maybe I post it later.

 

[NoBoMac]

I only use Thunderbolt drives because of permanently self-ejection and corrupted file systems on USB-drives, connected to whatever hub/dock/directly.

Could be OP's problem, particularly if laptops in use (scanned and saw no mention of hardware involved).

HDDs and which ports one can plug into and which order (had that issue in the C2D era), unpowered hubs/dongles, always an adventure if more than two HDDs being used on MacBooks.