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Crucial SSD 2.5" won't mount in any enclosure

Hey! So I replaced my HD in my 2012 MacBook Pro 2013 in January with a Crucial MX300 SSD. It's worked flawlessly. However, I upgraded to a 2013 MBP 15" today. I removed the SSD from my old Mac and placed in an enclosure, but it never mounts. I tried another enclosure. Same deal.


If I go to disk utility, the 2 TB drive shows there but is greyed and and not mounting.


If I put the drive back in the 2012 MBP, I'm golden again. So it's not the drive itself.


I've also placed a HDD in both enclosures and the enclosures themselves work fine.


Is there something about an SSD that I'm missing that it can't go in an enclosure and be recognized by Mac OS.


I've also tried it on Mac OS Catalina, Mac OS High Serria and Windows 10 (just to see if it would mount)


The drive is in Apple Mac OS Journaled format.

Posted on Aug 15, 2020 12:46 PM

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Posted on Aug 15, 2020 7:28 PM

What is the make & model of the enclosures you are using? I find the quality of most electronics these days to be quite poor so there are only a few brands that I will use personally. Personally I like these brands: Plugable, StarTech, and Anker. OWC also generally makes decent products, but not all of them allow access to a drive's health information so they are not always my favorite.


Are you connecting the SSD directly to the Mac?


If you are connecting the SSD directly to the Mac, then try using a good powered USB3 hub. Besides providing extra power to the drive the hub will also act as a filter & buffer. My Mac Mini actually requires this for reliable use of USB3 devices.


Have you tried booting the SSD externally on the 2012 laptop?


Have you tried both USB ports on the 2013 laptop?


FYI, Windows File Explorer won't see the Mac formatted SSD. You would need to use Disk Management on Windows in order to see if Windows physically detects the Mac formatted drive.


Also, check the firmware of the MX300 SSD. If you are using older firmware, then you should update the firmware to the latest version (easily accessible from the Crucial support website). While I don't believe this is the cause of your problems, I do know that the older firmware does have lots of issues so I highly recommend the firmware of the MX300 SSD to be using the most recent version available. The issues I've encountered using the older firmware is that when any of the SSD's NAND blocks go bad that they get stuck being reallocated so the SSD starts producing errors and it can lead to corruption of your data. Once the SSD gets into this state, it requires a firmware update AND an ATA Secure Erase to reset the SSD to factory defaults which destroys all data on the SSD. With the updated firmware I haven't had any problems with the MX300 SSD in our organization's Macs.


While backups have always been important, backups are even more important when using SSDs since it is impossible to recover accidentally deleted data from an SSD plus an SSD can fail at any time without any warning signs.

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Aug 15, 2020 7:28 PM in response to LSASL

What is the make & model of the enclosures you are using? I find the quality of most electronics these days to be quite poor so there are only a few brands that I will use personally. Personally I like these brands: Plugable, StarTech, and Anker. OWC also generally makes decent products, but not all of them allow access to a drive's health information so they are not always my favorite.


Are you connecting the SSD directly to the Mac?


If you are connecting the SSD directly to the Mac, then try using a good powered USB3 hub. Besides providing extra power to the drive the hub will also act as a filter & buffer. My Mac Mini actually requires this for reliable use of USB3 devices.


Have you tried booting the SSD externally on the 2012 laptop?


Have you tried both USB ports on the 2013 laptop?


FYI, Windows File Explorer won't see the Mac formatted SSD. You would need to use Disk Management on Windows in order to see if Windows physically detects the Mac formatted drive.


Also, check the firmware of the MX300 SSD. If you are using older firmware, then you should update the firmware to the latest version (easily accessible from the Crucial support website). While I don't believe this is the cause of your problems, I do know that the older firmware does have lots of issues so I highly recommend the firmware of the MX300 SSD to be using the most recent version available. The issues I've encountered using the older firmware is that when any of the SSD's NAND blocks go bad that they get stuck being reallocated so the SSD starts producing errors and it can lead to corruption of your data. Once the SSD gets into this state, it requires a firmware update AND an ATA Secure Erase to reset the SSD to factory defaults which destroys all data on the SSD. With the updated firmware I haven't had any problems with the MX300 SSD in our organization's Macs.


While backups have always been important, backups are even more important when using SSDs since it is impossible to recover accidentally deleted data from an SSD plus an SSD can fail at any time without any warning signs.

Aug 15, 2020 8:22 PM in response to HWTech

Hey! Thanks for the response.


The two enclosures I've tried so far are ArgomTech SATA USB 3.0 and a UGREEN USB 3.0.


When I upgraded my 2012 mac, I took the Toshia HDD that came with the mac, and put it in the UGREEN. I've been externally booting to that no problem since then. I've tested the Toshiba from the 2012 Mac in both enclosures on both macs and no issues. I can boot the original HDDs from the enclosures.


When I put in the SSD, however, the enclosure lights ups but that's it. Neither will mount in Disk Utility if the SSD is in the enclosure.

Aug 15, 2020 8:39 PM in response to LSASL

I've never heard of those brands before. The market is flooded with low quality products and Chinese knock offs. I would not surprised that they are the source of your problems. Try using an adapter, drive dock, or enclosure from one of the brands I suggested previously.


An SSD requires much better quality cables and electronics to support the faster speeds of the SSD which is why a hard drive may work fine, but an SSD won't work properly.

Aug 17, 2020 8:11 AM in response to LSASL

You are welcome. I'm really glad it was the adapter and not the SSD itself.


You really do want to update the firmware on that SSD if you have never done so though so you can avoid the problems I experienced with this model. (It really is a big problem and best to avoid if possible). Feel free to post the DriveDx report for the MX300 SSD so I can examine it for signs of the problem. Running the SSD's "short" selftest diagnostic is also a good idea. If your SSD shows signs of the problem I can guide you through "fixing" it.

Crucial SSD 2.5" won't mount in any enclosure

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