Mac No Entry Sign (Missing Harddrive in Recovery Mode - Disk Utility)

[patneligan]

Hi there,

Just quickly thank you for even taking the time out to read this - all help is appreciated.

I have a Apple MacBook 12 Retina 2016 Core m5 1.20GHz 8GB 500GB SSD Silver Mojave. It suddenly crashed with a question mark sign followed by a no entry sign.

I restarted to be met with the 'no entry' sign, booted it into recovery and my 500gb harddrive is not there, it is only showing Apple Disk Image (macOS Base System) which is 2.01gb. The 'macos base system' appears to be OK when running first aid.

I have tried looking into reinstalling the operating system but with no harddrive listed, that is not possible.

What has happened to the harddrive? Why has it failed? I have not damaged it, I have a lot of files on it with it nearly at capacity most of it is backed up elsewhere but right now I cannot even access it or see it being listed by the macbook.

Any advice or experience here?

Thank you!

P

 

[Juicy Box]

What Mac do you have?

 

[patneligan]

What Mac do you have?

Apple MacBook 12 Retina 2016 Core m5 1.20GHz 8GB 500GB SSD Silver Mojave

Apologies.

 

[Fishrrman]

1. Boot to INTERNET recovery (NOT to "the recovery partition"):
Command-OPTION-R at boot
You'll need your wifi password.
It will take a while to load.

2. When you get to the utilities, open disk utility.

3. Go to the "view" menu and choose "show ALL devices".

4. NOW look at the list "on the left".
The top line should be the physical drive inside.
I would click ONE TIME on it, then click "first aid" and see what the report is.
If that works, try clicking on the line that represents the Mac partition and do first aid on that, too.

5. If the "main partition" isn't showing up -- it may be damaged and perhaps your only option may be to erase the entire drive and then restore from a backup.
OF COURSE you have to HAVE a backup to do this.

 

[patneligan]

Do you think using an external hard drive would work as an alternative until I can get it replaced after the world is out of lockdown?

 

[Fishrrman]

Yes, if you have an external drive that will boot the Mac, use it.
The Mac doesn't care WHERE the boot drive "is".
All it needs to run is a drive that WILL boot it.

 

[patneligan]

Back on this with a new external SSD in the meantime, but can't get the installation to work, 'you may not install to this volume because the computer is missing a firmware partition external harddrive'

How do I get around this? I partitioned it on the Mac, but I don't know what this firmware I am missing is? I have tried both Catalina and Mojave via normal recovery and internet recovery mode also.

How do I get this firmware? My partner has a macbook, could that be used to help here?

 

[Fishrrman]

Can you get to internet recovery, as I suggested in #4 above?

Do you have a backup?

 

[patneligan]

Thanks for the response. In the process of faffing around, Recovery Mode which as originally working stopped working and restarted everytime I got to the language screen? So the Mac managed to get worse

Had to go via Internet Recovery instead. Managed to get it working in Internet Recovery by partitioning the drive to APFS rather than GUID.

A temporary fix but a good one. I have data backed up on icloud and a different external hardd rive, will get that downloaded over time.

I think the SSD completely failed as it only showed the Mac OS base system not my SSD - that or a SATA cable has busted (someone suggested).

Big up for your help, been very kind doing so - appreciated!

P