A.F. Walton
Level 1 (19 points)
Notebooks

Q: 13" 2012 non-retina SSD woes

I have a mid-2012 MBP, i7, 16GB. Trying to replace the hard drive with an SSD. I used Carbon Copy Cloner to duplicate the mechanical hard drive to the SSD, and it booted once; after that, I get a long gray screen (over a minute), then the circle-slash NO sign with occasional flickers of the Apple logo. This is what I have tried (all of these steps except the last one several times):

 

- Boot off of an external drive and run Disk First Aid. Clean bill of health.

- Boot off the Recovery partition on the SSD (fails with the same symptoms above)

- Boot into Internet Recovery and run Disk First Aid. Repairs the EFI system partition's file system. Subsequent checks find no problems.

- Boot into Internet Recovery, erase the disk, and do a clean install of Mountain Lion. Stuck on the Apple logo and spinning wheel after reboot. After a hard reset, booted cleanly into ML, got through the initial setup and to the login screen, then no further.

 

This happened first with a Samsung 850 EVO 500G, which had worked with my older (mid-2011 i5) MBP. After seeing several reports of Mac incompatibility with those drives, I got a Crucial 750G and I'm having the same issues. None of this happens with the mechanical drive that came with the system. El Capitan, all updates, and firmware is up to date.

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2010), OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Aug 1, 2016 8:07 AM

by OGELTHORPE,Solvedanswer
OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE
Level 9 (52,040 points)
Mac OS X
A:

Have you tried to boot the MBP with the new SSD connected externally via USB.  If successful, the internal SATA cable is the prime suspect and needs to be replaced.

 

Ciao.

Posted on Aug 1, 2016 5:38 PM

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A.F. Walton

Q: 13" 2012 non-retina SSD woes

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  • by OGELTHORPE,Solvedanswer

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE Aug 1, 2016 5:38 PM in response to A.F. Walton
    Level 9 (52,040 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 1, 2016 5:38 PM in response to A.F. Walton

    Have you tried to boot the MBP with the new SSD connected externally via USB.  If successful, the internal SATA cable is the prime suspect and needs to be replaced.

     

    Ciao.

  • by A.F. Walton,

    A.F. Walton A.F. Walton Aug 1, 2016 11:26 AM in response to OGELTHORPE
    Level 1 (19 points)
    Notebooks
    Aug 1, 2016 11:26 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

    Yes, it boots over USB from both SSDs. Would a bad SATA cable cause issues with SSDs but not with magnetic drives?

  • by OGELTHORPE,

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE Aug 1, 2016 11:29 AM in response to A.F. Walton
    Level 9 (52,040 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 1, 2016 11:29 AM in response to A.F. Walton

    Yes, it is often the case that a HDD will work internally but an SSD will not.  A new cable is invariably the solution.

     

    Ciao.

  • by alex7375,

    alex7375 alex7375 Aug 1, 2016 12:36 PM in response to A.F. Walton
    Level 2 (200 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 1, 2016 12:36 PM in response to A.F. Walton

    Try this it worked for another user that had the same problems.

    Your MacBook is looking for the boot drive however can not find it.

    Power on the Mac and hold down the "option" key at the same time then select to manually boot from the drive of choice.

     

    Also try this first:

    SMC and PRAM Reset

     

    I have a MBP mid-2012 13-inch and I did an SSD upgrade with a Samsung Evo 850-series ( 500gb. ) . However I had no problems.

    I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the original drive to the SSD via a USB-to-Sata adapter.

     

    My first boot up was slow because I did not do the SMC / PRAM reset so my MBP was looking for the boot drive.

    However after that my MBP boots up very quickly. I have had no problems with Samsung Evo SSD's. They work fine with Macs.

     

    Just remember to enable "trim" support for your non-owc SSD.

    Open "terminal app" and enter this command "sudo trimforce enable" select YES, YES...and reboot when complete

  • by A.F. Walton,

    A.F. Walton A.F. Walton Aug 1, 2016 5:38 PM in response to OGELTHORPE
    Level 1 (19 points)
    Notebooks
    Aug 1, 2016 5:38 PM in response to OGELTHORPE

    That did it. Thanks!