Cannot upgrade to Monterey with non-apple SSD.

I confirm I managed to complete the installation of Monterey on the EVO 1 TB.

I don’t know how but after some reboots and operations using the older original mac drive, the computer started to see again the EVO after another disk swap.

Maybe this comment will be helpful for some people who will experience the same issue.

Thanks to everyone for the support

I would think if Monterey installed then yes your firmware is updated it will not install without updating it. I'm guessing something else happened between then and now that has caused the issue you are seeing.

Yes, 2 drives installed, both non-apple. The one that is still visible is the secondary SATA drive. The main OWC drive is just missing from the diskutility. Since the SATA drive is still there, it sort of makes me think firmware on the pcie side... although a bit of a stretch.

Since Monterey installed to that drive, I'm guessing something else too... but since there is this firmware thing floating around, I'm faced with hours of swapping drives (whomever designed this 2014 mac mini case is evil), which will ultimately probably end with a dead OWC drive anyways.

I'm just hoping someone could confirm that a non-apple pcie drive, with the firmware issue, shows up in recoverymode disk utility (or not).

Once you install Monterey on the original SSD and replace the Aura in your Mac how did you install Monterey on the Aura SSD? My MacPro won't boot from the Aura drive once I install the Monterey updates on the original Mac SSD. I can boot the MacPro externally from the original drive.

vballmax wrote:

Once you install Monterey on the original SSD and replace the Aura in your Mac how did you install Monterey on the Aura SSD? My MacPro won't boot from the Aura drive once I install the Monterey updates on the original Mac SSD. I can boot the MacPro externally from the original drive.

What Mac Pro do you have? I have the 2013 trash can and to upgrade to Monterey I had to remove the NVMe drive I installed (with a simple physical adopter) a few versions ago with the original Apple SSD. Once I did the upgrade with the Apple SSD installed I could update the NVMe drive.

I have the late 2013 trash can also. I have an OWC Aura SSD that I removed and installed the apple drive. I upgraded that to Monterey and then swapped back the Aura SSD. My MacPro would not boot (file with a ? symbols). I booted externally off the original apple drive no problem. I am thinking I will make a bootable install disk on a USB and try to install that on the Aura SSD. Disk Utility does see the Aura Drive (internal now). Any advice?

I have the newer Aura. I am writing to you now on my MacPro. I was able to created an install USB and install Monterey on my Aura drive. Now everything is working correctly. I don't know why the Aura would not boot when reinstalled but it may have had something to do with the firmware update of the system from the Monterey installation.

My Early 2015 13" MBP(Big Sur) with a third party Samsung 970 EVO 1TB crashed and won't upgrade to Monterey. I had no crashes while using mac Os Big Sur but cannot upgrade to Monetrey as I was presented with a question marked folder when I tried to force the upgrade...very frustrating. I updated to Monterey by swapping the drive to original Apple SSD and updated to Monterey, then swaped back again to the Samsung 970 EVO 1TB . Up and running now with no crashes ever since.

I just wanted to update my eventual solution. I could not get the new drive unscrewed from the machine so had to take it to be installed. Luckily, the Onyx Consulting people are really nice people, it only took and hour to do.

Thank you you for all the help!

I finally got it to work... Took the mac to apple and (after their high-horse nonsense speil about support for 3rd party hardware) he downgraded to catalina via their network installer. That detected the OWC drive and installed fine.

This time I did an external USB monterey installer, and that worked fine. My guess is something got corrupted in the previously installed monterey recoverymode that prevented it from detecting the OWC drive (both the old one and the new one). So 3rd time's the charm.

Not sure if it was the downgrade or the USB installer (or maybe the completely fresh install rather than an upgrade), but the combination of those worked.

I have been getting the same error as well. This error does not make any sense. I had upgraded from Catalina from macOS Catalina to Big Sur. My current version is 11.6.2. I tried to get MacOS Monterrey, but I had the same Error. It did took me back to Big Sur. There is no such thing as Compatible internal storage since it does not make any sense. No matter if the storage is a non-apple SSD, it has to install Monterrey with no Problems. Apple needs to fix this error. What if I wanted to get Logic Pro X or Final Cut Pro, and all of the sudden, Apple announces the new version of both of those apps I have to upgrade Monterrey in order to purchase both Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro. This is ridiculous on when it comes with being stuck on the current MacOS and not being able to get Logic or Final Cut Pro due to the new macOS version requirement. Even though Upgrading to the newest macOS such as Monterrey, I would end up getting compatibility problems.

I bought my 2015 MacBook pro since August 2020 on eBay, but it did not come with the Original Apple SSD. I took a look of the brand of the internal storage, it was a non-apple SSD that came. I wonder where can I get the Apple SSD for the 2015 MacBook Pro in order to upgrade from Big Sur to Monterrey.

I wanted to take it step by step and I do not want to make a mistake and accidentally end up making my MacBook Pro Useless. I did it on Monday, I gave me a "?" on the startup when I put the original apple ssd drive. The good thing is that I have a thumb drive that can fit into it to make my USB thumb drive to be a bootable. I formatted my USB drive since I couldn't install Mojave or EL Capitan out of Box, so I have downloaded macOS Monterrey and I wanted to put it on my USB thumb drive to install macOS Monterrey via USB. So I did that and It didn't fail on me. I went back to my 3rd party SSD, it was running Big Sur normally, but it takes a while for the apple logo to pop up when I turn on my Mac. I attempted to get Monterrey and it went forward. It was stressful and an obstacle course to get my macOS Monterrey installed. otherwise if I cannot able to Get Logic Pro or Final Cut Pro due to the requirement to upgrade to the latest macOS, it would be so difficult and I woudn't able to create.

Running into the same block. I purchased my MBP 2015 Retina used in 2017. Of course the internal SSD is “non-Apple”. So many inane hoops just to install an OS. At a minimum, communication could have been much better on Apple’s part about this firmware update. And 4 months later and still no clarification.

First of all, Apple banged everyone hard who they sold these laptops to that had such small hard drives to begin with then to not support other drives with firmware updates adds insult to injury. I got my laptop (2015 MacBook Pro) for free because the non-technical person that paid full price for it ran out of space in a very short time and could no longer use it. I took it apart and upgraded it with a bigger drive like I'm sure a lot of you folks also did.

STUPID! ANOTHER APPLE BLUNDER!!