Internal hard drive not showing up

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Level 1

7 points

Internal hard drive not showing up

I have macbook air 2012.

The issue I am seeing that I can't boot so I decided to go to recovery mode. However, the Utility Disk tool doesn't show my main hard drive only 1 disk0 with size of 1.39GB.

here is the list of disks I have when I run diskutil list. Is there a way to mount the main hard drive? Even though I can't see it at all.

bash-3.2# diskutil list

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: Apple_partition_scheme *1.4 GB disk0

1: Apple_partition_map 30.7 KB disk0s1

2: Apple_Driver_ATAPI 2.0 KB disk0s2

3: Apple_HFS Mac OS X Base System 1.4 GB disk0s3

/dev/disk1

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: untitled *524.3 KB disk1

/dev/disk2

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: untitled *524.3 KB disk2

/dev/disk3

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: untitled *524.3 KB disk3

/dev/disk4

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: FDisk_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk4

1: Windows_NTFS SFP 500.1 GB disk4s1

/dev/disk5

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: untitled *524.3 KB disk5

/dev/disk6

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: untitled *6.3 MB disk6

/dev/disk7

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: untitled *2.1 MB disk7

/dev/disk8

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: untitled *1.0 MB disk8

/dev/disk9

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: untitled *524.3 KB disk9

/dev/disk10

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: untitled *524.3 KB disk10

/dev/disk11

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: untitled *1.0 MB disk11

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3)

Posted on Aug 13, 2013 9:06 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Chornox Author

Level 1

7 points

Oct 4, 2013 1:28 PM in response to WhyNoThanks

I did couple of times get the question mark folder when going to safe mode

but when I did the following 3 options in a row it worked:

1.SMC reset [4]. Shut down and unplug all cables including power cord for at least 30 seconds and then plug in power cord and keyboard/mouse.

2. PRAM reset [5]. Hold down option, command, P and R while booting. Start it when you hear the sound and don't let go before it reboots.

3. Safe boot [6]. Hold down shift while booting to boot into safe mode. If this works, open Disk Utility from Utilities and repair your permissions and verify the disk

After it boots to safe mode do a utility check for the disk.

I didn't instal anything just safe mode boot.

As for the last point I did think it did fix the issue but I had the same issue twice afterwards. I did follow the same procedure to fix it and worked 3 times.

So I am not really sure if it is hardware or software issue but it seems it happens quite often.

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Answer 2

Oct 4, 2013 12:27 PM in response to Chornox

This issue seems to be happening to many 2012 MacBook Airs. After taking the computer into an Apple repair center, it was diagnosed as a faulty SSD. They said it could be replaced under warranty, but my issue is that I have a lot of data on my SSD that was not backed up (my fault, obviously). At any rate, they will not replace the SSD without keeping the old one, which is not an option, because at a worse case scenario, I will send my SSD to "disk savers" and have the data recovered. So, I am extremely interested in attempting to resolve this in the manner that you did.

My scenario is the same- Utility Disk shows

disk0

-Mac OS X Base System

If you have the time, my questions are these:

1. Did you have the "blinking question mark folder?" If I try to boot in safe mode, I still just get the blinking question mark folder. Is there another way to boot in safe mode other than holding "shift" when powering on?

2. Did you install Mountain Lion from Internet Recovery Mode?

3. Could yo please provide any information about the software update that resolved this? Apple is denying any issues about this problem to me.

Thanks

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Answer 3

Chornox Author

Level 1

7 points

Aug 13, 2013 10:06 PM in response to Kappy

I wish I was on that screen to give you these information but for some reason I decided to try safe mode again. Waited for around 30 min and it worked. I think I did couple of reset that are mention here between my first safe mode try and the last one.
http://guides.macrumors.com/Mac_doesn't_boot

The device was very slow in safe mode. I did use Utility Disk again and I saw my internal hard disk there, although no errors there when checking the SSD. I did do a software update and restarted and it seems everything was working properly afterwards. The ironic thing is the software update was about not being able to boot because of a crash due an issue with SSD frimware and it was mentioned it was a very rare case 😝

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Answer 4

Kappy

Level 10

361,709 points

Aug 13, 2013 9:11 PM in response to Chornox

What do you find if you open Disk Utility, select the drive entry, then click on the Partition tab?

According to diskutil you only have a Windows volume of 500 GBs. The rest of the drive is garbage.

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Answer 5

Jun 6, 2017 2:11 PM in response to Chornox

I'm Having a problem that is very weird, i have a seagate 1tb hybrid sshd, it recently started giving me a type of matrix error on the boot. i formatted the hard drive on mac and in DOS on a windows, it fails to format if its in this particular mac but it formats if plugged in the same mac via USB, other hard drives work perfectly in this same mac so i know for sure it has nothing to do with the HD CABLE.

I was successful in loading osx Mavericks onto the hard drive via USB. It boots and loads / runs fine if plugged into the USB port of said mac but the moment i put that particular hard drive into the mac it freezes on the boot screen just as the apple shows up, but it loads and works perfectly on in another mac, and other hard drives work perfectly inside this mac, is it that the hard drive encrypted or something blocking it from working inside this particular mac??? PLEASE HELP!!! because this is REALLY WEIRD!!! And i really don't want to purchase a new hard drive especially when the hard drive is working perfectly fine, just not inside of this mac

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Answer 6

Chornox Author

Level 1

7 points

Aug 13, 2013 9:16 PM in response to Kappy

The 500GB is my external harddrive I was copying some logs to it.

So in Utility disk I have 2 items

external hard drive

-SFP

disk0

-Mac OS X Base System

There is nothing else.

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Answer 7

Kappy

Level 10

361,709 points

Aug 13, 2013 9:19 PM in response to Chornox

Well, that means your SSD has gone to the great chip maker in the sky.

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Answer 8

Chornox Author

Level 1

7 points

Aug 13, 2013 9:23 PM in response to Kappy

So if I try to boot in safe mode I can see the users I have on the laptop does this mean these information are not stored on the SSD?

The only issue afterwards it is stuck on the progress wheel icon with apple logo and gray screen after I enter the password of the user. Doesn't this mean it is somehow recognizing the SSD? or this information is stored somewhere else?

I do have encrypted SSD if that does provide any extra information.

Thanks,

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Answer 9

Kappy

Level 10

361,709 points

Aug 13, 2013 9:29 PM in response to Chornox

Yes, that does change things somewhat. And, I don't know what to tell you at this point because I've no experience using the encrypted disks. I don't know how they appear in Disk Utility or diskutil.

When you view the partition scheme using Disk Utility (select drive, click on Partition tab) take a screensnap and post it here - COMMAND-SHIFT-4; select the portion of the screen to snap; release mouse. Image is saved on the Desktop. Use the Camera icon in the message window's toolbar to upload the image.

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