SSD failure or something else? Startup disk not working

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SSD failure or something else? Startup disk not working

I have a mid-2014 13" rMBP that's having some issues. It (was) running on High Sierra. I swapped out the SSD about two years ago with Samsung 970 eVO and it's been running fine. I'm pretty sure I used a Sintech adapter, which is the recommended one.

I noticed starting about a month ago that if I taxed the computer too much (i.e. too many tabs/applications) then the screen would go black and I'd get thrown an error message that required me to restart the computer. Now, the screen goes black and I get the error pretty much as soon as I try to do anything on the computer, and the black screen now defaults to a file folder with a question mark. I could boot into macOS, I just couldn't seem to use it for very long.

I read that it was probably SSD related, so I went into recovery mode and tried to repair disks/containers and got no error messages during First Aid - they were visible and I could click on them, so I can't imagine that it is actual failure of the SSD? I still had the issues, so I went ahead with trying to reinstall macOS via normal Recovery mode, which would have bumped my computer back up to Mojave. Upon the first try, I got to the Mojave installer and it got about halfway done downloading before going back to the flashing folder.

Upon the second try, I can't even get past the language selection screen in normal Recovery mode - it just goes straight to the flashing folder. Internet Recovery mode now shows me nothing when I click Startup Disk, but I think it's because it got messed up when the glitch occurred during the first attempt at reinstalling Mojave.

My question is, with these steps I've taken and observations made, is this an SSD/adapter issue, or is there something wrong with the other hardware inside of my computer? Would it be worth the time to make a bootable USB to try and resolve this -- especially if I can't even seem to get into Recovery mode?

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.14

Posted on Jul 22, 2022 5:43 PM

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Answer 1

HWTech

Level 9

60,284 points

Jul 22, 2022 9:38 PM in response to StarSixtyNine

@Ikshean has some great tips.

If you cannot do any of those options, then you can try checking the health of the SSD by creating & booting a Knoppix Linux USB stick. Download a Knoppix v8.6.1 or v9.x DVD .iso file with "EN" in the name for "ENglish". Use the downloaded .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". The Mac may appear frozen on the Apple boot picker menu so make sure to give Knoppix lots of time to finish booting.

Once Knoppix boots to the desktop click the "Start" menu icon on the lower left of the Taskbar and navigate the menus to "System Tools --> GSmartControl". Within the GSmartControl app double-click on the Samsung SSD to access the SSD's health report. Post the complete report here. There is also an "Error" tab, if there are any errors listed then post them as well. You can run the SSD's internal selftests as well -- the short test takes about 2 minutes while the long/extended test will take much longer.

Unfortunately a lot of SSDs fail due to SSD controller issues which won't show up in the SSD's health report (assuming the SSD is functional enough to allow access to the health information).

FYI, if you are booting into Internet Recovery Mode you may be booting into an older version of macOS installer such as macOS 10.10 or 10.11 even if you are using Command + Option + R to access the latest version of macOS compatible with this laptop since sometimes it will only boot the oldest OS. Since you are using a third party NVMe SSD you need to boot from macOS 10.13+ because older versions of macOS do not have the necessary NVMe driver to recognize a third party NVMe SSD.

Also, if your computer crashes with a Kernel Panic, it is really useful to retrieve those Kernel Panic logs as they can sometimes contain useful information. Kernel Panic logs are located in "/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports" with file names beginning with "kernel" and in ".panic".

Unfortunately I don't know whether the Apple Diagnostics will be useful for testing the third party SSD. Sometimes the diagnostics will work just fine with some third party SSDs while other third party SSDs will show as bad even when they are good. The only way to know if the Apple Diagnostics are compatible with the SSD is by running the diagnostic when the SSD is new and known good to get a baseline for it. Even so, the Apple Diagnostics don't really do much in the way of testing SSDs.

It seems like the problem is either with the SSD, the SSD adapter, or the Logic Board. Unfortunately it can be difficult to figure out which one is the problem. The suggestions here will definitely help to narrow it down and you may need to use multiple of these suggestions to narrow it down.

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