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Bnulf Author

Level 1

4 points

Catalina and external hard drives

Since I found a solution for my problem this is more like a confirmation of what I read about Catalina. I have the issue with two HDD (Toshiba 2GB and WD 5GB) not being mounted by my MBP 2017 running Catalina. The smaller drive was at least shown several times as unrepairable but still accessible to copy data where the bigger one never mounted.

My solution: The "broken" drives work properly without any complaints on my old Mac Mini 2010 running High Sierra.

But I have a question after all: When will it be save to connect the drives to the MBP again?

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jul 24, 2020 12:36 AM

Top-ranking reply

Barney-15E

Level 10

116,680 points

Posted on Jul 24, 2020 6:54 AM

Especially given the larger drive doesn't mount is likely because it is trying to pull too much current from the USB. That will shut down the USB port. The older Mac may be able to handle the over-current situation better than the new one.

I have seen the same problem on all makes of computers and many brands of external hard drives.

I've had two 2TB G-Drives connected to my 2018 MBP running Catalina without issue. Also, a few random SSDs.

So, as far as I can tell, there is nothing unsafe about connecting an external drive to Catalina.

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Catalina and external hard drives

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