macbook pro 2015, 1tb SSD.
Stopped booting up today. Nothing I do makes the SSD visible: not recovery mode, not making a bootable usb drive, not disk first aid. Tried it all. Also tried 'target mode' but all I get is a floating lightening bolt. Booting up normally just gives me a folder with question mark. Suggestions?
MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 12.0
Does your laptop use a third party SSD or does it have the original Apple OEM SSD?
What version of macOS installer are you booting? If you are booting a pre-macOS 10.13 installer and the laptop has a third party NVMe SSD, then the installer will not be able to recognize the SSD since older pre-macOS 10.13 versions do not have the necessary NVMe driver to make the SSD work. If you are booting a pre-macOS 10.13 installer and macOS 10.13+ is currently installed on the laptop, then again the older macOS installers will not be able to see the "Macintosh HD" volume because older versions of macOS do not understand the new disk layout and APFS file system used by macOS 10.13+.
With macOS 10.13+, the physical drives are now hidden from view by default in Disk Utility. Within Disk Utility you may need to click "View" and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drives appear on the left pane of Disk Utility. If you don't see the physical SSD on the left pane of Disk Utility, then one of the conditions I listed above is the cause, otherwise the SSD has most likely failed. If the SSD has failed, then you can install a third party OWC Aura SSD as long as macOS 10.13+ has been previously installed at some point in the past.
FYI, while the laptop is in Target Disk Mode, you need to connect the laptop to another Mac. If the drive on the 2015 laptop does not mount automatically, then check to see if the physical drive of the 2015 laptop is seen within Disk Utility on the host Mac. If the physical SSD of the 2015 laptop is visible, then try manually mounting the volume of the 2015 laptop by selecting the volume in the left pane and clicking "Mount" on the right side. Depending on the version of macOS installed on the 2015 laptop it may be a bit tricky to mount and find your files (assuming the SSD is seen). Apple has made this so much more complicated than it needs to be. So if you do see the physical drive for the 2015 laptop, but have trouble mounting or finding your data, then I'll provide more information on how to access (or attempt to access) the data. Unfortunately I suspect the SSD has likely failed.
You can try running the Apple Diagnostics to see if any hardware issues are detected.
When you say "making a bootable usb drive", what do you mean? Do you mean a bootable macOS USB installer? Or do you mean that you installed macOS to an external drive and booted the external drive so that you have the full use of the macOS just like when booting to the internal SSD?
Does your laptop use a third party SSD or does it have the original Apple OEM SSD?
What version of macOS installer are you booting? If you are booting a pre-macOS 10.13 installer and the laptop has a third party NVMe SSD, then the installer will not be able to recognize the SSD since older pre-macOS 10.13 versions do not have the necessary NVMe driver to make the SSD work. If you are booting a pre-macOS 10.13 installer and macOS 10.13+ is currently installed on the laptop, then again the older macOS installers will not be able to see the "Macintosh HD" volume because older versions of macOS do not understand the new disk layout and APFS file system used by macOS 10.13+.
With macOS 10.13+, the physical drives are now hidden from view by default in Disk Utility. Within Disk Utility you may need to click "View" and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drives appear on the left pane of Disk Utility. If you don't see the physical SSD on the left pane of Disk Utility, then one of the conditions I listed above is the cause, otherwise the SSD has most likely failed. If the SSD has failed, then you can install a third party OWC Aura SSD as long as macOS 10.13+ has been previously installed at some point in the past.
FYI, while the laptop is in Target Disk Mode, you need to connect the laptop to another Mac. If the drive on the 2015 laptop does not mount automatically, then check to see if the physical drive of the 2015 laptop is seen within Disk Utility on the host Mac. If the physical SSD of the 2015 laptop is visible, then try manually mounting the volume of the 2015 laptop by selecting the volume in the left pane and clicking "Mount" on the right side. Depending on the version of macOS installed on the 2015 laptop it may be a bit tricky to mount and find your files (assuming the SSD is seen). Apple has made this so much more complicated than it needs to be. So if you do see the physical drive for the 2015 laptop, but have trouble mounting or finding your data, then I'll provide more information on how to access (or attempt to access) the data. Unfortunately I suspect the SSD has likely failed.
You can try running the Apple Diagnostics to see if any hardware issues are detected.
When you say "making a bootable usb drive", what do you mean? Do you mean a bootable macOS USB installer? Or do you mean that you installed macOS to an external drive and booted the external drive so that you have the full use of the macOS just like when booting to the internal SSD?
SSD disappeared
