Home Forums Mac Software Mac Applications Drive Dx not working externals

Drive dx, great app: not working on external drives suddenly, no clues, updated, did unplug/ plug anyone have any ideas? thanks.

Hmmm... Now you mention it, I don't think it's reported on my external since I upgraded to Sonoma, but on the other hand, when it did report, it gave me completely useless results anyhow.

Have you upgraded to Sonoma?

Waiting on Sanoma for a bit...

I don't know if it will help you, but I found an updated SAT SMART Driver that I wasn't aware of: <SAT SMART Driver for Apple Silicon Macs>

It didn't help my situation.

says from almost 3 years ago? I've only had app less than year-- going ok till now

Then maybe you've already got the updated version.

I dunno what's up with either your DriveDx or mine. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As I said, though, DriveDx has never given me any useful info about my external, so if it never reports on it again, I won't have lost anything.

I hadn't noticed this before, but for what it is worth, DriveDX is reporting all seventeen of my external drives (see the explanatory footnote) connected via Thunderbolt or USB 3.1 Gen 2 IF I OPEN THE THE APPLICATION but the drop down from the menu bar only shows the first eight drives? IIRC the drop down used to show all of the drives and I have no idea how long the drop down report has been foreshortened. If you have just been clicking on the menu bar icon, try opening the application to see if all your drives are reported there. Other than this reporting anomaly DriveDX has proven to be very reliable, but I have an M1 Max processor and may have different results on Intel processors.

_________________________

WHY SO MANY DRIVES

(my suspenders have belts and suspenders ) Having had the experience of losing all of my data in the past, I am admittedly an extremist when it comes to backups and data reliability. In addition to the internal boot drive, I have two RAID arrays, the oldest has four 2TB Toshiba HDs configured RAID 5 used for Time Machine, the second has eight 480GB NVME drives configured RAID 1+0 (a.k.a. RAID 10) used for my database. DriveDX reports each of the physical HDs and NVMEs as separate entities as it should. One of the remaining drives is a second Time Machine HD setup when I was having trouble with the SoftRAID drivers, and the others are re-purposed HDs used for third level CCC backups of specific data sets.

Joe, thanks yes I have M1, remember I just got the Mac Mini per your recommendation!

I am opening vie the dock, not sure coming up in menu anymore, can't find preference for get it in menu, you know where than setting is? then try menu too.

Update: It just occurred to me to plug in my OWC Mercury Elite Pro Mini external drive, and DriveDx reports on it as expected, in both the dropdown and application window.

But I've also got a Samsung thumb drive, which DriveDx used to report on sporadically - but would always generate a "failing" email after a reboot - and it hasn't reported on it either in the dropdown or the application window since, I believe, I upgraded to Sonoma.

Joe

https://imgur.com/a/O7KO1fd

All 3 externals new, working fine dRives dX not not there any ideas?

I don't have a clue! If I were in your shoes I would…

• Delete DriveDX and install a a fresh copy. And, if that doesn't work
• Contact Binary Fruit Support

AFTERTHOUGHT

Are those drives directly connected to your Mac or do you have a USB hub?

In situations such as this, I delete every aspect of the offending app with Find Any File, and start from scratch.

Clarifying that, it's for the same reason that I shut down/start up rather than just restart.

Covers all bases.

thanks guys, deleted, reinstall, same thing. sent email, but usually don't respond. JOe all 3 going direct into Mac MIni.

Admittedly I am fishing for a solution to your problem and take that into consideration before following my suggestion.

SUGGESTION:
If you have a certified Thunderbolt 4 cable, try connecting one of your external USB drives with it and see if that works.

RATIONALE

• I have had occasional USB connection issues on my M1 Mac mini and M1 Max MAC Studio when using older USB and Thunderbolt 3 connecting cables
• Those issues were resolved by replacing the USB cables with Thunderbolt 4 or USB 4 cables (I ended up replaced all my cables with Thunderbolt 4 cables — but it was not cheap :o)

CAUTION There have been reports of non-certified Thunderbolt 4 cables being sold. A certified cable's connector should be marked like this and preferably less than 1 Meter in length.

Joe sure?

All hardrives are showing working just fine.

Drive dx was showing them all just fine ( there are 3)

Drive dx suddenly does not show any of the 3.

I am merely suggesting a test, but the odds are such that I wouldn’t spend much, if any, money on it.

From their site I tried to install their driver

SATSMARTDriver-0.10

Unidentified developer, you'd think a company smart enough to make this stuff would not have that come up?

And after that resolved, says it's not compatible with the OS.

I think you've already got it installed via the app itself. Take a look in /Library/Extensions.

It's not their fault that you couldn't do the installation. It's prohibited by macOS.

And they're not the developers. It's someone else.

I am running SATSMARTDRIVER.kext 0.10.3 and SATSMARTLib.plugin 1.0 and DriveDX 1.12.1 on macOS 14.2 (Sonoma) with no problems.

NOTE: all kernel extensions are deprecated in Sonoma and according to Etrecheck Pro, SATSMARTDRIVER is the only kext I have that is still running. It would be interesting to know if TechTool is still using SATSMART.

thanks Joe, if can please send the link to those two items, I'll give them a shot and retest, best.

They were included as part of this install.

Have you looked in /Library/Extensions as I suggested? They should already be there, although maybe only version 0.10.0.

I found this on the Micromat site. There is no reason these wouldn't work with DriveDX.