New SSD Drive shows several Apple Disk Images

BigDsApplesAcct wrote:

Hi, thanks for the replies.

This is a mid 2012 MacBook Pro 15”.

I installed a caddy where the DVD was. I am running Monterey 12.6.3.

I already tried two different drives and both fail to show with two different caddies.

Very important details that wasn't entirely clear from the original post...I thought you were using external drives. While generally you can install an SSD in place of the optical drive on 2012 models, sometimes the SATA controller and/or cable are just incompatible (it is after all a small flex cable with poor shielding which was only intended to be used with slower data transfers of optical drives...not with the 500MB/s transfer rates of an SSD). This was especially common with the 2011 and earlier models. I believe Apple actually released a system firmware update which may have fixed the issue with some laptops.

Plus not all SSDs are compatible with all computers. Using adapters can increase the compatibility issues.

A good test would have been to install the SSD into the main drive bay for comparison, although the hard drive SATA Cable for the main bay is also known to be insufficient sometimes when using an SSD.

Select the drive by its immutable manufacturer-given Device-name. if not showing use the little View menu to shaw all devices.

when a new driver has a lot of stuff on it already, sometimes Disk Utility refuses to ERASE. Ask again, immediately. it's as if they left out that horrible, "are you sure" message completely. Yes you are sure, ask again.

Those are mounted .dmg files containing virtual volumes with what appears to be some sort of software installers. All five of those items are under the header "Disk Images". No external drives are showing up. If you are done with these installers, then eject them to clear up the clutter. You cannot erase a virtual volume as they are generally read-only.

What is the exact model of your Mac and version of macOS? You can get this information by clicking the Apple menu and selecting "About This Mac".

Also, what are the exact make & models of your two external drives? Links to the actual product may prove useful as well.

Are you connecting the drives directly to the Mac?

What type of connection are you using for the drives? Using any adapters?

Try disconnecting all other external devices in case one of them is interfering with your new drives. Test only one drive at a time, again to prevent a possible compatibility issue. Try connecting the drive to another USB port especially on the other side if using a laptop.

How about a screenshot or transcription with the Names of those ?

Those appear to be some software add-ons, in Disk image form. Possibly provided by the Drive vendor.

You are so lucky! Not everybody has those!