Samsung SSD 840 EVO upgrade not partitioning in MBP Late 2011

I have obtained a Samsung SSD 840 EVO (1TB) to upgrade my Macbook Pro Late 2011.

I obviously want to clone my existing hard drive, but I am falling at the first hurdle, which is massively frustrating.

When in ‘Disk Utility’, I select the new SSD drive (which is connected via USB/SATA cable) and click ‘partition’ as instructed on most tutorials.

I am met with the message over the ghosted partition button:

“Disks with Master Boot Record partition maps cannot be partitioned.”

This is stopping me from continuing the clone process with Carbon Copy Cloner.

Disk Utility is taking offence to the Master Boot Record (MBR) on the SSD.

How can I fix this? I was under the impression that this was a compatible upgrade for my machine.

I’m no techno-geek. If it’s a nightmare, give it to me straight and tell me what to buy instead!

Or some simple step by step instructions to fix would be grand!

Many thanks in advance,

Posted on Dec 21, 2017 7:48 PM

17 replies

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Dec 22, 2017 10:51 AM in response to Lewdboy

Open Disk Utility.
Select Samsung SSD 840 EVO which should also be mounted on your Desktop with a default icon. This is an indented entry below whatever the drive's physical name that is the out-dented entry.
Click on the Partition button in the toolbar as seen in the pic you posted.
The pie chart rendering is where you can create more partitions as described in the link I sent to you.

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Dec 22, 2017 3:07 PM in response to Lewdboy

You did not re-partition the drive as GUID per my instructions. That is why you are receiving that error.

Drive Partition and Format - El Capitan or Later

Open Disk Utility in the Utilities' folder.
After Disk Utility loads select the drive (out-dented entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the side list.
Click on the Erase tab in the Disk Utility toolbar. A panel should drop down.
In the drop down panel set the partition scheme to GUID. Set the Format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.)
Click on the Apply button and click on the Done button when it is activated.
Quit Disk Utility.

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Samsung SSD 840 EVO upgrade not partitioning in MBP Late 2011