External drive problem after upgrade

[MataLeo]

I cloned a drive in my wifes macbook using disk utility. Everything went ok on the mac and everything got switched over fine to her new ssd and all copied over, installed with everything working. The external drive i used to clone now cant be seen or reformatted to reuse the drive again.I can only see the drive in disk utility in recovery mode but the important stuff is greyed out. Any help is appreciated in getting this drive back.

 

[MacInWin]

Welcome to the forum.

Couple of obvious suggestions and then some questions.

Did you try to reboot and see if the drive appears? Have you tried closing Disc Utility and then re-opening it to see if the drive appears?

Now the questions: What mac, what version of the OS, what is the objective of this clone project?

 

[ferrarr]

Disconnect the drive, restart the Mac. Open Disk Utility, then connect the drive.

Edit: Also, make sure you have selected “Show all devices”, under the View menu.


Sent from my iPad using Mac-Forums

 

[MataLeo]

Welcome to the forum.

Couple of obvious suggestions and then some questions.

Did you try to reboot and see if the drive appears? Have you tried closing Disc Utility and then re-opening it to see if the drive appears?
yes it did not appear., Yes tried closing it a bunch of times and reopening it, drive still does not appear unless you go into recovery mode. The picture shows what i see in recovery mode.

Now the questions: What mac, what version of the OS, what is the objective of this clone project?

Its an external drive that i need to reformat to use on something else. The version is Catalina, the clone was already done.The drive is new used to move laptop to new ssd, which everything has been done already. I just need the drive useable.I think im going to try Ubuntu and see if it sees it and if i can reformat it.

 

[MataLeo]

So i came to the conclusion that disk utility is not seeing the drive. I did your steps with the drive unplugged and once plugged in it doesnt pop up even with a close and open of disk utility. I think the part im seeing is the image for the mac i am using to try and look at the drive. I also do not have the view option to show all drives. Im going to to try Ubuntu and see if it sees the drive and try to do it that way.

 

[IWT]

@MataLeo

Are you saying the in Disk Utility (DU), you don't have this view option?



If not, try this: with DU open, go up to the top menu bar , Click on View > Show All Devices



See if that works.

Ian

 

[MataLeo]

@MataLeo

Are you saying the in Disk Utility (DU), you don't have this view option?

I do not have that view option

View attachment 31578

If not, try this: with DU open, go up to the top menu bar , Click on View > Show All Devices

View attachment 31579

See if that works.

Ian

When i go to the top it show all devices is greyed out.

 

[IWT]

Thank you for your prompt and honest reply. Well, I'm at a loss as to why Disk Utility (DU) doesn't offer this. As far back as I can recall, that feature has been present. Even as far back as Snow Leopard.

I'm sorry that I can't come up with a solution.

Ian

 

[MacInWin]

@MataLeo, are you logged in as a Admin account? I think only Admin accounts can make changes to drives, hence the grey.

 

[ferrarr]

@MataLeo, are you logged in as a Admin account? I think only Admin accounts can make changes to drives, hence the grey.

I'm not logged in as an Admin user, but I can still change the View options.

I think you are going to need to change Permissions on the drive, Change permissions for files, folders, or disks on Mac - Apple Support. Be sure to select the gear icon and choose "apply to all sub folders and files". Since you are doing this in the startup drive, it will take a while to complete.