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User profile for user: bekahfromaz
bekahfromaz Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

13" Mid-2012 MacBook Pro Won't Recognize SSD Except in Disk Utility

Hi! To help with troubleshooting a family member's laptop, I just swapped a known-good 500-GB Crucial SSD from my 13" mid-2012 MacBook Pro (let's call that A) into theirs (let's call that one B; I put the 500-GB HDD from B into A, the one I'm using now) and its new home (B) won't recognize it. It starts up with the question mark folder on the screen.


When I put the SSD back into its old home (A), it works fine. When I put the original HDD into its old home (B), it works fine.


When I start up B (with the SSD back in it, still not recognized to boot from) in Recovery Mode connected to an external hard drive and use Disk Utility, however, it sees the SSD as "500.11 GB CT500MX500SSD1 Media" with the partition "disk0s2." It verifies and repairs just fine. It just won't boot to it. So it seems to me that the issue isn't the hard drive cable, right?


Could it be because I haven't been able to successfully update B to the same OS (High Sierra) as A? (B is using Yosemite. I've tried for days to update it. Our rural internet connection can't support the High Sierra installer version downloaded from the App Store, so I tried downloading the full 5GB installer and creating a bootable installer USB drive, but for some reason after multiple attempts at all these steps the laptop won't recognize the installer as functional.)


Can anyone help me figure out what's going wrong? Thank you very much!

MacBook Pro 13", OS X 10.10

Posted on Feb 20, 2020 10:18 PM

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User profile for user: etresoft
etresoft
User level: Level 9
50,614 points

Posted on Feb 22, 2020 2:28 PM

What operating system was the machine running before the upgrade? It may need a firmware update to recognize the SSD.


Try installing the desired version of macOS onto that machine using a drive that it recognizes. Then try the SSD.

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User profile for user: bekahfromaz
bekahfromaz Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Feb 22, 2020 2:23 PM in response to Kappy

Thanks, Kappy! I've tried mounting it in Disk Utility and it refuses to mount. I'd prefer not to erase the SSD and install macOS from scratch if I can avoid it because it's my regular working drive. (I do have it fully backed up, so if need be I can do this, but unless I think there's a darned good chance it'll solve this problem -- which at this point seems unlikely, as I'll explain below -- I'd rather not.)


I got the direct link to download High Sierra elsewhere in Apple Support, here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208969. I chose this rather than Catalina because I haven't been able to update my own mid-2012 13" MacBook Plus to Catalina, so have kept it at High Sierra, and wanted to upgrade this other machine to the same OS in order to be able to transfer material successfully between the two for troubleshooting, etc.


I'm going to respond to HWTech here, too. Thank you for your response! As a secondary test of the internal SATA cable (which, remember, works to read from the original HDD), I plugged the SSD into the laptop in question via an external SATA-to-USB cable and looked at the drive in Disk Utility. Same result: It won't mount. So it seems to me that the laptop whose hard-drive I'm trying to replace has some deeper issue with SSDs or this one in particular (and remember, my own laptop of the same generation -- only difference I can see is a different graphics chip -- mounts and uses this SSD just fine).


There is a battery issue with the laptop I'm troubleshooting. It says "service" in the drop-down menu, and it likes to forget the current date and reset to December 31 of various years. I'd think this might be causing some of the hard-drive recognition issues, but when I swapped the bad battery into my own laptop it did cause date forgetfulness there but did not cause drive recognition issues.

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User profile for user: Kappy
Kappy
User level: Level 10
361,849 points

Feb 21, 2020 1:06 PM in response to bekahfromaz

You need to Mount disk0s2 in order to boot from it. If you cannot mount it, then it will show the question mark at startup - cannot find a bootable system. However, it does not mean the disk is bad or unrecognizable. Have you tried erasing the SSD and installing macOS from scratch?


I'm surprised the App Store let you download High Sierra since your computers can install Catalina, which is the current version of macOS. Are you sure you are getting a High Sierra installer?

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User profile for user: y_p_w
y_p_w
User level: Level 6
17,684 points

Feb 22, 2020 11:16 AM in response to HWTech

HWTech wrote:
Replace the internal hard drive SATA Cable. This cable has an extremely high rate failure in the 13" model.


Depends on the version of course. The first generation was notoriously thin and prone to breaking through the insulator due to mechanical vibrations and other things. Mine has the second generation and has been solid. I understand Apple may offer to replace it with the latest version for free.

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User profile for user: bekahfromaz
bekahfromaz Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Feb 22, 2020 2:41 PM in response to etresoft

Thanks, etresoft! It was running Yosemite. I tried for days to update it to High Sierra -- that was my second step after upgrading the RAM -- but our rural internet connection can't support the High Sierra installer version downloaded from the App Store. I tried downloading the full 5GB installer using the Patcher program and creating a bootable installer USB drive using the Terminal, but for some reason after multiple attempts at all these steps the laptop won't recognize the installer as functional. My current best guess at a next step is to get back to the public library as soon as the roads are passable so I can use their faster internet connection to try again with the OS upgrade.

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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,278 points

Feb 22, 2020 4:16 PM in response to bekahfromaz

@etresoft's idea of laptop B needing a system firmware update is a good possibility since some systems seem to need macOS 10.11 El Capitan installed before upgrading to later versions. I do know that SSD support was very spotty with early versions of macOS, but I don't recall exactly when things just started to work properly.


Since you are troubleshooting issues with laptop B to begin with what are the symptoms you were originally trying to figure out with laptop B before you started swapping drives?


FYI, a "Service Battery" condition means macOS has detected a physical failure with the battery.

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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,278 points

Feb 22, 2020 6:10 PM in response to y_p_w

y_p_w wrote:


etresoft wrote:

I didn't see the battery issue. You can purchase a new battery from various online retailers like OWD (https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/laptop-batteries/macbook-pro). Don't use a failing battery.

A 13" mid-2012 is still serviced by Apple, so they should still have the OEM batteries.

Good call @y_p_w! I agree with @y_p_w that an official Apple battery is the best option since the quality of third party batteries is terrible. While OWC is a good & reputable company I have gotten a lot of defective Lithium-ion batteries from them over the years. OWC is the best option when an official Apple battery is not available. The extra price you pay for an official Apple battery is well worth it in my opinion.

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13" Mid-2012 MacBook Pro Won't Recognize SSD Except in Disk Utility

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