[Sticky] Monterey Volume not mounting

The external drive cannot be used to boot up. ... I tried to select the Monterey volume as the start up disk (System Preferences

@zathras

There are no repair tools for APFS that I know of. You can try First Aid if you want, just to see what it does. But otherwise, either erase the volume (as APFS) in SoftRAID, or delete create a new volume.

Actually as a thought, you can contact Disk Warrior folks (Alsoft) and ask them if they want any data from this volume. APFS do not get damaged as often, and perhaps they would like an example. Just a thought.

I tried First Aid and no dice. I’ll just blow it away and rebuild it. 

I will contact DW. Been a long-time user. 

Thanks. 

@rozysharma

On the M1, external volumes cannot boot, unless you enable them here:

https://support.apple.com/en-lk/guide/mac-help/mchl768f7291/mac

Here is an article talking about the complexity of enabling external disk booting on M1

https://www.macworld.com/article/331916/how-to-start-up-your-m1-mac-from-an-external-drive.html

In my case, my Express 4M2 won't even show up as if it had drives in it if I ever unmount and unplug it. I have to restart to get it to show up. I'm not talking about it showing in SoftRaid and just not mounting-the drives don't even show up in SoftRaid. It's as if they don't exist at all. I am also running Parallels 17.1 which I know has had some issues interfering with the SoftRaid drivers. I'm running Softraid 6.2 on Monterey 12.01 on a 2019 8 Core i9 MacBook Pro.

@brianpeat

You are describing the disks not showing up in the SoftRAID disks column. this is a hardware issue.

Are you using any kind of dock? Is the behavior the same if you use a different connector on the back? On the computer?

If you run System Preferences, does it show the Thunderbolt bus? (The Thunderbolt bus could be "disabled".)

If it always shows on restart, it does not seem like the enclosure, but it could be. Does it spin up (fans) when you plug it in?

@softraid-support

It happens directly or through a thunderbolt dock. I'll test it again tonight to make sure but I't at work and I don't want to have to restart right now lol.

And yes, once it's been unplugged the first time, NOTHING shows in the SoftRaid window from that drive. Normally it shows the 4 NVMe drives on the left and the raid on the right.

So tonight I'll test, both direct and through the dock, and check the fans and the Thunderbolt bus and then get back to you.

@brianpeat

At least you can be 100% confident it is a hardware issue, somewhere.

I finally got a chance to test this, this morning. I opened my laptop, and plugged in the drive directly (not through a dock or hub). This time it wasn't blank, but it did say 3 degraded disks. For some reason, it shows only 1 of the NVMe drives on the left and "degraded • 3 missing disks) but also "no errors" on the right. A simple restart and all is well again, it mounts and SoftRaid says all 4 disks are there.

Sure seems like a driver/macOS issue as so far every single time I restart, it works fine. I'd think if something was failing, it would start to get unreliable even after a restart?

@brianpeat

It can be tricky to diagnose hardware issue. Its either a cable issue, or more likely the enclosure. (the power supply for example)

How old is this unit?

I am also having trouble Mounting a RAID 5 array using SoftRaid 6.2 on my M1 Powerbook Pro Max 32/32 machine running Monterey 12.01.

I am able to format the 4 individual 4TB drives, then create a new RAID drive after selecting the 4 drives and choosing "New".

The result is the new RAID drive is created but it is unmounted.

When I right click and try to mount the RAID drive it shows a blue scroll bar on the left side of the RAID drive icon, blinks and goes back to the unmounted status.

I have given permissions to SoftRaid to access all drives, have lowered the security to allow manual Kext's, and have given OWC control to access the drives using the hold the start key down until options appear.

I have reinstalled the SoftRaid drivers, re-done the initialization and creation of the RAID 5 array as described above with the same results.

I am stuck as what to do next.

Help!

Thanks.  Bart Walker

(attached Tech support log)

I have two raid arrays both are four drives as raid5. One is OWC brand and one is Akiti brand. Had them running perfectly earlier today on iMac/Catalina 10.15.6. They run and mount perfectly there. They are thunderbolt 2 models. I have the apple adapter thunderbolt 2 to 3 and softraid 6 sees them but they do not mount, even after running the 'mount" function by right clicking the array in SR 6.

Reading through some of the responses here, I tried reinstalling the drive and still no luck. Yet I am not very tech familiar with these types of details so not all of the recommendations makes sense to my level of expertise. Any suggestions? I'm in desperate need to get these working...client deliverables due ;)

Please help. Thanks

Did you do this?
https://support.apple.com/en-lk/guide/mac-help/mchl768f7291/mac
Select reduced security and enable this:
Select the “Allow user management of kernel extensions from identified developers” checkbox to allow installation of software that uses legacy kernel extensions.

When you did the driver update, did you go to System Preferences / Security to "Allow" OWC as an identified developer?

After enabling third party extensions, reinstall the SoftRAID driver, and go to System Preferences / Security to "Allow" OWC as an identified developer

@softraid-support That worked perfectly. Drives now mount and operate as expected. Thank you for your prompt help.

I am trying to setup my Thunderblade 8TB with my new MacBook Pro Max.  I am running Mac OS 12.0.1 and SoftRaid 6.2 Driver 6.2.  As you can see all the discs and volume show up in Softraid however the Thunderblade is "unmounted" and when I try to mount the volume it does not mount and continues to read "Unmounted."

The Thunderblade was originally set up using an Intel 2020 iMac and I had never had any issues with it on that machine.  I have already tried doing the "Change security setting on startup disk of a Mac with Apple silicon" trick however it did not fix the problem.   

Please help!   Thanks!