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Q: my SSD internal drive disappears after an upgrade

Hi,

my mac mini i5 2.5 GHz is having a very strange behavior after an upgrade.

ok, in the beginning It had Yosemite when I bought it, i upgraded to El capitan just by curiosity and put 16 GB RAM. In fact I work on two other (2.1) mac mini:1.83 and 2 GHz. Every thing was fine. So I made an upgrade myself with SSD ADATA SP550 480 GB and 1T B as a second drive. I had difficulties to finish the technical mounting of the machine. So I left for few months. Well, I had to wait for a new ribbon cable from china, the first one was damaged.

Also, I couldn't close the mac mini some screws didn't fit. After a final retry my system didn't mount, well I had the Apple and the normal routine and even a desk, but couldn't access to any thing, no mouse, no keyboard. So I decided  to boot on apple's Network, I installed mountain lion, hoping I can get back my SSD with El capitan, but none.

I first bgot on my desk the second internal drive which shows 1.45 TB instead of 1T.

My SSD was recognize by the system in the system info, I have the captures of it. But never mount, TechTools have analyze it , and it seems in good condition, but never mounts. Even Diskwarrior saw it ! as a hardware.

I made all the upgrades for mountain lion 10.8.5.

I decided to open the mac mini again detached the SSD and put it back, closed the mac mini with two screws missing.

Now the SSD had disappeared from all system, Techtools, Diskwarrior, DiskTools quits every time now.

I was trying to install El capitan from app store, but iterrupted the operation, I think If I did, I will lose my mountain lion

So how do I install El capitan without losing my Mountain Lion, my hope is to get El capitan to communicate with another capitan and recover my SSD with all data. I couldn't access to it with 10.7.5 on the other mac mini.

I wanted to to access to the core i5 as a target but problem of firewire, 400 on the 2.1 and 800 on the i5.

No hardware problem or any of the kind were found by techtools after running few hours last night.

Sorry, it's a long story, but it resumes problems we can face in computing upgrades, cause nothing is really compatible.

 

thanks for help

Posted on Sep 11, 2016 3:26 AM

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Q: my SSD internal drive disappears after an upgrade

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  • by lllaass,

    lllaass lllaass Sep 11, 2016 3:34 AM in response to allowin
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    Sep 11, 2016 3:34 AM in response to allowin

    - This:

    "I first bgot on my desk the second internal drive which shows 1.45 TB instead of 1T."

    Means that when you installed OSX it created a fusion drive. That is aone drive combining the rotational HD with the SSD.

    - Can you now boot into Mountain Lion?

    - Are you saying that the SSD does not appear in System informa/Profiler?

    OS X: About System Information and System Profiler - Apple Support

    If not showing that mean you have either a bad SSD, bad ribbon cable, bad connection between ribbon cable and logic board. (that connection loosened after I added an SSD to my 2012 Mini).

  • by allowin,

    allowin allowin Sep 11, 2016 6:14 PM in response to lllaass
    Level 1 (8 points)
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    Sep 11, 2016 6:14 PM in response to lllaass

    for the second internal drive, i was asked to format it, said yes and got 1,45 TB, this was after I launched my system.

    I don't think it was a fusion drive  ?? how do I know ? my question why did my drive become invisible ?why after installing mountain Lion on external drive and El capitan on another external drive the internal SSD remains invisible, how can I access to it ? problem of ribbon ? well, it wasn't invisible in the begenningsK. I hate it but I have to open my computer again, or maybe wait to go to App Store see a technician.

  • by lllaass,

    lllaass lllaass Sep 12, 2016 1:17 AM in response to allowin
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    Sep 12, 2016 1:17 AM in response to allowin

    If you got 1.45 TB then you have a Fusion drive. MAc OS sees the Fusion drive (SSD and rotating HD) as one drive and you can't access each individually.

    If you boot from a drive of 10.8.2 or less that OS will see each individual drive, it will not see the Fusion drive as one drive.

  • by allowin,

    allowin allowin Sep 12, 2016 4:06 AM in response to lllaass
    Level 1 (8 points)
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    Sep 12, 2016 4:06 AM in response to lllaass

    ok, I find one of the problems, the ribbon of the SSD was detached from the motherboard. Now I can see it on the system info. But disk utility can't mount it but wants to format it. So I used disk drill to recover the data. Now I want to mount it, but I don't know how, as soon as disk utility is not able to do it, is there something to do with the TRIM on SSD drives ? how can I make bootable again ? I tried, after fixing the ribbon to boot with it, but the computer didn't recognize it.

    Think you right about fusion drive, it's the first time I face it, so I didn't realize, but something confused me about SSD with the system on it !

  • by lllaass,

    lllaass lllaass Sep 12, 2016 7:23 AM in response to allowin
    Level 10 (188,022 points)
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    Sep 12, 2016 7:23 AM in response to allowin

    Can you format/erase the drive via disk utility??

  • by allowin,

    allowin allowin Sep 13, 2016 3:25 PM in response to lllaass
    Level 1 (8 points)
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    Sep 13, 2016 3:25 PM in response to lllaass

    well, it was erased by disk utility - I must say that disk utility acts very strange ! without a real dialogue just erased my disk instead of mounting it ?! and now it's visible on my desk with same name than the second internal drive and both are considered core storage drives. So what shall I do about it ?

    If I install a new system on my SSD it will be considered same drive than the second one ? Is it OK ? I heard a loss of data concerning this fact. Wasn't it what I had in this case ? Can I separate the drives from been core storage ?

    Now I will install mavericks or yosemite, I don't think I will follow El capitan.

    thanks lllaass for helping me