Prohibitory Sign

Question

Prohibitory Sign

HELP!

I had a corrupted SSD on my Macbook Pro 13" 2012. Long story short, took the SSD out, formatted it, and re-inserted it in the macbook pro. Rebooted on internet recovery mode. Re-installed OS X. Restarted the mac. The prohibitory sign comes up again and won't access the system.

(it's not just the prohibitory sign, it goes into a seizure of Apple logo, prohibitory sign, and folder with question mark)

I went into disk utility. Checked the hard drive for errors. None. Repaired nonetheless. Reformatted. Re-installed. Same thing keeps repeating.

I know it's the HD because I've tried rebooting it from an old external one and it went through.

I can't for the love of everything figure out what the bloody 'ell is wrong with it.

I know SSDs are really hard to damage. So I can't imagine it's come to that.

Can anyone please please help?!

Thanks

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.14

Posted on Jul 17, 2019 2:53 AM

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Answer 1

dwb

Level 7

33,148 points

Jul 18, 2019 1:37 PM in response to daniafrommilano

Two possible things:

If the drive is a Samsung 850 or 860 series this is a known issue. Your 2012 MBP has a SATA II interface and the newer Samsung EVO series can’t negotiate the interface properly. These days I recommend Crucial Tech and OWC (macsales.com) SSDs for older Macs.
The unibody MBPs are awesome, they are the tanks of the notebook world but they do have an achilles heel; the SATA cable. A couple years ago we began seeing messages here and at other sites about people upgrading their 2009-2013 MBPs with SSDs and having lousy speeds or total failures. Turned out the answer was replacing the SATA cable. These days when I upgrade an unibody I automatically replace the cable.

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Answer 2

QuickPost

Level 10

103,413 points

Jul 17, 2019 1:48 PM in response to daniafrommilano

Hello,

Did you purchase the SSD new? It is possible you purchased a lemon.

Have you tried booting the machine with ⌘ (Command) + V? This will startup the Mac in verbose mode and will show you what your Mac is having trouble with.

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Answer 3

Jul 18, 2019 1:49 AM in response to QuickPost

Thanks for the reply!

The SSD is legit, got it off someone in the family who had bought it new.

Verbose mode didn't give me anything.

So now I basically made the drive bootable using my iMac...all seems fine until I try to install the system. The hard drive is locked.

I did reformat it. Mac OS extended (journaled) done all of that... I even thought it could be a Mojave problem (dunno why) so did with Sierra...same issue.

I can't seem to understand why the hard drive is locked. And can't seem to unlock it :(

Any suggestions?!

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Answer 4

QuickPost

Level 10

103,413 points

Jul 18, 2019 5:54 AM in response to daniafrommilano

Hello,

A buddy of mine a few years ago installed a new SSD in his MacBook and without him knowing it he accidentally broke his SATA controller. It didn’t show any signs of damage nor did diagnostics show anything wrong. While your SSD may not be the problem, there is a problem in the way it communicates to the logic board.

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Answer 5

QuickPost

Level 10

103,413 points

Jul 18, 2019 12:46 PM in response to daniafrommilano

Hello,

I am not aware of any tool that would detect that fault. My buddy ended up going to an Apple retail location and they installed a new SATA controller and it worked fine after the fact. My best suggestion would be to let Apple take a look at it.

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Answer 6

Jul 18, 2019 8:28 AM in response to QuickPost

that's no good :(

thanks for the reply...any chance there's a diagnostic tool to check if it's the case?

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