So a couple of days ago I woke up and couldn't boot my MBPr. Got the folder with question mark cause it can't find the boot directory. That can either mean it can't find the hard drive or the Operating System data on the hard drive is somehow corrupted. I'm surprised that an SSD this new would fail. I think I have tried everything from the MacOS Support manuals to deeper forensic techniques. I have not attempted any hardware forensics yet because I'm in Japan and no one has SSD PCIe enclosures or disks. I have to get those from iFixit, OWC, MacSales or ebay etc. I'll be going home next week so I thought I'd try all the hardware troubleshooting when I can purchase a PCIe enclosure.
I am pretty sure I have tried all recovery disk and Disk Utility options. Disk Utility says the 1TB Apple SSD partition map is ok and no errors. I have tried Terminal recovery techniques using diskutil, dd, rdisk, asr, etc. I also tried copying files from the source disk disk0s2 (MacOS Sierra SSD) -> disk15s1 (external Seagate) dd bs=262144 if=/dev/rdisk0s2 of=/dev/rdisk15s1 conv=noerror.sync.
A problem with dd is that unless you have pv installed via brew or something you cannot view progress so I have no idea what is going on therefore I had to stop it prematurely as I wanted to use that spare SATA HD to install MacOS so I could use my MB do get work done. It did say there were xx amount of sectors transferred though. But since I stopped it prematurely there was no browsable file system to even check.
Since a complete 1TB SSD PCIe kit costs about $700 including enclosure for the older I was considering just buying a new small space grey MB with 256GB SSD to do some work and then later swap PCIe SSDs for testing or using Target Mode for further testing.
I noticed with SSD forensics that SSDs do not show a filesystem in diskutil/Disk Utility like SATA disks. They show mount points and other info. Therefore I was unable to mount my partitions. Is there anything I can do with the disk UUID?
The structure was:
disk0 - Apple SSD
disk0s1 - EFI
disk0s2 - 1TB
disk0s3 - 500GB
This external 2TB Seagate disk I'm using is partitioned with 500GB MacOS / 1.5TB empty partition. What are my other trouble shooting options?
mid 2014 MBPr 15" 11,2
MacOS Sierra
APPLE SSD
Boot Partition
dd volume list
I had my display replaced at Apple Osaka because of a broken screen due to impact. All seemed ok since data and screen were fine after the replacement. But a short while after the replacement there were a few times when I noticed the occasional line across the display during boot. I remember not feeling comfortable with the service because of those glitches and also when I got the MB back because it wasn't cleaned. I have always got it cleaned in Vancouver to the point where it looked brand new. I was thinking maybe they didn't reattach a connector properly. I've also read that impacted displays can sometimes affect logic boards or disks. Maybe it was just bad luck.
Since this is a new install and I need Xcode anyway I will reinstall Xcode / CLTools then Brew then PV and I will run dd copy again to new partition on this external SATA HD and I will then be able to view the copy progress. Does anyone know how long it will take for 1TB?
Also is there a way using dd to copy just a directory i.e. /Downloads even though I cannot see the filesystem on the failed partition?
Also should I open up the MBPr and check if there is a loose connector?
I am pretty sure I have tried all recovery disk and Disk Utility options. Disk Utility says the 1TB Apple SSD partition map is ok and no errors. I have tried Terminal recovery techniques using diskutil, dd, rdisk, asr, etc. I also tried copying files from the source disk disk0s2 (MacOS Sierra SSD) -> disk15s1 (external Seagate) dd bs=262144 if=/dev/rdisk0s2 of=/dev/rdisk15s1 conv=noerror.sync.
A problem with dd is that unless you have pv installed via brew or something you cannot view progress so I have no idea what is going on therefore I had to stop it prematurely as I wanted to use that spare SATA HD to install MacOS so I could use my MB do get work done. It did say there were xx amount of sectors transferred though. But since I stopped it prematurely there was no browsable file system to even check.
Since a complete 1TB SSD PCIe kit costs about $700 including enclosure for the older I was considering just buying a new small space grey MB with 256GB SSD to do some work and then later swap PCIe SSDs for testing or using Target Mode for further testing.
I noticed with SSD forensics that SSDs do not show a filesystem in diskutil/Disk Utility like SATA disks. They show mount points and other info. Therefore I was unable to mount my partitions. Is there anything I can do with the disk UUID?
The structure was:
disk0 - Apple SSD
disk0s1 - EFI
disk0s2 - 1TB
disk0s3 - 500GB
This external 2TB Seagate disk I'm using is partitioned with 500GB MacOS / 1.5TB empty partition. What are my other trouble shooting options?
mid 2014 MBPr 15" 11,2
MacOS Sierra
APPLE SSD
Code:
Name : APPLE SSD SM1024F Media
Type : Disk
Partition Map Scheme : GUID Partition Table
Disk Identifier : disk0
Media Name : APPLE SSD SM1024F Media
Media Type : Generic
Connection Bus : PCI
Device Tree : IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/RP05@1C,4/SSD0@0/PRT0@0/PMP@0
Writable : Yes
Ejectable : No
Location : Internal
Solid State Disk : Yes
Total Capacity : 1 TB (1,000,555,581,440 Bytes)
Disk Number : 0
Partition Number : 0
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Verified
Raw Read Error : 000000000000
Reallocated Sector Count : 000000000000
Power On Hours : 000000003A05
Power Cycle : 000000000A4F
Unexpected Power Loss : 0000030A8654
Temperature : 0040000D0024
UDMA CRC Error (PATA only) : 000000000000
Boot partition.
Name : disk0s2
Type : Partition
Disk Identifier : disk0s2
Mount Point : Not mounted
Partition Type : 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
Connection Bus : PCI
Device Tree : IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/RP05@1C,4/SSD0@0/PRT0@0/PMP@0
Writable : Yes
Capacity : 999.69 GB (999,690,465,280 Bytes)
Owners Enabled : No
Can Turn Owners Off : No
Can Be Formatted : No
Bootable : No
Supports Journaling : No
Journaled : No
Disk Number : 0
Partition Number : 2Boot Partition
Code:
Device Identifier: disk0s2
Device Node: /dev/disk0s2
Part of Whole: disk0
Device / Media Name: Customer
Volume Name: Not applicable (no file system)
Mounted: Not applicable (no file system)
File System: None
Partition Type: 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
OS Can Be Installed: No
Media Type: Generic
Protocol: PCI
SMART Status: Verified
Disk / Partition UUID: 0682AA6A-F562-454A-8569-EDFF4ADC061A
Total Size: 999.7 GB (999690465280 Bytes) (exactly 1952520440 512-Byte-Units)
Volume Free Space: Not applicable (no file system)
Device Block Size: 512 Bytes
Read-Only Media: No
Read-Only Volume: Not applicable (no file system)
Ejectable: No
Whole: No
Internal: Yes
Solid State: Yesdd volume list
Code:
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC 999.7 GB disk0s2
3: 5361644D-6163-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC 655.4 MB disk0s3
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *2.0 TB disk1
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1
2: Apple_HFS MACOS 499.5 GB disk1s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk1s3
4: Apple_HFS BACKUP 1.5 TB disk1s4I had my display replaced at Apple Osaka because of a broken screen due to impact. All seemed ok since data and screen were fine after the replacement. But a short while after the replacement there were a few times when I noticed the occasional line across the display during boot. I remember not feeling comfortable with the service because of those glitches and also when I got the MB back because it wasn't cleaned. I have always got it cleaned in Vancouver to the point where it looked brand new. I was thinking maybe they didn't reattach a connector properly. I've also read that impacted displays can sometimes affect logic boards or disks. Maybe it was just bad luck.
Since this is a new install and I need Xcode anyway I will reinstall Xcode / CLTools then Brew then PV and I will run dd copy again to new partition on this external SATA HD and I will then be able to view the copy progress. Does anyone know how long it will take for 1TB?
Also is there a way using dd to copy just a directory i.e. /Downloads even though I cannot see the filesystem on the failed partition?
Also should I open up the MBPr and check if there is a loose connector?
Last edited:
