The disk "name_here" can't be unlocked

Portable SSD Portable | Extreme | Extreme Pro SSD
1

Hi,

When i plug in my Sandisk Extreme SSD I get this message The disk “name_here” can’t be unlocked. "A problem was detected with the disk that prevents it from being unlocked. I’ve tried it on different Macs, restarted them, changed the cable, I’ve tried everything I know. The drive is not shown in Finder. I contacted SanDisk and I’m still waiting for a response. Any ideas?

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Hi @wviquez
Have you opened a Support Case? If not opened, for more information, please contact the SD Technical Support team for best assistance and troubleshooting:

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Hi,

Yes, I did open a case. Case #: 8146568 | Reference #: 240502-000468. The response I got was that it was an “Apple issue”. John G from Western Digital Customer Service and Support wrote “I would like to inform you that, our engineering team has investigated on your case and it appears the error is due to macOS encryption not SanDisk Security which we provide for hardware encryption.” If this was the case I should be able to see the HD when I use a Windows computer/. I tried different OS and computers, five different, and none of them will recognize the disk. So, there should be a different approach to solving this issue other than trying to toss the ball to Apple.

William

1 Like
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Any update?

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Someone sent me a link to download a trial of recovery software. However, I had already tried that software and found that it didn’t recover enough files.
So, the update is that I’m still grappling with a failed drive and haven’t found a solution yet.

William

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Is there a solution? I have the same problem, and it suddenly stopped working. I changed my computer and just backed up my data not long ago. I don’t know what to do? I just wanted to prevent data loss, but I can’t access my data.

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Check if the SSD shows up in Disk Utility and run First Aid. If not, open Terminal, type diskutil list, find the SSD, and try diskutil mount /dev/diskX (replace diskX with your disk identifier). Ensure it’s not encrypted. Use recovery software like Disk Drill if needed. Check System Information under USB to see if the SSD is recognized. Try connecting it to a Windows or another PC. Lastly, look for firmware updates

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I’ve been troubleshooting enterprise hardware for over 25 years and it upsets me when OEMs point the blame elsewhere and offer no solution. OK, it may be Apple’s issue, however that should not mean that WD does not help to resolve the issue, as the SSD is pretty much useless in this state. I resolved the issue on my own in about 10 minutes.

I had the same exact “The disk “name_here” can’t be unlocked” issue, and no matter what I tried to unlock the disk (different cable, different Mac, running diskutil commands in terminal, running first aid in disk utility) no matter what I tried nothing helped to unlock the disk.

Note that the steps I took to resolve did not recover any data on the SSD, if you follow these steps all data on the SSD will be lost, however you will be able to re-use the SSD once again. I was only troubleshooting why Time Machine backups on my son’s laptop had not occurred in the past few weeks and was not in any need of the backed up data, luckily.

I first downloaded the SanDisk firmware update tool to check if there was a firmware update available:

The firmware on the SSD was already up to date, so nothing to be done there.

I then went into MacOS Disk Utility program and under “View” options I selected “Show All Devices” (by default, “Show Only Volumes” is selected). Once I had changed the view to “Show All Devices”, I was then able to run an “Erase” on the top level device. After that, went into Time Machine and selected the newly formatted SSD and successfully ran first Time Machine backup.

Hopefully this issue does not resurface at a time that I may need that backup data! My MBP also has a Sandisk SSD used for Time Machine backups.