Big Problem With Big Sur SSD Can't Be Found

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8 points

Big Problem With Big Sur SSD Can't Be Found

I Tried installing Big Sur 11.0.1 yesterday on an Other World Computing Envoy Express, I used a 2 TB SSD specifically a Adata XPG SX8200 Pro 2TB. Big Sur failed to install and now the drive is not visible any where, not on the Desktop, Disk Utility, or in System Report.

I first formatted it as a APFS format. Downloaded Big Sur, started in the afternoon and was finished downloading by the time I woke up. At which point I selected my External hard drive as the destination to install. The instillation seemed to be working, it restarted a few times made some progress but then got stuck on less than a minute remaining. I though alright I’ll give it some time and from about 8am to about 4pm I let it do its thing.

The Progress bar did not move at all. At this point the only thing I could do was power the iMac off.

Now my external SSD doesn’t show up on my desktop, or in my startup volume or in disk utility, or in system report. So I can’t wipe it and try again. I can get it to show if I hit the option key at startup but only if I unplug the drive, and when the startup options pop up plug it in again. But it says MacOS Installer, and if I select it it goes to a black screen and nothing happens for a very long time 5-10 minutes before it gives up and decides to launch one of my other drives, either my bootcamp partition or my Macintosh HD (Main System) running 10.14.6.

In Windows 10 (a very old version that I haven’t booted into in since sometime in 2018) I can see the SSD but it obviously won’t load and unfortunately I can’t wipe it there and start fresh. I get an “Incorrect Function” in Disk Management if I try to clear it, all other options are greyed out.

Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.

iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 10.14

Posted on Nov 15, 2020 4:21 PM

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Answer 1

Nov 23, 2020 8:44 PM in response to RAGART

Not sure what to say. It took me about six hours to get the back up to work. Each time I erased it would disappear in disk utility or the desktop. Sometimes I would need to unplug the SSD and sometimes I would have to restart the computer. Sometimes when I tried to erase it would say operation failed.

My other iMac upstairs is running Big Sur and the WD back up on it has not had a single problem That back up is not SSD but just a WD HD in Mac OS Extended (Journaled or HFS+) format. Removed from that computer and tried on mine and worked with no problem.

For some reason the SSD was a difficult problem.

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Answer 2

Nov 23, 2020 4:05 PM in response to RAGART

Hello Ragart,

It sounds like your Mac won't read your SSD. We understand how concerning this is and we're here to help.

Let's try to see if your SSD is located within Disk Utility using this article: Disk Utility User Guide

If you can locate it using Disk Utility, attempt to repair the disk using this article: Repair a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac

Once this is complete, test to see if the issue persists. Let us know the results.

Cheers!

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Answer 3

Nov 23, 2020 4:29 PM in response to RAGART

I was having the same problems. Maybe this will help. I must have erased my WD SSD at least 10 times trying different formats. This morning I erased using the disk utility edit tab and it formatted in APFS ( case sensitive). Under Utilities deleted all other Time Machine back up drives and reselected the latest one just created. Then I selected create new backup. It started and got to 3.1 GB and crashed. tried again and got to 2.1GB and crashed. Tried a third time and after a couple hours finished for a total of 76GB. Has since created two hourly backups. Think it is working the way it should now.

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Answer 4

RAGART Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 23, 2020 7:58 PM in response to Nicholas_B2

Hi Nicholas,

While I appreciate the reply it kind of ignores the 2nd sentence entirely. Its kind of an important sentence,

"...the drive is not visible any where, not on the Desktop, Disk Utility, or in System Report."

and this sentence as well:

"Now my external SSD doesn’t show up on my desktop, or in my startup volume or in disk utility, or in system report. So I can’t wipe it and try again."

I really did mean the SSD was not visible on MacOS.

So yes I am aware that Disk Utility is able to repair drives, format and partition drives, but If it doesn't show up there...what else is there?

At any rate it's all a moot point now anyways as I did everything I could think of including using the Terminal command:

diskutil list

but no disk corresponding to my SSD showed up in that list so that was also a dead end.

Ultimately I decided that I'd send the SSD back to the manufacturer and see what they think.

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Answer 5

RAGART Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 23, 2020 8:25 PM in response to Larry Wasson

Hi Larry Watson,

Thanks for the reply.

Not really the same problem though as if you were able to erase the drive then you were able to see the drive which, well that's a darn sight better than not having the drive show up anywhere in MacOS. (:

And at least in my case I wasn't using this drive as a backup but as a bootable Big Sur SSD so that I wouldn't, in theory, risk my internal drive on my iMac running 10.14.6, which I kind of want to keep so as to have access to my 32 bit applications.

Since I am not using Time Machine that at least for me is not a factor I have to worry about. Though glad you were able to seemingly solve the issues you were experiencing.

The problem I will have going forward is was this a bad SSD, an issue with a failed Big Sur install, or something else?

Hopefully sending the SSD back to the manufacturer will give me some answers. Maybe. But I'm not sure I'll be brave enough to try to install Big Sur again.

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Answer 6

karina184

Community Specialist

Nov 25, 2020 12:40 PM in response to RAGART

RAGART,

Thank you for the clarification. Since you cannot format this drive on multiple devices. It may be best to reach out to the manufacture directly.

You can reach out to ADATA here: Contact ADATA

Take Care!

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Answer 7

Nov 25, 2020 12:52 PM in response to karina184

Western Digital was contacted and not much help. Their response was, "Thank you for the continued response! I understand that the drive does not show up after updating to Mac OS Big Sur. In this case, I would suggest you to go to Disk Utility and it may show the mountable drive not the formatted or partitioned volume. We need to unmount and mount again and check if that resolves it. Our Engineering Team is working on this and if there is any update we will share the same with you.".

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Answer 8

Dec 7, 2020 11:56 PM in response to Larry Wasson

If you're using Western Digital or SanDisk drives, download and install the latest WD Discovery suite. Reboot (this is essential) and then connect each drive. Make sure UAS is OFF for each (gear icon next to the drive). Eject, and reconnect. Problem should be solved. It solved it for my WD SSD Passport external drives. Flying once again, no beach-balls, no crashing with scary data loss messages. You might need to reformat a Time Machine to get it to be stable in backing up (APFS format with GUID partitions, encrypted too if you want to keep it secure). Hope this helps!

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Big Problem With Big Sur SSD Can't Be Found

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