All external Hard drive not working in normal mode but in safe mode on my MacBook

I realised recently that my macbook Pro is not recognizing any external hard drive or pendrive when in normal mode but it works fine in safe mode. This happened after i have installed some apps from the internet Any idea how to help

steps taken:

i have used disk utility to mount it.

i have tired first aid

i have tried inserting the external drives in another macbook .

i have changed cables


i have uninstalled recently downloaded apps.

My hard external hard drives are formatted in Exfat

i have tried sudo pkill -f fsck.


Any help will be appreciated


Attached is my Etrecheck report

Posted on Nov 7, 2025 4:05 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 8, 2025 2:41 PM

you have installed and re-installed and re-installed a vast amount of junk.


In this context, “junk" is like stuff in your attic  -- it may be perfectly good, but is not needed right now.


By far the easiest way to cause poor performance, instability, overheating and crashing is to install ANY third-party speeder-uppers, Cleaners, Optimizers, or Virus scanners, Bit Torrent, or a VPN that you installed yourself.


The idea that a third party, with no special knowledge of the inner workings of MacOS, can somehow find a simple way to protect or speed up your computer — that is not already being done by MacOS itself — suggests that the MacOS developers are somehow "holding out on you". That is absurd.


the first to go needs to be Crowdstrike. It is interfering with the mac's Built-in virus protection.


You have Apple managed clients active AND Jamf installed and have installed a small fleet of MDM restriction profiles. if they is your doing, you need to back that stuff out and get rid of it.


You have installed some stuff from snow software that is not signed. All modern legitimate software for Mac should be signed, and anything that is not signed with a developer certificate has no place on a modern Mac. you should remove that stuff right away. the cloud metering and scan result portion are flagged as potential malware.


3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 8, 2025 2:41 PM in response to AyeZ1

you have installed and re-installed and re-installed a vast amount of junk.


In this context, “junk" is like stuff in your attic  -- it may be perfectly good, but is not needed right now.


By far the easiest way to cause poor performance, instability, overheating and crashing is to install ANY third-party speeder-uppers, Cleaners, Optimizers, or Virus scanners, Bit Torrent, or a VPN that you installed yourself.


The idea that a third party, with no special knowledge of the inner workings of MacOS, can somehow find a simple way to protect or speed up your computer — that is not already being done by MacOS itself — suggests that the MacOS developers are somehow "holding out on you". That is absurd.


the first to go needs to be Crowdstrike. It is interfering with the mac's Built-in virus protection.


You have Apple managed clients active AND Jamf installed and have installed a small fleet of MDM restriction profiles. if they is your doing, you need to back that stuff out and get rid of it.


You have installed some stuff from snow software that is not signed. All modern legitimate software for Mac should be signed, and anything that is not signed with a developer certificate has no place on a modern Mac. you should remove that stuff right away. the cloud metering and scan result portion are flagged as potential malware.


All external Hard drive not working in normal mode but in safe mode on my MacBook

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