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Formatting Drive Stuck on "Waiting for partitions to activate"

PumpkingKing

PumpkingKing

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 8, 2018
94
36
QLD, Australia
Hi there,

Hope I'm posting in the right area of the forum...

I have a 2014 MBP. Trying to completely erase / reformat the HD through Disk Utility. It seems to be stuck at a point where it states it's waiting for partitions to activate. Anyone know anything about this issue?

FYI:

Creating a GUID Partition Table with an APFS format.
Tried erasing APFS volume / entire disk through terminal. Gets to about 50% then halts progress.

If I can provide any more info, let me know! Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
My suggestions:

1. Make sure you boot to INTERNET recovery, and NOT to "the recovery partition" (your OP doesn't specify).
That's
command-OPTION-R
... at boot.
(you'll need your wifi password)

2. When you get to the utilities, open disk utility and go to the "view" menu.
Then choose "show ALL devices" (very important step).

3. Next, what I'd try:
Erase the drive. Choose APFS, GUID partition format.

but then...
4. Now it's time to create partitions. However, DON'T create AFPS partitions. Instead try creating HFS+ partitions (Mac OS extended with journaling enabled).
Does this work?

OK, the final step...
5. IF this succeeds in creating the partitions you desire, now go back to each one and use disk utility to "convert" them to APFS.

I used this to set up an internal SSD on my 2018 Mini (with t2):
- 4 partitions
- 1 boot partition (created in HFS+ and converted to APFS for Mojave)
- 3 data partitions (left in HFS+).
 
Hey Fishrrman,

Thanks for the reply!

Sorry for lack of specification. I completed this over Command + R, so the recovery partition. If I can get it to boot then in internet recovery, I’ll see if it’ll erase the drive. Then I’ll follow yours steps if we get that far! Much appreciated! :)
 
Fishrrman said:
My suggestions:

1. Make sure you boot to INTERNET recovery, and NOT to "the recovery partition" (your OP doesn't specify).
That's
command-OPTION-R
... at boot.
(you'll need your wifi password)

2. When you get to the utilities, open disk utility and go to the "view" menu.
Then choose "show ALL devices" (very important step).

3. Next, what I'd try:
Erase the drive. Choose APFS, GUID partition format.

but then...
4. Now it's time to create partitions. However, DON'T create AFPS partitions. Instead try creating HFS+ partitions (Mac OS extended with journaling enabled).
Does this work?

OK, the final step...
5. IF this succeeds in creating the partitions you desire, now go back to each one and use disk utility to "convert" them to APFS.

I used this to set up an internal SSD on my 2018 Mini (with t2):
- 4 partitions
- 1 boot partition (created in HFS+ and converted to APFS for Mojave)
- 3 data partitions (left in HFS+).
Click to expand...
No go on the internet recovery. Error code -2002F. No idea what that means. Guess it’s just a lost cause unfortunately...
 
What I would do.

1. Create a bootable EXTERNAL drive of some kind. You can use a USB hard drive, or even a USB flash drive that is 32gb or larger. Then...
2. Boot from the EXTERNAL drive
3. Aim disk utility at the internal drive and "nuke it" back to empty
4. Either try again with the Apple installer, or use CarbonCopyCloner to clone the external drive to the internal one.

How did you get to disk utility (as posted in #1 above)?
Did you use the recovery partition?
If so, you may be able to open the OS installer, run it, but when it asks WHERE to install, you "aim it" at the external drive and let it go.
If the install goes through, then set up a very basic account.
Now (since you're booted and running from the external drive) you can "turn things around", open disk utility, select the internal drive (the physical drive) and erase it.
 
Fishrrman said:
What I would do.

1. Create a bootable EXTERNAL drive of some kind. You can use a USB hard drive, or even a USB flash drive that is 32gb or larger. Then...
2. Boot from the EXTERNAL drive
3. Aim disk utility at the internal drive and "nuke it" back to empty
4. Either try again with the Apple installer, or use CarbonCopyCloner to clone the external drive to the internal one.

How did you get to disk utility (as posted in #1 above)?
Did you use the recovery partition?
If so, you may be able to open the OS installer, run it, but when it asks WHERE to install, you "aim it" at the external drive and let it go.
If the install goes through, then set up a very basic account.
Now (since you're booted and running from the external drive) you can "turn things around", open disk utility, select the internal drive (the physical drive) and erase it.
Click to expand...
I have actually already tried through an external bootable drive, to no avail. :(

So far I've attempted to complete a wipe of the internal drive through CMD + R, CMD + OPTION + R, Terminal, and an external bootable drive. I have entered disk utility through both CMD + R, and the external drive. CMD + OPTION + R would not connect to the server with the aforementioned error attached.

The only thing with the external drive is that, when booting from it, it 'estimates volumes' and then asks for a password to the computer/drive, but will not allow access even when inputting the password, and says its incorrect (which is in itself incorrect). It has only ever booted 'past' that and skipped logging into the drive once, and for an unknown reason, randomly in the midst of around 10 boots from it. This random 'password-skipping' boot is how I entered disk utility from the external drive in that instance.
 
Last edited:
Probably time to take it to an Apple Store genius bar, when they open up again.
 
That’s what I was thinking. Last resort 😂 Mines open where I am so I might see if I can get in there. Thanks for all your help my friend, it’s much appreciated!
 
same problem with me, i'm buying new ssd and tried to fresh install catalina. boot from usb, when creating partition i choose macos extended journaled, and it stuck in "waiting for partition to activate". any clue what should i do? i'm waiting all night but no progress. thanks
 
I also have this issue. 2014 MBP, 13 Inch. Dual partition with bootcamp. I am wanting to format the internal SSD so I can reimage. I booted into a Mojave USB Installer to run Disk Utility. Selecting the root level of the Internal disk, I chose "Erase" disk and it has been left overnight with no changes, with an error message saying "Waiting for partitions to activate"

Ive also tried to reset PRAM and SMC, but it made no difference.
I've also tried to install the Mojave Installer USB over the exisiting SSD in its current state but it doesn't allow.
I suspect that this has to do with the partition table, possibly screwed up by having bootcamp on the same disk.

I have not tried Internet Recovery. Any one with tips?
Goal is to erase internal drive completely and start reimage process.
Thanks!
 
Hi. I'm late but I want to say that I've this issue last week. Today tried again but connectin the SSD disk to a bigger box (3,5 HHD) with power supply and the disk was mounted as expected, without the stuck un the "Waiting for partitions to activate" message. May be that the creation of the partition needs more power that reading or writing data. I think that this kind of issues cowld have better documentation. The regular users as me go crazy with this :)
 
Anyone had any progress on this?
I have a 16" 2012 MacBook Pro failing to locate the boot up drive and I'm stuck on this same message when I try to erase the SSD; "Waiting for partitions to activate." Also, when I try to select a drive to reinstall macOS, there's nothing to select from

I've boot up into internet recovery with cmd+opt+R and I don't see any other drives when I select "Show All Devices" in Disk Utility

I have an appointment to get this checked in with a 3rd party soon but was hoping to find some answers before paying someone to "simply" restore a computer
 
Babyboi said:
I also have this issue. 2014 MBP, 13 Inch. Dual partition with bootcamp. I am wanting to format the internal SSD so I can reimage. I booted into a Mojave USB Installer to run Disk Utility. Selecting the root level of the Internal disk, I chose "Erase" disk and it has been left overnight with no changes, with an error message saying "Waiting for partitions to activate"

Ive also tried to reset PRAM and SMC, but it made no difference.
I've also tried to install the Mojave Installer USB over the exisiting SSD in its current state but it doesn't allow.
I suspect that this has to do with the partition table, possibly screwed up by having bootcamp on the same disk.

I have not tried Internet Recovery. Any one with tips?
Goal is to erase internal drive completely and start reimage process.
Thanks!
Click to expand...

I had to replace the SSD, replacement SSD was able to install new OS.
 
Babyboi said:
I had to replace the SSD, replacement SSD was able to install new OS.
Click to expand...
I connected an external SSD and installed macOS on it and everything worked fine. Still couldn't find the internal SSD in Finder so I'm concluding it's the SSD going bad

@Babyboi got any suggestions or Amazon links on where to find compatible internal SSDs?
 
ErickES7 said:
I connected an external SSD and installed macOS on it and everything worked fine. Still couldn't find the internal SSD in Finder so I'm concluding it's the SSD going bad

@Babyboi got any suggestions or Amazon links on where to find compatible internal SSDs?
Click to expand...

I guess that depends exactly what model u have
 
Babyboi said:
I guess that depends exactly what model u have
Click to expand...
Mid-2012 15" MacBook Pro w/Retina display
•2.3GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz
•16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
•256GB Flash Storage
•Model Identifier: MacBookPro10,1
 
Hey guys i was having this VERY same issue and got it fixed... I narrowed it down to a BAD SSD RIBBON CABEL as i knew my ssd wasn't bad because i just bought it.. Here's my story..

While working on a client's Macbook for an SSD Upgrade, i first programmed the regular SATA drive with high sierra with no issues.

So then i took out the regular SATA and then installed the new ssd, and got the issue "Waiting for drive to Activate". At first glance i thought this was odd so i let it sit for like an hour and nothing happend!.

I tried to reformat and every other thing i could think of but nothing... I then stuck the drive in an external enclosure to do a windows diskpart to see if i had a bad drive.. The drive checked out good.

I then unplugged the external drive with the ssd in it into my imac and formatted the drive successfully APFS and Extended Journal.

Stuck the drive back into the Macbook Pro and got the error "Hard Drive Uninitialized". It wasn't until i installed a new ssd ribbon cable that i was able to format and program the mac successfully
 
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