Upgrading to the latest macOS can bring exciting new features, but for some users, like the owner of an M3 MacBook Pro, it has triggered unexpected headaches. After updating to Sonoma, their previously reliable LaCie rugged 5TB external hard drive became completely unrecognizable by the system. This abrupt halt in functionality immediately after the update raises serious concerns about compatibility and data accessibility.
Despite owning a high-end M3 MacBook Pro (costing upwards of AUD$4,800), the user found themselves in a frustrating situation. Before the Sonoma update, their LaCie drive worked flawlessly. Immediately after, it was as if the drive ceased to exist for their Mac. Seeking a solution, they spent an entire Saturday collaborating with an Apple Engineer. This extensive support session involved numerous troubleshooting steps, yet, according to the user, Apple’s technical experts were unable to pinpoint the cause or offer a fix. The disappointing recommendation was to resort to data recovery services – a costly and uncertain path to retrieve potentially lost files.
Undeterred and needing a working external drive, the user invested in a brand new LaCie 8TB d2 professional drive, purchased directly from Apple for around AUD$600. Formatted as exFat, this new drive initially seemed to resolve the issue, functioning correctly for a couple of weeks. However, the relief was short-lived. The exact same problem resurfaced – the MacBook Pro abruptly stopped recognizing the new external drive.
Another full day was then dedicated to working with Apple Engineers, desperately seeking a solution to this recurring problem. The outcome was dishearteningly similar to the first experience. The engineers reportedly admitted they had no immediate fix and needed to escalate the issue to a specialized team, with a resolution potentially weeks away. As of the user’s original post, they were still awaiting a response. Calls back to Apple yielded no further progress. LaCie support, contacted separately, also offered no solution, mirroring the “no fix” response from Apple. LaCie’s offer of “complementary” data recovery on the newly purchased 8TB drive provided little comfort and no assistance for the data on the original rugged drive, dismissed with a “too bad” response. LaCie allegedly acknowledged similar issues arising after the release of Ventura, suggesting a recurring pattern with macOS updates.
This user’s experience serves as a stark warning against the immediate adoption of macOS Sonoma, particularly for users reliant on external hard drives for their workflow or data storage. The inability to rollback to a previous macOS on M3 Macs further compounds the issue, leaving users potentially stranded with incompatible systems. While “Disc Repair Scan Tool Pc Hot To Stop” might be a search term users explore when encountering such disk recognition problems, in this case, it appears the issue is deeper than simple file system errors that a typical disc repair tool might resolve. The problem seems rooted in the core compatibility between macOS Sonoma and certain external drives, a problem requiring a fundamental system-level fix rather than a user-level repair utility. For now, caution and backing up data before updating to Sonoma appears to be the most prudent advice.
