- Mac Disk Utility Unable To Unmount Volume For Repair Cost
- Mac Disk Utility Unable To Unmount Volume For Repair Mac
- Mac Disk Utility Unable To Unmount Volume For Repair Parts
Posted by Katrina to Mac Data Recovery Tips on April 12th, 2018
I couldn't see my APFS external hard drive (WD My Passport 0746 Media) in Finder, so I went to Disk Utility and found the drive unmounted. Then I ran First Aid, but it failed to repair and showed me the error: 'Can't repair volume because other APFS volumes in its container are mounted.'
APFS comes with space sharing concept, in which container is the basic storage unit, and in a container there're multiple volumes. This feature allows space to be shared between volumes in a container, and helps the Mac manage free space on its hard drives more efficiently.
$ diskutil unmount /dev/disk1s2 Volume OSXDaily on disk1s2 unmounted. That’s all there is to it. You’ll notice the drive is no longer accessible in Finder, but it will still be visible through diskutil from the command line, or the more familiar Disk Utility app in Mac OS X’s GUI. How to Mount a Drive from the Command Line on Mac.
However, space sharing also makes some troubles. Since these APFS volumes share the free space, if errors happen to one volume, other volumes will get involved too. Therefore, when we use repair tool, some new data will be written on the damaged volume as well as the shared space. But for the sake of data security, we are not allowed to do so on the shared space, and then the error pops out: 'Can't repair volume because other APFS volumes in its container are mounted'. Under this circumstance, the drive/container can't be mounted and we can no longer access files stored on it.
Fix 'Can't repair volume because other APFS volumes in its container are mounted' error without data loss
Since Disk Utility can't repair the unmountable APFS drive, the only and last solution is to fix the error by reformatting. But reformatting will erase all data stored on the drive. To avoid data loss, we should recover lost data from unmountable APFS drive firstly. As APFS is a new and complex file system, there are a few data recovery program in the market that can truly support it.iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is one of them.
You can force unmount a drive by running the following Terminal command: diskutil unmountDisk force /Volumes/VOLUMENAME Replace VOLUMENAME with the name of a volume on the disk you are trying to unmount. Following this, attempt to Erase/Partition the drive again in Disk Utility. My Mac Mini w/ Fusion Drive (that’s a hard disk and an SSD pretending to be a single volume for better performance) froze and wouldn’t boot. Nothing would make it boot normally again. Recovery mode was OK but couldn’t erase the boot volume nor mount it via Disk Utility (I just got “Unable to delete the core storage logical volume.
Step 1: Recover lost data from unmountable APFS drive with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is one of a few data recovery software that offers comprehensive solution for APFS Data Recovery andencrypted APFS data recovery. It can recover lost data from unmountable APFS drive,recover lost data from formatted APFS drive, recover lost data from inaccessible APFS drive,recover lost data from unreadable APFS hard drive, recover lost data from corrupted APFS container
Besides, iBoysoft Mac Data can also recover lost data from HFS drive, HFS+ drive, FAT32 drive, exFAT drive, etc. It fully support storage devices like hard drive, external hard drive, USB flash drive, SD card, memory card and more.
Tutorial to recover lost data from unmountable APFS drive with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac
After downloading and installing iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on our Mac, only 4 steps needed to get lost files back.
Step 1: Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
Step 2: Choose the unmountable APFS drive, then click 'Next' to scan for all lost files on the drive.
Step 3: Preview the scanning results, choose files we want to recover, and then click 'Recover' to get lost data back.
Step 2: Fix 'Can't repair volume because other APFS volumes in its container are mounted' error by reformatting
After successfully restored all lost data, we can fix 'Can't repair volume because other APFS volumes in its container are mounted' error by reformatting it without worrying about any data loss.
• Tutorial to format external hard drive/volumes in Disk Utility
Mac Disk Utility Unable To Unmount Volume For Repair Cost
Still have questions?
Disk Utility User Guide
You can unmount a disk set or a member disk if you need to repair it or perform other maintenance.
Unmount a disk set
- In the Disk Utility app on your Mac, select the disk set that you want to unmount in the sidebar.
- Click the Unmount button in the toolbar or beside the disk set name.
After unmounting a disk set, you can disconnect the disk members of the set from your computer.
Unmount a disk member of a set
- In the Disk Utility app on your Mac, select the disk set that you want to unmount in the sidebar.
- Click the Unmount button in the toolbar or beside the disk set name.
- Disconnect the disk member that you want to unmount.
Mac Disk Utility Unable To Unmount Volume For Repair Mac
If you unmount and disconnect a disk and then reconnect the disk later, Disk Utility rebuilds the disk member automatically if you selected “Automatically rebuild” when creating the disk set. If you need to rebuild the disk manually, see Repair a disk in a disk set.
Mac Disk Utility Unable To Unmount Volume For Repair Parts
See alsoOverview of creating disk sets using Disk Utility on MacCreate a disk set using Disk Utility on MacDelete a disk set using Disk Utility on MacAdd a disk to a disk set using Disk Utility on Mac