Corrupted SSD? Appears that the disk is Unmountable.

I recently attempted a system restore through a time machine backup over my wireless network. I restarted, entered the Recovery drive and selected Restore Time Machine Backup, selected my network attached storage device and mounted my time machine backup. Everything appeared to go fine until the end when the system through up a "Could Not Complete Restore, error occurred". I restarted and after that my system partition is inaccessible and I can only start in Recovery Mode. I have ran Disk Utility and while it can see the SSD it cannot mount it. From what I can discern, the partition map may have been trashed. However, I do not know and I am seeking advice on how to proceed.

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2), (13-inch, Mid 2012)

Posted on Mar 20, 2015 8:08 PM

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6 replies

Mar 20, 2015 8:11 PM in response to Chris Smith-Hale

Reinstalling OS X Without Erasing the Drive


Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.


Reinstalling OS X Without Erasing the Drive


Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.


When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility and press the Continue button. After Disk Utility loads select the Macintosh HD entry from the the left side list. Click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If Disk Utility reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit Disk Utility and return to the main menu.


Reinstall OS X: Select Reinstall OS X and click on the Continue button.


Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.


Alternatively, see:


Reinstall OS X Without Erasing the Drive


Choose the version you have installed now:


OS X Yosemite- Reinstall OS X



Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet

if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

Mar 20, 2015 8:22 PM in response to Chris Smith-Hale

Then you need to try this:


Install OS X Using Internet Recovery


Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.


Boot to the Internet Recovery HD:


Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND-OPTION- R keys until a globe appears on the screen. Wait patiently - 15-20 minutes - until the Recovery main menu appears.


Partition and Format the hard drive:


  1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
  2. After DU loads select your newly installed hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
  3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed. Quit DU and return to the main menu.


Reinstall OS X: Select Reinstall OS X and click on the Install button. Be sure to select the correct drive to use if you have more than one.


Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.


This should restore the version of OS X originally pre-installed on the computer.

Mar 21, 2015 6:40 AM in response to Kappy

I have had a success!! 🙂 I followed the steps in this article:


http://www.macissues.com/2014/04/05/how-to-fix-deep-formatting-problems-with-os- x-drives/


Specifically, I ran "cat /dev/random > /dev/disk1" where disk1 is the disk you're working with. I let that write random information to the disk for several minutes. After I terminated that operation I unplugged and plugged the drive back in. I received a popup error message that the drive could not be read by this computer. I was given the option to 'initialize' it. Which opened up Disk Utility where I was able to FINALLY erase and partition the drive. Which is amazing because I thought that I had bricked a $200 dollar SSD. 😁


.

Mar 21, 2015 8:55 PM in response to Kappy

Since the device could not be mounted Disk Utility was not giving me the option to do that. The command issued through Terminal was done in Super User mode which I'm not sure how to perform through the Disk Utility application. Anyhow, I was unable to find a satisfactory answer throughout the Apple Communities despite several other users having the same issue. Perhaps it's one that isn't understood unless you've experienced it. I can assure you it is very frustrating to have an unresponsive drive that is essentially garbage. But the steps, worked through correctly, in the article posted can save someone a lot of time, effort, and money.

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Corrupted SSD? Appears that the disk is Unmountable.

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