samsung evo 850 ssd

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samsung evo 850 ssd

Hello everyone, I hope someone can help with my ssd upgrade on my late 2010 MBP. I decided I wanted to upgrade my HDD after upgrading to 16GB ram for speed and performance, so I bought and evo 500gb. before the installation i saw an update for Yosemite and im not sure if that cause any problems but i updated the computer cleaned it out using clean my mac and cc cleaner. I used a sata 3 to usb cable to connect the ssd the very first time and used disk utility to format it. Then i was instructed to use CMD R to start the system in recovery in order to use the Macintosh HD as a source in disk utility . Either way it finished took about 2 hours. installed the ssd and it took a while in the beginning to boot up but it finally did . The first thing i did was open up clean my mac to get rid of some apps i didn't want and i immediately got an Unapproved caller error. restarted the machine and it the error didn't go away.

I tried carbon copy cloner and i got the same error.

then i tried to install a fresh osx Yosemite, formatted the ssd again with diskUtility

the install went through successfully and i even booted from the drive connected to the sata usb cable

i figured it works and i installed it back into the computer tried to boot and got the same error

ive tried using a windows machine to secure erase but the drive is now shown as ASMT 2115 device and the Samsung software wont recognize it.
i used the fcsk command also to try and rest nvram and still nothing.

i also tried formatting to NTFS and the drive name doesn't change. i read some where that the bridge chip is whats causing it to be named ASMT device

im stuck now with a unusable ssd and expensive one at that

if anyone has encountered this problem and has any insight on what i can do please send help

thank you!!!

Posted on Jul 6, 2015 11:00 AM

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Answer 1

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OGELTHORPE

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Jul 6, 2015 11:57 AM in response to LavLuxx

Is this a 13" MBP?

I would suggest that you erase the SSD and install Snow Leopard on it using your original installation disk.

If successful, run Snow Leopard Combo update:

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1399?locale=en_US

That will allow you to instal 10.10.4, which now allows fro TRIM on third party SSDs.

Ciao.

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Answer 2

LavLuxx Author

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Jul 6, 2015 12:04 PM in response to OGELTHORPE

yes it is

thank you, i will try today and keep you posted. Do i need to do a secure erase of the ssd ? ive been having trouble with that.

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Answer 3

OGELTHORPE

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Jul 6, 2015 1:35 PM in response to LavLuxx

LavLuxx wrote:

Do i need to do a secure erase of the ssd ?

No.

Ciao.

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Answer 4

LavLuxx Author

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Jul 13, 2015 6:30 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

my system won't let me boot from OS X snow leopard USB, it always tells me my computer needs to be turned off and a lot of lettering comes up on the screen. so i tried using mountain lion , booted correctly into usb installed the os into the ssd and it worked, again this is all externally. after installing the sad into the computer it took for ever to boot like 8 -10 mins once it came on i could use the mouse but the screen was grey no icons no menus nothing. i dont know whats going on.

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Answer 5

Csound1

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Jul 13, 2015 6:33 AM in response to LavLuxx

Replace the internal (SATA) cable.

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Answer 6

dwb

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Jul 13, 2015 8:16 AM in response to LavLuxx

There have been reports that the Samsung 850 series isn’t compatible with Macintosh computers and at some point Samsung’s spec sheets for those products have been rewritten to specify Windows compatibility only. Oddly many people continue to report success with the 850 series while others can’t even get the OS installed or the computer to boot after migrating. You may need to replace the SATA cable as Csound1 suggests but I’d also get a different SSD.

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Answer 7

LavLuxx Author

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Jul 23, 2015 11:28 AM in response to dwb

thank you all for assisting me on this the only thing that fixed the problem was changing the cable the ssd is running flawlessly now just got to figure out how to get back the 22gb i lost in the process thanks OGELTHORPE Csound1 dwb !

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Answer 8

Csound1

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Jul 23, 2015 4:14 PM in response to LavLuxx

You're welcome

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Answer 9

Oct 27, 2015 9:01 AM in response to LavLuxx

Hi everyone, so I have the same problem but my Sata cable is working fine. When I try other SSD it works but when I try the one I bought from Samsung it doesn't...

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Answer 10

OGELTHORPE

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Oct 27, 2015 10:16 AM in response to hugomarques1990

Current Samsung SSDs have been problematic in Macs recently. There have bee successful installations and some not so reported on these forums. If you examine the Samsung web sire, note that no mention is made regarding Mac compatibility. I suggest that you contact Samsung technical support and find out what they have to say.

Ciao.

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Answer 11

Oct 28, 2015 2:09 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

So you think the best I can do is to send back the SSD? And which SSD should I buy for my Mac? Yes, because I googled before buying the Samsung and everyone (Mac users also) was recommending the SSD I bought... So which SSD is the best for me and for mac users? I'm really confused

TKS,

Hugo

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Answer 12

OGELTHORPE

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Oct 28, 2015 2:42 AM in response to hugomarques1990

You apparently are one of the unlucky ones with a Samsung SSD. To satisfy my own curiosity, I would be very interested know what their technical staff have to say about their SSDs and Macs. I would appreciate if you did contact them and posted back.

Addressing your question directly, I have three Crucial SSDs in three MBPs all operating satisfactorily. OWC SSDs have a reputation of being bullet proof based on reports posted here. At the present time, those are the only brands that I am willing to recommend. Thee may be others, but I am not familiar with them. Sadly, I feel obligated to tell others to avoid Samsung at this time.

Ciao.

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Answer 13

Oct 29, 2015 5:43 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

Thanks for the tip. One question: I'm surprised because I can use the SSD with OS installed booting the Mac externally via USB. Is this normal? What I mean is, if this SSD is not compatible with my MacbookPro it is possible to work externally? I don't understand why it doesn't work only when its inside.

But I will replace with a Crucial and after that if doesn't work I will declare defeat 🙂

The support doesn't know came up with any solution. They only say that if I am able to format and do partition it should work so the SSD must be fine and probably its my Mac's problem.

Thanks

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Answer 14

dwb

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Oct 29, 2015 6:31 AM in response to hugomarques1990

On the various sites I keep an eye on I’ve seen reports of the Samsung 850 having issues with various Linux distros as well as the Mac OS. There doesn’t seem to be any correlation between versions either, in other words Mavericks users seem to be affected the same way Yosemite users are. There also doesn’t seem to be any correlation with the hardware model being used. Making the issue even more frustrating is the huge mix of symptoms from can’t format to used flawlessly until one day crash and now cannot format (or can format but not install). And yet the drive will work flawlessly with Windows. I sorta wonder what would happen if I stuck one of the drives in my Mac and then installed Windows instead of OS X. But frankly I really don’t care enough and anyway I don’t have an 850 drive sitting around to test.

Given that Linux users have also reported problems and most (if not all) are using generic PC boxes, I suspect the problem is totally software related and that putting the drive in an enclosure will have the same (weird) results as installing internally.

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Answer 15

Csound1

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Oct 29, 2015 6:33 AM in response to hugomarques1990

If it boots externally you need to change the internal cable, just like so many others have.

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