SSD error on startup

Hello.


I recently decided to try to give my old Macbook Pro 13" (2010 - 2012. I don't know the exact date.) a boot to see if I could use it still. However, upon boot, I was greeted by the prohibitory sign. I attempted a hard shutdown, but it took about 3 button presses to turn it off. I then rebooted it multiple times with booth the same and some new results. in addition to the sign, occasionally it will boot to a blank screen then reboot automatically with the" your computer shut down because of an error" message. from there it will attempt a boot but will ultimately be stuck in a boot loop.


In addition to this, I attempted to access the disk using command r, however this left me with a blank screen for a few minutes and then proceed to boot into the prohibitory sign again. I also attempted command p r ( I honestly don't understand what this one is doing. Im not knowledgeable in computer maintenance and just relied on some research I did.) but this once again resulted in a blank screen. However this one was a bit different, as it looped the startup noise with distorted textures and did not boot like the last time (after the second boot sound I let go of the keys and it continued). From there, following the advice of a youtube video, I booted using command s. Things got even stranger at this point. It started normally, looking like the video, then the background became white with the prohibitory sign and a bunch of random black text that is unreadable except for the last part "/AppleAHCDiskDriver/IOAHCIBlock". The command s process still worked though, as it was still visible on the screen. The text also speaks of an issue "failed to open swap file 30". From there I continued following the videos advice and used the fsck -fy command which revealed many errors. It said that a file had an incorrect sized and also this: error 0xe00002ca detected for lvg "macintosh ssd". It also said it attempted to fix it but was unable to.


It is also worth mentioning that I had a similar experience with this computer before (only the prohibitory sign on boot up", however I did not attempt to fix it and immediately took it to a tech. After I got it back, it booted fine but was extremely laggy; even without apps open. I then took it back again and the problem was solved. At one point during these repairs, someone replaced my hard drive with a samsung ssd and may have done some other things as well.


What should be my next steps?


Thanks





MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Apr 20, 2021 8:09 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Apr 21, 2021 7:43 PM

If you don't care about any existing data on there you should try one of the following:


If you were previously running macOS 10.13 High Sierra (or later) try booting up with Shift-Option-Command-R keys to get into Internet Recovery and use Disk Utility to erase the drive and reinstall a fresh macOS. (if you aren't sure, you can try this anyway)


If you were not previously running 10.13 or higher try booting up with Option-Command-R instead to get into Disk Utility and erase the drive.


Because of the particular age of your MacBook you may, or may not, have Internet Recovery available but upgrading to 10.13 or higher generally would have updated the firmware to add that support.


Also because of the particular age of your MacBook the hardware may not support the TRIM hardware feature of modern SSDs that did not exist at the time the Mac was released. The fact that it was working, but laggy, after you got it back from the technician generally means either the SSD they used was bad, they may have damaged the cable to the SSD, or didn't change the TRIM support setting appropriately.


I am not sure if the TRIM support can be enabled or disabled in the Utilities terminal or only in macOS terminal itself, or whether it should be enabled or disabled in your particular case. This shows you where you can enable or disable it though:



I would add though that booting into Internet Recovery (assuming you can, most likely) and installing onto an external USB hard drive would almost certainly work fine. It is something to consider either as a troubleshooting step or as a (slightly awkward) solution to getting use out of this old Mac. The Mac itself doesn't care if it's installed to an internal drive as normal, or an external drive (although you might). If erasing and reinstalling doesn't help, and if trying to change the TRIM setting doesn't help, I would at least try the external macOS install drive as a troubleshooting step.



[Link Edited by Moderator]


Similar questions

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Apr 21, 2021 7:43 PM in response to Steel_Samurai

If you don't care about any existing data on there you should try one of the following:


If you were previously running macOS 10.13 High Sierra (or later) try booting up with Shift-Option-Command-R keys to get into Internet Recovery and use Disk Utility to erase the drive and reinstall a fresh macOS. (if you aren't sure, you can try this anyway)


If you were not previously running 10.13 or higher try booting up with Option-Command-R instead to get into Disk Utility and erase the drive.


Because of the particular age of your MacBook you may, or may not, have Internet Recovery available but upgrading to 10.13 or higher generally would have updated the firmware to add that support.


Also because of the particular age of your MacBook the hardware may not support the TRIM hardware feature of modern SSDs that did not exist at the time the Mac was released. The fact that it was working, but laggy, after you got it back from the technician generally means either the SSD they used was bad, they may have damaged the cable to the SSD, or didn't change the TRIM support setting appropriately.


I am not sure if the TRIM support can be enabled or disabled in the Utilities terminal or only in macOS terminal itself, or whether it should be enabled or disabled in your particular case. This shows you where you can enable or disable it though:



I would add though that booting into Internet Recovery (assuming you can, most likely) and installing onto an external USB hard drive would almost certainly work fine. It is something to consider either as a troubleshooting step or as a (slightly awkward) solution to getting use out of this old Mac. The Mac itself doesn't care if it's installed to an internal drive as normal, or an external drive (although you might). If erasing and reinstalling doesn't help, and if trying to change the TRIM setting doesn't help, I would at least try the external macOS install drive as a troubleshooting step.



[Link Edited by Moderator]


Apr 21, 2021 6:00 PM in response to Steel_Samurai

There is a very good chance your hard drive is failing. You can try running the Apple Diagnostics, but unfortunately it doesn't detect a lot of drive failures.


You can check the health of the hard drive by booting from a Knoppix Linux USB stick. Download either the v8.6.1 DVD or the v7.x CD version which includes "EN" in the file name for "ENglish". Use the downloaded Knoppix .iso file as a source for Etcher (Mac/Windows/Linux) which will make a bootable Knoppix USB stick. Option Boot the Knoppix USB stick and select the orange icon labeled "EFI". While Knoppix is booting the Mac may appear frozen on the boot picker menu so give Knoppix lots of time to finish booting.


Once Knoppix boots to the desktop click on the "Start" menu icon on the lower left corner of the Taskbar and navigate the menus to "System Tools --> GSmartControl". Within the GSmartControl app double-click on the drive icon to access the drive's health report. Post the complete health report here.


Apr 21, 2021 2:20 PM in response to Steel_Samurai

Hi Steel_Samurai,


Thank you for posting in the Apple Support Communities. We understand your Mac is starting to a prohibitory symbol. You've taken a number of great steps to attempt to resolve this issue.


Let's follow the steps and associated resources linked below, to get things up and running again.

If your Mac starts up to a circle with a line through it


Cheers!

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SSD error on startup

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