Muldvarp007

Q: Samsung 850 EVO in Early Macbook Pro

Hi,

 

I had replaced my old hardrive in my Macbook Pro Early 2011 with a samsung 840 EVO, everything worked beautifully until it didnt. In the end i couldent even repair or remformat my drive. So i returned it and got a Samsung 850 EVO instead. In the mean time i put my old HDD back in and everything worked as it should.

 

 

Yeasterday i put the replacement SSD Straigt out of the box into the Mac.,I have been trying for 24 hours now, and im not even able to Format the drive using diskutil not from Recovery Mode or from my OSX Install drive. the Drive shows up in Diskutility and is verified as okay. I finanlly got it formated using the terminal, then the OSX installation failed, tried to repair the disk with diskutillity in recovery Mode, and got a message that the GUID Partitiontable was not working, repaired disk and got the message the disk could not be mounted.

 

 

Is this simply a hardware error with my mac? could it be I need to replace the SATA Cable?

OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)

Posted on Jan 17, 2015 12:36 AM

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Q: Samsung 850 EVO in Early Macbook Pro

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  • by etpapple,

    etpapple etpapple Jan 17, 2016 11:12 AM in response to olePigeon
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    Jan 17, 2016 11:12 AM in response to olePigeon

    Yep I had the same experience - all the major issues re booting, installation, I/O errors like files unable to be copied to external drives/USB etc - everything was related to the SATA cable. Had them replace it at the Apple store and now every things working as it should.

     

    Apparently the SATA cables in MacBooks aren't designed to run as efficiently with 3rd party SSD's - typically you've got 1.5-2 years of use before the SATA cable will stop working (or will have the errors mentioned above) if using a non-Apple SSD.

  • by withsong,

    withsong withsong Jan 17, 2016 11:22 PM in response to etpapple
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 17, 2016 11:22 PM in response to etpapple

    Thank you etpapple and olePigeon!

     

    Is it possible to ask the staff at apple store to replace the SATA cable for me? It's an old early 2011 macbook pro and I've upgraded the ram and ssd. I've heard that they won't even touch it if you've done something yourself...

  • by etpapple,

    etpapple etpapple Jan 17, 2016 11:26 PM in response to withsong
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 17, 2016 11:26 PM in response to withsong

    That's what I had heard as well - but they were very accommodating and didn't mention it once (that I had put in a non-Apple SSD). Get it done!

  • by withsong,

    withsong withsong Jan 17, 2016 11:34 PM in response to etpapple
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 17, 2016 11:34 PM in response to etpapple

    Okay. Will do.

    Thank you and sorry for the trivial questions

  • by steve359,

    steve359 steve359 Jan 17, 2016 11:36 PM in response to withsong
    Level 6 (14,032 points)
    Jan 17, 2016 11:36 PM in response to withsong

    If it is a user-servicable part like the drive, the reason they will likely give is not "we did not replace the drive".  The reason they would likely give is "we are not responsible for your data/system on that drive, just for the cable" ... this is just based on my experience at the Genius Bar.  You decide if the very small risk is worth not putting the original drive back.

  • by withsong,

    withsong withsong Jan 17, 2016 11:43 PM in response to steve359
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 17, 2016 11:43 PM in response to steve359

    I see! Thanks!

     

    Although another thing which may not be really related, but I used to be able to copy files to an external hard drive that's not mac formatted. Now I can't do it anymore, even create a new folder on them. Is it just the new OS Yosemite? Or it's related to the cable problem(which seems quite unlikely lol)? Because I saw in etpapple mentioned that IO problems may due to the cable also...

  • by steve359,

    steve359 steve359 Jan 17, 2016 11:49 PM in response to withsong
    Level 6 (14,032 points)
    Jan 17, 2016 11:49 PM in response to withsong

    Macs cannot "by default" write to non-GPT except for ExFAT.  If you were writing to NTFS, you must have been using some software that is not compatible with Yosemite.  Check application compatibility at http://roaringapps.com/apps.

  • by etpapple,

    etpapple etpapple Jan 17, 2016 11:51 PM in response to withsong
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    Jan 17, 2016 11:51 PM in response to withsong

    steve359 - yep that sounds about right. It is a very small risk though, and like I'd mentioned since replacing the SATA cable everything has worked as it should - they charged around $54US (although I'm sure it's cheaper if you DIY it and buy the part through Ebay, but time took precedence over the cost in my case).

     

    In terms of copying files - this seems to be one of the other 'symptoms' of a bad SATA cable - I had the same problem. It's actually an I/O problem, because the cable is failing, it's not able to read/write files correctly, so you get those error messages. Not related to the OS in my experience.

  • by olePigeon,

    olePigeon olePigeon Jan 18, 2016 4:00 PM in response to etpapple
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 18, 2016 4:00 PM in response to etpapple

    That's a reasonable price.  You'd save about $20 if you did it yourself, but you have to be very careful with the cable.  There are two spots to bend the cable, and one of them is NOT over the corner of DVD drive.  If you bend it there, it'll likely break the cable, and a lot of inexperience technicians will bend it flush around the DVD drive.  The cable may protrude a bit, but it'll be flattened down without creasing when you put the bottom of the case back on.  You only bend it where there two screws go.  You'll also want to wait until the last minute to remove the sticky tape, as once that cable is stuck to the case, it's not going anywhere, and you'll likely damage it if you try to pry it back off to reposition it.

     

    Don't forget that it's also the IR cable, so be careful when removing it.  You can break the little connector on the IR board (it's very tiny and very fragile.)

  • by djkokalis,

    djkokalis djkokalis Jan 30, 2016 2:47 AM in response to Muldvarp007
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 30, 2016 2:47 AM in response to Muldvarp007

    SOS.

    I have installed a samsung 850 evo on my sisters macbook pro (mid 2012). It worked fine until yesterday that she can't boot it. She said me that she gets a screen with a folder with a question mark at the center of the screen. What she can do to make it book?

    Thanks

  • by my ginger,

    my ginger my ginger Jan 30, 2016 8:51 AM in response to djkokalis
    Level 4 (2,472 points)
    Jan 30, 2016 8:51 AM in response to djkokalis

    You should have made a separate post for this. As you would get more help that way.This post has to do with the internal drive cable, which may or may not be your problem. The flashing question mark means your computer can't find the drive or a startup drive. You can boot to recovery,if it will. by Command R at startup and run the utilities to check/repair the drive. If you cannot get to there,then it is possible the drive or the cable is bad. To check the drive you would need an external inclosure to put it into and then try to boot to it. You could also try a pram reset.  https://discussions.apple.com/message/29704192?ac_cid=tw123456

  • by djkokalis,

    djkokalis djkokalis Jan 31, 2016 11:29 AM in response to my ginger
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 31, 2016 11:29 AM in response to my ginger

    Yes i probably should but i was in a hurry. My sister tried to repair the drive but she doesn't get any message that the drive was repaired. She also reset the pram but the problem exists. What else should she try? A few days ago the computer worked ok. But no nothing

  • by my ginger,

    my ginger my ginger Jan 31, 2016 2:18 PM in response to djkokalis
    Level 4 (2,472 points)
    Jan 31, 2016 2:18 PM in response to djkokalis

    When in recovery. Command R at startup, you have the option of disk utilities,restore, time machine and online help. In disk utilities, if you run a check/repair,. It may say hard drive needs repair, hard drive cannot be repaired or hard drive is OK. If you cannot repair, then you have two options. Erase and reinstall or just reinstall.  An erase get rid of all files a reinstall only reinstalls the system files. You can also try booting to safe mode(shift key at startup) or single user(command S at startup). If you use single user. you would type in  fsck -fy If it come back mac( your name) hard drive was modified. You run the command line again untill it comes back OK.

  • by djkokalis,

    djkokalis djkokalis Feb 1, 2016 10:29 PM in response to my ginger
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 1, 2016 10:29 PM in response to my ginger

    Thanks but nothing worked. My sister went to an apple store and the tech guys changed the cable you told about but after changing tha cable has the same problem and they asked her 150$ for a new drive. What can it be wrong with the disk? What should i do? My god i will not order samsung stuff again

  • by my ginger,

    my ginger my ginger Feb 3, 2016 9:53 PM in response to djkokalis
    Level 4 (2,472 points)
    Feb 3, 2016 9:53 PM in response to djkokalis

    Do you have any kind of an external drive inclosure you could put the drive into to test it? If you have already installed an operating system on it and the apple store did not delete it.  And it has a recovery partition, you can test it as an external drive. Or you have a defective drive and if bought new should have a warranty.

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