External Drives Display Twice

Question

External Drives Display Twice

I have an external drive that is showing up twice in Finder. I use it for my Time Machine backups. I restored my new Mac mini from an old backup. I've already run First Aid and no issues were detected. I've also run Dis Utility and Erased the drive to no avail. When I run Disk Utility the duplicate drive is greyed out. I can eject the duplicate drive and still have use of the actual drive. I'm really not sure what needs to be done at this point to remove the "extra" drive.

Posted on May 11, 2023 7:24 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 3, 2023 2:42 PM in response to TekDragon1968

I noticed the same thing yesterday. I'm on Ventura 13.6.1. All you do is eject Time Machine and disconnect. The extra Time Machine displayed in side bar will still be there, but greyed out. Not to worry. Just right click on it and you get the option to remove from side bar. Remove it and reconnect Time Machine and the problem is solved. Other replies I saw were quite ridiculous.

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Answer 2

den.thed

Level 10

89,272 points

May 11, 2023 8:29 AM in response to TekDragon1968

Which macOS version is the Mac mini running?

It sounds like you may have accidentally created a second partition on the external drive.

Open Disk Utility > click the small box on the upper left side and select Show All Devices Then reformat the whole External Drive, which should eliminate the second partition that you are not seeing.

For more detailed instructions, go to > Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support and select the macOS version that the Mac mini is running.

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Answer 3

May 11, 2023 10:10 AM in response to den.thed

I'm running macOS Ventura 13.3.1 (a). I've verified that there is one partition. I can eject the "extra" drive and still have access to the actual drive.

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External Drives Display Twice

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