With a new upgrade of my MacBook Pro 16-in 2019 from Catalina 10.15.7 to Big Sur 11.5.2, I can’t rename external APFS-formatted drives.
This happens either when selecting the name in Finder and pressing Return or when using Disk Utility, which displays the name grayed out.
If I run Disk First Aid on the drive, the problem goes away and I can change the name, but if I unmount and later remount it, I can’t again.
Any suggestions gladly welcome.
To answer my own question, I found this on the bombich.com website:
" Other Catalina and Big Sur startup disks can’t be renamed in the Finder
Finder will let you rename the current startup disk, but you won’t be able to rename any other startup disks that have an installation of Catalina or Big Sur because the System volume is mounted read-only.
Solution: Unmount and remount the volume in Disk Utility, then right-click on the volume in Disk Utility’s sidebar and choose the option to rename the volume.
We have reported this issue to Apple (FB8912480) and we are currently awaiting a response."
https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/macos-big-sur-known-issues
My external drives are copies from my internal one using SuperDuper, not Carbon Copy Cloner, but the principle is the same, although the suggested solution doesn’t work for me. (The one I mentioned above in my original post does, at least as a temporary workaround.)
One more thing, for what it’s worth:
The note on bombich.com says this problem occurs with “startup disks that have an installation of Catalina or Big Sur,” but I have no difficulty mounting drives with an installation of Catalina, only ones with Big Sur.
As I mentioned, I use SuperDuper to make my clones, not Carbon Copy Cloner, so that may be the difference.