My SSD is not showing in Disk Utility anymore

Question

My SSD is not showing in Disk Utility anymore

Hello all,

My Macbook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010) has a 500GB HDD and I replaced the optical drive with a Samsung SSD about year ago to run my system and applications. My Mac HDD was my original system/storage drive but I've only been using it for my files since adding the SSD. I have been running Yosemite since the beta back in August/September without any problems.

Yesterday, my system froze so I hard-restarted it but could not boot into OS X. It would just bring me to the white apple logo with a slowly loading progress bar which would hang at around 45% and then display a circle with a line through it.

I used CMD+R to boot into recovery mode as it was my only option at that point. I re-downloaded OS X 10.10 from recovery mode but now my system is installed on my Mac HDD along with hosting all my files... Thankfully it didn't write over them because I do not have a backup anymore!

My useful purchased apps (like Logic Pro x and Photoshop) are still on the SSD....

At first, my SSD was nowhere to be found but it popped up in Disk Utility randomly with a volume called disk02 or something similar.. I "verified" it but It told me that I needed to repair the disk. After proceed with the repair, its gone again. It popped up again so I worked with TRIM Enabler but the disk vanished again without a trace after restarting my system with TRIM Enabled! I disabled TRIM Enabler but no luck. I opened my laptop case to see if there was a connection issue but there wasn't one. I also used the terminal to check diskutil list but its not showing here either.

I purchased TRIM Enabler online and used it as I thought that it would be my solution but it seems like a waste of US$10 because it didn't help and I still cannot see my SSD anywhere.

Why is my SSD not being recognized?

Can someone please offer some advise because I'm really unsure why the drive is not showing up any more and I want to get access to the contents. Any thoughtful and helpful responses are very much appreciated.

Cheers

Tjet

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on Apr 19, 2015 12:01 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,660 points

Apr 19, 2015 1:31 AM in response to turbojethellion

Your drive appears to be dead. TRIM enabler is unlikely to bring it back.

I would confirm the backup is working & install or migrate that to a new disk. SSD's can fail in horrible ways that simply make them appear to be non-existant. Data recovery specialists may be able to help if you are lucky, but that can be expensive & fruitless.

Contact the vendor if it still has warranty, they never pay to recover data, but they may offer a replacement etc.

Since this appears to have been fitted by you, I'd also suggest removing the SSD & fitting it into a USB case to see if it works via a different connection. A failed connector could cause it to vanish too.

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Answer 2

Apr 21, 2015 9:13 PM in response to Drew Reece

Hey Drew,

Thanks for your reply. I just did the last Yosemite upgrade and checked Disk Utility afterwards and low and behold, my SSD is appearing again. Please see the following images:

Also, I ran terminal diskutil list:

Does this offer any hope or explain anything?

Hoping for a bit of luck here!

Cheers,
Tjet

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Answer 3

Apr 22, 2015 6:27 PM in response to Drew Reece

I haven't tried to do any repairs on the SSD drive since it reappeared in Disk Utility.

If there are any steps which I can take to get my SSD functioning properly at this point, it would be very much appreciated.

Cheers,
Tjet

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Answer 4

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,660 points

Apr 22, 2015 7:13 PM in response to turbojethellion

Does the SSD mount? Select the volume (which is showing the disk identifier disk0s2). See if the mount button in the tool bar allows it to work.

It isn't a good sign that the volume name is not showing.

You could try a repair with Disk Utility, but be aware that any attempts at fixing could cause more harm than good.

If you have data on this disk and you have no other backup of it you should take it to a professional data recovery company - it is the best chance you have for recovering the data. We need to know if this is the only copy of the data.

It is possible for another hardware fault to cause this too - if the SATA cable to the optical to SATA converter failed for example, in which case the disk may work in an external case. You would remove the drive to do that, but it also risks damaging more than is already broken.

Obviously another option is third party software to attempt to recover the data, but I wouldn't recommend that on the only copy of some important data.

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Answer 5

benwiggy

Level 4

1,473 points

Apr 23, 2015 5:53 AM in response to turbojethellion

As others have suggested, the SATA cable on Unibody MBPs are well known to be flaky, and often need replacing. It's possible that it is the cable to your drive that is faulty, rather than the drive itself.

You can always check the drive by using it in an external USB enclosure. You can try taking it to an Apple Shop, or you can pick up new cables on eBay for very little.

As for your purchased apps: you can download Logic again from the Mac App Store: you don't need to recover it from the disk.

Photoshop may also be a download from Adobe, depending on the version.

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