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chsn

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 11, 2023
8
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Hello, I have a 13-inch MBP mid-2014 and recently its SSD stops working. I happen to have another SSD in SO-DIMM form factor retired from a mini PC and I thought maybe I could use it in the MBP to save some $$. Notice that this SSD used to be the boot drive for that mini PC so it has a Windows 10 installed in it.

So I go ahead and replace the SSD in the MBP. I thought later I can erase the content in the new SSD and reinstall a macos from internet recovery.


This is what I did afterwards:
1. I open the Mac and turn it into internet recovery mode. During the recovery process, an error code 1007F. After googling this error code, I see someone suggests to reset NVRAM first
2. Following the steps in https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063, I reset the NVRAM. After that, shocking things happen: this MBP directly boot into Windows 10!!! I see a screen with Windows icon. What? I have no intent to run Windows (I already have PC) on my MBP so I immediately turn the MBP off
3. I open and Mac again and turn it into internet recovery mode. Thankfully, it works. This time I was able to enter the screen where I can select the disk utility.


Now the problem is: the new disk has capacity of 256GB and I cannot see it in the disk utility. I can only see a “disk0” around 1.28GB. Now I am getting stuck on this step and googling this doesn’t yield any positive results.


I want to completely free up this disk by erasing it content, and then freshly install macos into it. Please let me know how should I accomplishes it.


Many thanks!

 

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original os - shift+command+option+r
latest os - command+option+r
recovery - command+r

___
if you are already in disk utility, you should be able to select 'view all devices'.
that'll show up your main Macintosh HD.
if it doesn't, then indeed your SSD has failed.
[try the recovery first - command+r - to be sure
ideally buy an OWC SSD for your particular model or an el cheapo on ebay - which usually come with macOS pre-installed …
OWC SSD
 
Are you certain he SSD from the mini PC is not a NVMe drive?

The MacBook must be running a High Sierra or newer firmware to use a NVMe drive.

The base OS you see is the download from Internet Recovery AFAIK.
 
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Are you certain he SSD from the mini PC is not a NVMe drive?

The MacBook must be running a High Sierra or newer firmware to use a NVMe drive.

The base OS you see is the download from Internet Recovery AFAIK.

The SSD from mini PC is a NVMe M.2 SSD. I bought an adapter so that it can be inserted into MBP mid 2014.
 
original os - shift+command+option+r
latest os - command+option+r
recovery - command+r

___
if you are already in disk utility, you should be able to select 'view all devices'.
that'll show up your main Macintosh HD.
if it doesn't, then indeed your SSD has failed.
[try the recovery first - command+r - to be sure
ideally buy an OWC SSD for your particular model or an el cheapo on ebay - which usually come with macOS pre-installed …
OWC SSD

I think my new SSD (the one retired from my mini PC) is working. If you see my point #2, after I reset NVRAM and reboot MBP, for a short period of time I was able to see Windows loading screen on my mbp. It kind of proves the SSD is working as mbp bootloader can load data from it
 
Connect your new SSD to your another computer running windows and you may see the disk in the file explorer on
windows,erase it to fat32 format and reinstall the SSD to your macbook and it would show up in the disk utility.
I advice you to reinstall the macOS using the recovery usbstick rather than the internet recovery,because the internet recovery usually comes with some problem and not stable.

The reason you can't find the SSD in the disk utility is because someone previous owned it already installed windows on it.The windows boot loader on the disk overriders the macOS boot loader so you were directly boot into the windows after the VRAM reset.
 
The SSD from mini PC is a NVMe M.2 SSD. I bought an adapter so that it can be inserted into MBP mid 2014.
don’t think it’ll work.
the reason being, you can go up but not down - adapter or not.
ie - the architecture in your mac may not be compatible with a drive that’s designed for a newer computer.
hope that makes sense.
example: i can’t put nvme m2 ssd from a 2013 macbook into a 2011 macbook but i can take a sata ssd from said mac and with an adapter put it into a 2013 macbook that uses nvme2 and it will work.
all that said, if your Mac is 11,1 or 12,1 then nvme2 should work.
thus XiaoKai's suggestion is the go.
link for SSD for 2014 MBPro
 
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