iM 4,1-14,4 Disabling dead HDD of Fusion Drive to prevent Kernel Panic with macOS Catalina

[elbert]

For nearly 3 years my 2012 iMac 27" Core i7 has had a dead HDD from a failed Fusion Drive. For the longest time I couldn't upgrade from Mojave to Catalina as doing so would induce a Kernal Panic necessitating a reboot.

Short of opening my iMac and physically removing the dead HDD and inserting a 2TB SATA SSD with OWC's thermal sensor is there a way to disable the HDD in software? Essentially I just want macOS Catalina to skip trying to start the dead HDD.

 

[Juicy Box]

is there a way to disable the HDD in software?

I don't think so.

Essentially I just want macOS Catalina to skip trying to start the dead HDD.

is the Fusion Drive still there? If so, have you tried defusing the Fusion Drive, as in decouple the SSD from the HDD?

 

[elbert]

I don't think so.


is the Fusion Drive still there? If so, have you tried defusing the Fusion Drive, as in decouple the SSD from the HDD?

reformatted and decoupled the fusion drive.

Internal SSD works but only with Mojave

when I try installing Catalina onto the internal SSD it kernel panics after about an hours use and I’m forced to reboot when it tries to initialize the dead hdd. I know this as I hear the clicking of the internal hdid.

I was hoping that installing on an external USB3 SSD would avoid this but itisnt the case.

catalina is a better user experience than Mojave.

 

[DaveFromCampbelltown]

It seems to be that both SSD and HDD are faulty.
If you have an external USB SSD and USB HDD, you can create your own external Fusion drive and see if that works.

 

[elbert]

It seems to be that both SSD and HDD are faulty.
If you have an external USB SSD and USB HDD, you can create your own external Fusion drive and see if that works.

Internal SSD works flawlessly with Mojave. Catalina appears to periodically does checks on other SATA ports.

 

[elbert]

This is the error message I get

panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff802a013e97): "AppleAHCIDiskQueueManager::setPowerState(0xffffff806656ed80 : 0xffffff7fac8cb5d2, 3 -> 2) timed out after 100689 ms"@/AppleInternal/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/xnu/xnu-6153.141.51/iokit/Kernel/IOServicePM.cpp:5296
Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff83d74cbb40 : 0xffffff802991c54d
0xffffff83d74cbb90 : 0xffffff8029a56c85
0xffffff83d74cbbd0 : 0xffffff8029a4880e
0xffffff83d74cbc20 : 0xffffff80298c2a40
0xffffff83d74cbc40 : 0xffffff802991bc17
0xffffff83d74cbd40 : 0xffffff802991c007
0xffffff83d74cbd90 : 0xffffff802a0c0aec
0xffffff83d74cbe00 : 0xffffff802a013e97
0xffffff83d74cbe50 : 0xffffff802a013779
0xffffff83d74cbe60 : 0xffffff802a02ad0e
0xffffff83d74cbea0 : 0xffffff802a012528
0xffffff83d74cbec0 : 0xffffff802995e525
0xffffff83d74cbf40 : 0xffffff802995e051
0xffffff83d74cbfa0 : 0xffffff80298c213e

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task

Mac OS version:
19H1713

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 19.6.0: Thu Jan 13 01:26:33 PST 2022; root:xnu-6153.141.51~3/RELEASE_X86_64
Kernel UUID: 5977F3A2-F5FD-347E-8711-46F16CE0993B
Kernel slide: 0x0000000029600000
Kernel text base: 0xffffff8029800000
__HIB text base: 0xffffff8029700000
System model name: iMac13,2 (Mac-FC02E91DDD3FA6A4)
System shutdown begun: NO
Panic diags file available: NO (0xe00002bc)

System uptime in nanoseconds: 729070309698
last loaded kext at 631394379459: >usb.IOUSBHostHIDDevice 1.2 (addr 0xffffff7fad4af000, size 45056)
last unloaded kext at 547248282178: >usb.cdc 5.0.0 (addr 0xffffff7fad4a8000, size 28672)
loaded kexts:
@filesystems.smbfs 3.4.5
>AudioAUUC 1.70
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>!APlatformEnabler 2.7.0d0
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[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"Internal SSD works flawlessly with Mojave. Catalina appears to periodically does checks on other SATA ports."

FIshrrman's "Rule #3":
Use what works for you.
Don't use what doesn't work.

Regardless of the "user experience" of Mojave vis-a-vis Catalina (the latter of which I never cared for), if Mojave "works flawlessly", that's what I suggest you use.

Unless, of course, you want to break open a 10-year-old iMac, and spend probably more $$$ on it than it's worth...

 

[Juicy Box]

I have experienced a few different problems with failing HDD portion of Fusion Drives. Most of which are booting related.

Actually, the Genius at the Apple Store had a lot of trouble getting their HW diagnostic tools to boot on an iMac that I took there under warranty. It had a failing HDD portion of the Fusion Drive.

I took it there many times due to the failing drive, and it kept passing their HW diagnostic test. They would wipe the drive, say everything was fine with the HW, only to have the problem come back.

Finally, 12 days before the warranty was over, the drive fully failed. Couldn't boot into recovery, internet recovery, external back up drives, or anything. The same Genius that told me at least once before that my HW was fine couldn't get his HW diagnostic tool to boot for over 2 hours. It finally worked, and the HDD finally failed the test, so they replaced under warranty.

In retrospect, I should have just replaced it myself after the first time that they said it was fine.

In a different iMac with a Fusion Drive, the HDD was failing. I decoupled the Fusion Drive, wiped the SSD and went on with my life. Randomly during a restart, the Mac tried to boot into the HDD. Not sure how it even happened, or how it even worked, as the SSD part of the Fusion was decoupled and was wiped. I didn't even think it was possible, as I thought the OS files was kept on the SSD portion of the Fusion Drive. After that, I had booting issue until I was able to boot into my regular drive and wiped the HDD that actually mounted for a couple minutes.

I am assuming that the HDD is causing problems when doing the Catalina install, probably firmware related. Even if you get it working, the failed HDD could cause boot problems like I mentioned above. Probably best to take it out. You can use software to control the fan speeds, the SATA adapter, or short the pins.

If this is just a Mac you plan on keeping for a while, I would recommend doing something about the HDD, but if this is just to hold you over to see what new Macs will be out over the next year or two, there could be other solutions, like using a second Mac to install Catalina on an external drive.

I was hoping that installing on an external USB3 SSD would avoid this but itisnt the case.

Do you have another Mac to work with or could you get access to another Mac? If so, you could use the other Mac to install Catalina to the external drive.

 

[elbert]

I have experienced a few different problems with failing HDD portion of Fusion Drives. Most of which are booting related.

Actually, the Genius at the Apple Store had a lot of trouble getting their HW diagnostic tools to boot on an iMac that I took there under warranty. It had a failing HDD portion of the Fusion Drive.

I took it there many times due to the failing drive, and it kept passing their HW diagnostic test. They would wipe the drive, say everything was fine with the HW, only to have the problem come back.

Finally, 12 days before the warranty was over, the drive fully failed. Couldn't boot into recovery, internet recovery, external back up drives, or anything. The same Genius that told me at least once before that my HW was fine couldn't get his HW diagnostic tool to boot for over 2 hours. It finally worked, and the HDD finally failed the test, so they replaced under warranty.

In retrospect, I should have just replaced it myself after the first time that they said it was fine.

In a different iMac with a Fusion Drive, the HDD was failing. I decoupled the Fusion Drive, wiped the SSD and went on with my life. Randomly during a restart, the Mac tried to boot into the HDD. Not sure how it even happened, or how it even worked, as the SSD part of the Fusion was decoupled and was wiped. I didn't even think it was possible, as I thought the OS files was kept on the SSD portion of the Fusion Drive. After that, I had booting issue until I was able to boot into my regular drive and wiped the HDD that actually mounted for a couple minutes.

I am assuming that the HDD is causing problems when doing the Catalina install, probably firmware related. Even if you get it working, the failed HDD could cause boot problems like I mentioned above. Probably best to take it out. You can use software to control the fan speeds, the SATA adapter, or short the pins.

If this is just a Mac you plan on keeping for a while, I would recommend doing something about the HDD, but if this is just to hold you over to see what new Macs will be out over the next year or two, there could be other solutions, like using a second Mac to install Catalina on an external drive.


Do you have another Mac to work with or could you get access to another Mac? If so, you could use the other Mac to install Catalina to the external drive.

Funny enough I placed a schedule to replace Fusion Drive with a 2TB SATA SSD by Feb 2018, on 60th month of ownership, but here we are on the 9th year of ownership and have not did the labor for it out of fear of breaking something.

I am replacing this 52 weeks from now by Feb 2023 with the 2022 iMac Pro M1 Pro base model.

I was able to install Catalina on the external USB3 SSD then boot off of that external drive. I thought it being an external drive would prevent the kernel panic but it doesn't.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I'll agree that it sounds like the connected and affected HDD is futzing up the operating system and an HDD-ectomy is the best solution.

My guess is it wouldn't even begin to work but I probably would have tried erasing it into some other format…just to see.

 

[sebalvarez]

Something similar jus happened to me, same kernel panic, but the drive failed all of a sudden. Here's my post about it: Kernel panic on Fusion Drive, HDD is broken

I'm trying to find out if maybe disabling the SATA driver/kext would prevent the panics, since the only SATA thing on my iMac is the broken drive.

 

[Xe4ro]

Sorry for resurrecting this thread but I now have the opposite problem. The SSD of my Late 2015 iMac's Fusion Drive has failed and trying to install anything on the HDD, either via recovery/internet recovery or external USB installer leads to the same Install/Boot Looping which looks like this:

Interesting part at 1:13, it starts at 30minutes remaining and then goes down to about 18-20minutes and reboots and starts over and over and over.

The only way I get a system onto the drive is cloning from other macs or installations from external drives onto my internal.

Out of curiosity I tried to get Ventura on it using OCLP to see if what would happen during installation. Instead of looping the installation it just freezes at 18 minutes remaining. I also got Kernel Panics while using a cloned Monterey installation when letting the Imac go to sleep. This did not happen with Mojave or High Sierra.

I assume the SSD is the culprit, there is no Core Storage Logic Group anymore and it's not mounted. It can't be erased or mounted with Disk Utility or Terminal.

Today I tried installing Sierra via USB Installer and while it was rather slow, actually kind of freezing during the first try while still in booted into the USB, it actually worked in the second try.

Now retrying High Sierra on another Partition, or maybe Volume. — High Sierra installation also worked.
I did an eficheck under High Sierra and I get the following

EFI Version: IM171.88Z.F000.B00.2208220701
Matching allowlist not found in EFIAllowListShipping. Searching in EFIAllowListAll.
Fetching allowlist data update.
Waiting for allowlist data download to complete.
Allowlist data update failed with error = 106.
Primary allowlist version match not found for version IM171.88Z.F000.B00.2208220701

 

[Fishrrman]

x34ro wrote:
"The only way I get a system onto the drive is cloning from other macs or installations from external drives onto my internal."

Then... walk the path that works for you, and ignore the paths that don't...

 

[Xe4ro]

x34ro wrote:
"The only way I get a system onto the drive is cloning from other macs or installations from external drives onto my internal."

Then... walk the path that works for you, and ignore the paths that don't...

Well yeah, I would like to know why this is happening though. Ultimately my plan is going to be to let someone swap the HDD for a proper SSD and remove the dead Fusion Drive SSD but not right now. By the way, is it possible to replace not just the SATA HDD but also the Blade SSD?

Trying to install Monterey from Recovery Mode ends in freezing at some point during the installation while still in Recovery Mode and using a USB installer it kernel panics directly after "Syncing extracted data to disk" : /

///
Ok I don't know why it worked but I could install Monterey while booted into a fresh install of Monterey ON an external hdd, installing from there onto the internal hdd of the Imac. !?

There still seem to be kernel panics when the Mac goes to sleep though:

panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff800d229331): AppleAHCIDiskQueueManager::setPowerState(0xffffffa01cda26c0 : 0xffffff800f1adcf0, 3 -> 0) timed out after 100719 ms @IOServicePM.cpp:5524

Panicked task 0xffffff9b4ff2b670: 207 threads: pid 0: kernel_task

 

[Juicy Box]

With a few of my Macs, I have experienced odd boot behavior and kernel panics due to failing and failed HDDs and Fusion Drives.

More recently, a Late 2013 iMac with a failed internal HDD (not a Fusion Drive) was booting and running great with an external SSD until I updated the OS to Catalina. With Catalina, the Mac booted fine, just very slow, but once fully booted, ran perfectly for 20 minutes, then would get a kernel panic and auto-restarted, just to repeat the process, and keep rebooting after 20 minutes.

Booted back into Mojave, no problems at all, so it only happen with Catalina.

A quick swap of the HDD with a SATA SSD, the kernel panics went away and the boot times dramatically improved. Catalina runs almost as good as Mojave now that the dead HDD was pulled.

I suspect that it could be a firmware issue, as I have seen firmware issues in the past, but cannot say that for sure.

 

[Xe4ro]

I suspect that it could be a firmware issue, as I have seen firmware issues in the past, but cannot say that for sure.

Yeah I did have some weird firmware results doing eficheck under High Sierra but it now shows no errors and in System Report it says Boot-ROM 499.40.2.0.0 for Mojave & Monterey. Doing eficheck now shows "No Changes detected"

I feel like it really is something in the OS trying to interface with the dead SSD in some way. No kernel panics when I put the Imac to sleep with Mojave, my guess is that Mojave does not try to do anything with the SSD but somehow during any installation that uses APFS it just tries to do something and boom. Somehow booting into an OS on external drive and installing from there (compared to external USB) bypassed that?

 

[Fishrrman]

xe wrote in reply 16:
"I feel like it really is something in the OS trying to interface with the dead SSD in some way."

Just wondering...
If you open disk utility, and select "show all devices" (view menu), can you "see" the dead internal SSD?

IF you can see it, can it be erased?

If this were possible, I'd just erase it and leave it "erased, in place".

(if it doesn't show up in disk utility, none of the above will apply)

 

[Xe4ro]

xe wrote in reply 16:
"I feel like it really is something in the OS trying to interface with the dead SSD in some way."

Just wondering...
If you open disk utility, and select "show all devices" (view menu), can you "see" the dead internal SSD?

IF you can see it, can it be erased?

If this were possible, I'd just erase it and leave it "erased, in place".

(if it doesn't show up in disk utility, none of the above will apply)

I can still see it yeah, but no it can't be erased. Even mounting the disk does not work, it's always just greyed out. Neither DiskUtility or Terminal will work. It couldn't be erased from day one when this happened back in July. I think "couldn't write on the last block of the device" or something was the error back then. Trying it now with Disk Utility it tries to unmount it for minutes until it fails with error 69874 Partition table could not be changed.

DiskDrill shows red blocks at the start and at the end and the SSD does not show up in the SMART monitoring, only the HDD, which yeah has apparently run for 34,986 hours ;D.

Here's a pic

I have now experimented a bit more, trying to install a few more OS versions with the external installation installing the OS onto the internal drive.

Mojave installing Catalina failed.
Catalina installing Catalina failed with kernel panics.
Big Sur installing Big Sur did work but again, like Monterey, took over 1 1/2 hours.

I wanted to test how these would behave with going to sleep compared to Mojave & Monterey.

Big Sur doesn't seem to Kernel Panic/Reboot on going to sleep but also doesn't react to any Mouse & Keyboard input to get back out of it until it does indeed reboot with the Kernel Panic text showing after the reboot.

 

[Xe4ro]

Ok some more news. After trying to see if updating to the new security update of Monterey 12.6.9, that got released recentl, would work it turned out it could install with no error.

I ran DiskDrill again and out of the blue decided to do a Deep Scan of the SSD, during that DiskDrill popped an error telling me that the drive was disconnected, I checked and it doesn't even turn up in Disk Utility anymore. MFC also doesn't read any temperature.

Putting the Imac to sleep now also doesn't result in a Kernel Panic anymore. It is still missing after a reboot. Before all of this I also installed El Capitan and that worked perfectly like with Sierra & High Sierra before so I think I was correct that the newer systems were trying to communicate with the "Zombie" SSD and that threw everything off.