S.M.A.R.T. check failed on iMac HD. Now I can't install Catalina OS.

I fixed my own problem. It runs great. For those of you with similar issue or just want to split your Fusion APFS formatted drive...

Clone you're HD!

Boot to a Mojave USB boot installer.

Then Utilities —> Terminal. The commands are along the lines of:

diskutil apfs list

Then make note of the “virtual disk” that is the “Fusion Drive”. This is made up the PCI Flash and the other spinning drive. You can see how the text output of the drive structure is hierarchical.

Let’s say that virtual container disk is identified as “disk0”

diskutil apfs deletecontainer disk0

This command will split your fusion drive, and leave you with two new drives to format via Disk Utility (which you can run in the same USB Booted environment you’re already in).

Format them (the SSD and the other drive) as whatever you want.

Hope this helps anyone else who can't upgrade to Catalina because your SSD part of your Fusion Drive Fails the installers S.M.A.R.T. Check.

### SYSTEM INFORMATION ###

Report Timestamp : October 31, 2019 2:35:31 PM MDT

Report Timestamp (ISO 8601 format) : 2019-10-31T14:35:31

Application Name : DriveDx

Application Version : 1.8.3.615

Application SubBuild : 0

Application Edition : Standalone

Application Website : https://binaryfruit.com/drivedx

DriveDx Knowledge Base Revision : 9/9

Computer Name : Max’s iMac

Host Name : Maxs-iMac

Computer Model : iMac13,2

OS Boot Time : 2019-10-31T10:37:58

Time Since Boot : 03h 57m 33s

OS Name : macOS

OS Version : 10.14.6

OS Build : 18G1012

OS Kernel Version : Darwin 18.7.0

SAT SMART Driver Version : N/A

ATA Command Support Tolerance : verypermissive

N of drives in report : 1

### DRIVE 1 OF 1 ###

Last Checked : October 31, 2019 2:35:07 PM MDT

Last Checked (ISO 8601 format) : 2019-10-31T14:35:07

Advanced SMART Status : FAILED

Overall Health Rating : N/A 100%

SSD Lifetime Left Indicator : BAD 0%

Issues found : 2

Serial Number : S0XDNYAD141401

WWN Id : 5 002538 043584d30

Volumes : Macintosh HD

Device Path : /dev/disk0

Total Capacity : 121.3 GB (121,332,826,112 Bytes)

Model Family : Apple (Samsung-based) SSDs

Model : APPLE SSD SM128E

Firmware Version : CXM09A1Q

Drive Type : SSD

Power On Time : 52,935 hours (73 months 15 days 15 hours)

Power Cycles Count : 569

Current Power Cycle Time : 4.0 hours

=== DEVICE CAPABILITIES ===

S.M.A.R.T. support enabled : yes

DriveDx Active Diagnostic Config : Apple (Samsung-based) e/f-series SSDs config [ssd.apple.samsung.ef]

Sector Logical Size : 512

Sector Physical Size : 4096

Physical Interconnect : SATA

Logical Protocol : SATA

Removable : no

Ejectable : no

ATA Version : ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4c

SATA Version : SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)

Bay # : 2

I/O Path : IOService:/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PCI0@0/AppleACPIPCI/SATA@1F,2/AppleIntelPchSeriesAHCI/PRT1@1/IOAHCIDevice@0/AppleAHCIDiskDriver/IOAHCIBlockStorageDevice

Attributes Data Structure Revision : 1

SMART Command Transport (SCT) flags : 0x0

SCT Status supported : no

SCT Feature Control supported : no

SCT Data Table supported : no

Error logging capabilities : 0x1

Self-tests supported : yes

Offline Data Collection capabilities : 0x5b

Offline Data Collection status : 0x2

Auto Offline Data Collection flags : 0x0

[Known device ]: yes

[Drive State Flags ]: 0x400080

=== CURRENT POWER CYCLE STATISTICS ===

Data Read : 31.3 GB

Data Written : 47.6 GB

Data Read/Write Ratio : 0.66

Average Throughput (Read) : 29.7 MB/s

Average Throughput (Write) : 99.9 MB/s

Operations (Read) : 1,218,496

Operations (Write) : 1,179,508

Operations Read/Write Ratio : 1

Throughput per operation (Read) : 26.9 KB/Op

Throughput per operation (Write) : 42.3 KB/Op

Latency Time (Read) : 0 ns

Latency Time (Write) : 0 ns

Retries (Read) : 0

Retries (Write) : 0

Errors (Read) : 0

Errors (Write) : 0

=== PROBLEMS SUMMARY ===

Failed Indicators (life-span / pre-fail) : 1 (1 / 0)

Failing Indicators (life-span / pre-fail) : 0 (0 / 0)

Warnings (life-span / pre-fail) : 0 (0 / 0)

Recently failed Self-tests (Short / Full) : 1 (1 / 0)

I/O Error Count : 0 (0 / 0)

=== IMPORTANT HEALTH INDICATORS ===

ID NAME RAW VALUE STATUS

5 Retired Block Count 0 100% OK

173 Wear Leveling Count 0x9BE0C4A0AB2 0% Failed

192 Unsafe Shutdown Count 430 99.0% OK

197 Current Pending Block Count 0 100% OK

199 UDMA CRC Error Count 0 100% OK

Can anyone verify that this will work?

Run diskutil coreStorage list, and note the long string that appears after Logical Volume Group — that's the UUID. Then run diskutil coreStorage delete UUID, replacing UUID with the actual string. You can then reinstall OS X on the SSD or HDD and restore from a backup.

I found an older article about many people having this issue when installing Lion. When I run disc utility, it just says not supported. I'm pretty sure my HD is fine. Apple had a recall on the 3TB Fusion. I had it replaced from an authorized Apple dealer. So all I know is Catalina won't install because of SMART error and my HD doesn't support it. My computer is a late 2012, (which they say it works with. And new HD is around 2014. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3196309

=== TEMPERATURE INFORMATION (CELSIUS) ===

Current Temperature : 39

Power Cycle Min Temperature : 36

Power Cycle Max Temperature : 42

Lifetime Min Temperature : 36

Lifetime Max Temperature : 42

Recommended Min Temperature : 5

Recommended Max Temperature : 65

Temperature Min Limit : 5

Temperature Max Limit : 70

=== DRIVE HEALTH INDICATORS ===

ID | NAME | TYPE | UPDATE | RAW VALUE | VALUE | THRESHOLD | WORST | LAST MODIFIED | STATUS

1 Raw Read Error Rate Life-span online 0x0 200 0 200 - 100% OK

5 Retired Block Count Pre-fail online 0 100 0 100 - 100% OK

9 Power On Hours Life-span online 52,935 89 0 89 10/31/19 2:35 PM 89.0% OK

12 Power Cycle Count Life-span online 569 99 0 99 - 99.0% OK

169 Total Bad Block Count Pre-fail online 0x740CC00C80 253 10 253 - 100% OK

173 Wear Leveling Count Life-span online 0x9BE0C4A0AB2 96 100 96 - 0% Failed

192 Unsafe Shutdown Count Life-span online 430 99 0 99 - 99.0% OK

194 Temperature (Celsius) Life-span online 39 61 30 33 10/31/19 2:35 PM 44.3% OK

197 Current Pending Block Count Life-span online 0 100 0 100 - 100% OK

199 UDMA CRC Error Count Life-span online 0 200 0 200 - 100% OK

=== DRIVE ERROR LOG ===

error log is empty

=== DRIVE SELF-TEST LOG ===

# | LIFETIME (H) | TEST TYPE | PROGRESS | STATUS | LBA of 1st error

1 52933 Short offline 10% Completed: unknown failure 0

There were no logs to printout. S.M.A.R.T. Check failed on SSD within 10%progress of test. Test didn't complete. No Log. HD passed. Completed test. Still no log. Maybe trail version of that app don't print a log? I WISH apple would offer a non SSD/Fusion option. Clearly SSD isn't durable. I'm currently running my iMac off an external drive now. (Non SSD) At least I could install the OS on that drive. Maybe if apple can't offer an option fo a non SSD drive they could just not offer a HD at all.... I'm just bitter about SSD's. This drive was recalled once already. Just before my warranty expired. And already this one is failing a few years later. And not to mention I could NOT use boot camp before the recall. (So 2 years without bootcamp) It did not like the FUSION drive as well.