iMAC 27" 2020 I have an external drive for photo storage. The Mac recognizes it but took a very long time to load (several minutes). It now has Ventura and never finishes loading.
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iMAC 27" 2020
- Thread starter Old Goat 1952
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Update, I have a Scandisc Extreme SSD that the MAC recognizes, but will not load - just keeps saying "loading". I also have a Seagate backup plus hub and get the same from it. This computer has always been slow to load these drives but since Ventura, they won't load at all. The Seagate reports OK after running the repair utility. I guess both drives could have gone bad at the same time, but doesn't seem likely. Any help appreciated.
The Mac shows the drive on the desktop. When you click it to open, then the above window opens with the spinning wheel but never quits loading.
Does this bug manifest itself more severely with macOS Ventura than previos versions of macOS?
If yes then you may try asking the same question at https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/macos-ventura-13.239/
Have you tried backing your iMac via Ethernet to a NAS then reformating and clean install macOS?
It may not help but are you able to see it in Disk Utility and try a repair? As far as I know only Disk Utility is able to fix APFS problems. Third party utilities just put their own wrapper around the same commands Apple uses.
These external drives; how are they attached? USB3 or Thunderbolt? Also, have you tried changing out the cable, and also disconnecting anything else attached to the ports other than the keyboard and mouse (if you're using the wired versions). USB3 is known to be very finicky around wireless devices, particularly if you're using hubs.
These external drives; how are they attached? USB3 or Thunderbolt? Also, have you tried changing out the cable, and also disconnecting anything else attached to the ports other than the keyboard and mouse (if you're using the wired versions). USB3 is known to be very finicky around wireless devices, particularly if you're using hubs.
Is it possible that Spotlight started re-indexing those drives when you rebooted after the upgrade? Has it had time to finish? One way to check this might be to go to System Settings>Siri & Spotlight> and click the Spotlight Privacy Button. You'll then see the ability to "Prevent Spotlight from searching these locations". Go ahead and add those external drives so they're excluded from Spotlight. Then do a Spotlight search for something you know is on one of those drives and see what happens. It should come back pretty quickly without having found the object of the search on the external drive.
Then add the drives back in using the same Spotlight Privacy pane, so they're included in Spotlight searches. Then do the same search again. I don't know if the upgrade to Ventura resets the Spotlight indices or not. But if this second search is much slower than the first perhaps it has reset the indices and Spotlight is re-indexing the external drives. Re-indexing is generally slow, so leave the system on overnight with the external drives attached and do the search again to see if it's any faster.
Then add the drives back in using the same Spotlight Privacy pane, so they're included in Spotlight searches. Then do the same search again. I don't know if the upgrade to Ventura resets the Spotlight indices or not. But if this second search is much slower than the first perhaps it has reset the indices and Spotlight is re-indexing the external drives. Re-indexing is generally slow, so leave the system on overnight with the external drives attached and do the search again to see if it's any faster.
I guess you drives are storing a lot of photos and the machine need some time to index all of those photos. Several minutes is normal.
Update: After trying a lot of suggestions that did not work, I got a notice that 13.2 update was available. With nothing to lose,I installed the update and everything seems to work now. It is still slow to load files, but it does work. after initial loading, transfer seed seems OK. Thanks for all the suggestions.
I have to ask: you are backing up that photo drive to some other drive, I hope?
I don't think anybody has mentioned this, but what format is that Scandisc Extreme SSD? If it's formatted HFS+, you would get much better performance out of it if you copied all your photos to another drive and then reformatted it with APFS.
Thanks for the question/suggestion on the backup. Yes, I have another backup but neither would work until the latest update. The drives are formatted ExFAT since files go back and forth to pcs on flash drives. I've been told that APFS won't allow that. You can tell that I don't know a whole lot about the computer workings, although I am trying to learn. Normally I just use them.