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Issues formatting mSata SSD

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benwild_33

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 15, 2016
165
108
My mSata - IDE adaptor finally arrived today so I got it installed in to my Powerbook G4 17" and have since been trying to format it. I have managed to get it in to Apple Partition Map but as soon as it tries to format the partition it gets stuck at the preparing stage for a few minutes before coming up with the message 'The underlying task reported a failure on exit'. The disk then disappears from disk utility.

The drive is a Samsung PM851 256GB in one of these: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/mSATA-to-...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

I have tried with a Leopard and Tiger disk, the leopard one gives the message above whilst the tiger one just sits on the preparing stage forever.

Any ideas? I'm thinking it's most likely the adaptor as the drive was testing as working before I bought it.
 
I have always connected/formatted my new mSATA+Converter-combination via USB-IDE-connector cable to my PowerBook prior to build it into the PowerBook and use the PowerBook/Leopard/DiskUtil to format the USB-connected drive. Then I cloned the internal disk onto the drive making it bootable with SuperDuper! or CarbonCopyCloner. After these steps I swapped the PowerBook's drive with the mSATA/Converter. (Same procedure with the intel MacBooks as well, but in addition copying the OS X 10.7 and later Recovery-Partition to the external drive to with the help of CarbonCopyCloner.
If that method should fail as well with your mSATA-combination, maybe it's hardware related problem ...
 
Thanks, I've ordered some cables so I'll have a test when they arrive, if it does turn out to be the adaptor I'll probably just end up going for the expensive but more reliable Lindy adaptor
 
I tried a few more options this evening, first I tried an installation via target disk mode to my Powermac, this didn't work, I then tried formatting the drive via the OS on my PowerMac and still had no luck. I tried CarbonCopy Cloner too but that failed.

I tried the drive connected to my Mac Pro via a USB caddy but no luck there either so it must be the caddy, I've messaged the seller on ebay to see if they have any ideas but I suspect it is faulty. I think I'll get a Lindy adaptor from amazon although I'll probably wait and get that around christmas, bit of a shame really as I really wanted to get going with the Powerbook.
 
I ordered a couple of similar looking caddies over a month ago from China and they haven’t yet arrived.

Just checking the photos, they appear to have the same JM20330 controller chip as your one. Except the PCB and case is black. Maybe that will make it better o_O

I ordered another Lindy caddy around the same time and it also hasn’t arrived yet. When I get them I can test both in the same machine to compare speed/compatibility.
 
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Ah that’s so annoying, I hadn’t seen that one, I would have bought it. I may order it next week.
 
I bought the Lycom adaptor from scan and got it installed last night. I’m running 10.5.8 and it’s really responsive, I ran xbench and I’m scoring just over 200, I’ll upload a screenshot to the msata benchmark thread later. No stability issues so far so I’m really happy with it. Interestingly the lycom adaptor has a jumper on the jumper pins, the eBay one had jumper pins but no jumpers so I wonder if it was that.
 
benwild_33 said:
I bought the Lycom adaptor from scan and got it installed last night. I’m running 10.5.8 and it’s really responsive, I ran xbench and I’m scoring just over 200, I’ll upload a screenshot to the msata benchmark thread later. No stability issues so far so I’m really happy with it. Interestingly the lycom adaptor has a jumper on the jumper pins, the eBay one had jumper pins but no jumpers so I wonder if it was that.
Click to expand...

I can confirm that the Addonics adapter I bought (same as the red Lindy) shipped with a jumper set on and caused issues when using a known working, bootable mSATA SSD. I removed the jumper from the pins (which set it to master) and all was okay.

From what I could tell, the shipped jumper position was not master, slave or cable select, but an undocumented position. Either way, set to master (no jumper) on a Mac portable and you’ll be fine.
 
I bought two of these and they work just fine

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/mSATA-SS...11306?hash=item360d08c04a:eg:SSwAAOSwQItT-LcK

What some sellers fail to point out is that there are two versions of msata to IDE, one that support 2.5inch 5v and 2.5inch 1.8v.

The only issue i had was formatting my 128Gb msata drives. I had to do a fat32 format on my windows machine first. It was only then that my ppc macs would partition and format properly in disk utility.

My G4 Ti has the first msata installed, and apart from the formatting issues, it's been working fine running Panther.
 
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laptech said:
I bought two of these and they work just fine

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/mSATA-SS...11306?hash=item360d08c04a:eg:SSwAAOSwQItT-LcK

What some sellers fail to point out is that there are two versions of msata to IDE, one that support 2.5inch 5v and 2.5inch 1.8v.

The only issue i had was formatting my 128Gb msata drives. I had to do a fat32 format on my windows machine first. It was only then that my ppc macs would partition and format properly in disk utility.

My G4 Ti has the first msata installed, and apart from the formatting issues, it's been working fine running Panther.
Click to expand...

I didn't realize that. Perhaps the undocumented pin position switches voltage on my adapter.
 
Hmm, my Msata woes seem to be just beginning. Erase and format to Apple partition map were smooth but two CCC clone attempts in and both have frozen/failed.

UD - the drive would not unmount/mount to erase it on either my powerbook or my 08 macbook.

UD - Booted up my leopard g5 and DU worked fine. I am now running a test clone with CCC on the G5 hdd which is chugging along nicely.

If it clones without issue, Ill assume the PB drive (which IS really old) is too jenky to complete the clone in which case I'll proceed with a fresh install via the installed msata.

I'm glad I resisted the initial urge to use it as a ninja throwing star :D
 
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benwild_33 said:
Which adaptor are you using?
Click to expand...

JMicron JM20330B chipset. Bought it off eBay from some seller in New York for around nine bucks shipped .

UD: unfortunately the G5 clone failed. I’m going to go ahead and install it in my PowerBook and do a fresh install or target TDM from my G5 When I find the time.
 
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