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SSD install problems :(

G

Gillen

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 7, 2015
5
0
Hi Everyone,
I've recently purchased an 128 Gb OWC internal SSD for my iMac model 10,1 to replace a broken internal hard drive. After I booted up, the disc utility that runs with the installer (Snow Leopard) doesn't recognize the SSD. However, the system profiler can see it just fine. This was puzzling to me, so I started up in target disk mode and accessed the SSD with another iMac just fine. I was able to erase and format the SSD with no problems. I thought this would have solved my problem, but no, when I go back and try to install Snow Leopard from the install disk, I still can't see my SSD from the disk utility. I'm totally stumped. If anyone has any ideas about how to get my iMac up and running with the new SSD, I'd be extremely grateful. Last thing - I did reset the PRAM/NVRAM, but to no avail.
Best,
Jon
 
Are you able to see the SSD using Disk Utility on the installation disc? Did you properly format the drive to be GUID and HFS+?
 
Re:

No, I can't see it on the installation disk. I'm not sure what GUID is, but I did make it HFS+Journaled when it was in target disk mode.
 
Re:

Thanks- I'll go try this and let you know how it goes.

----------

Unfortunately, that wasn't it. Under the partitions tab, it's listed as a GUID Partition with Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I understand the second item to be equivalent to HFS+ Journaled.
 
Gillen said:
Thanks- I'll go try this and let you know how it goes.

----------

Unfortunately, that wasn't it. Under the partitions tab, it's listed as a GUID Partition with Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I understand the second item to be equivalent to HFS+ Journaled.
Click to expand...

Format the thing per the http://www.macworld.com/article/2055589/how-to-format-a-startup-drive-for-a-mac.html

Look at the article, partition type and formate type VERY carefully. If you cannot do this, take the machine into an AASP or someone that know how to properly format a OS X boot drive.
 
Re:

Actually, that's exactly what I did while using the internal SSD in target disk mode. I was in the process of double checking the formatting when this was posted. However, I am still having the same problem that the disk utility on the snow leopard install disk does not "see" the internal SSD hard drive. If you have any other suggestions please let me know.
 
SSD Install Problems

I'm having the same issue. Did you ever figure out how to fix this?
 
Kind of...

dcrall said:
I'm having the same issue. Did you ever figure out how to fix this?
Click to expand...

Here's what happened. I called OWC and asked for help, they didn't really know what was going on, but suggested that I install OSX to an external drive (I had a random external hard drive lying around) and then clone the external drive to my internal SSD drive. I think I used carbon copy, which has a free trial version.

This works, but let me tell you - it's not satisfactory. My iMac now frequently crashes and it's not a good situation (typically runs fine for about 30 min to an hour, but after that freezes up). Yes, I tried downloading all the software updates. So, that's a long answer to your question. If you make any further progress than I did, please let me know.
 
Next steps

One thing remains unclear. Was it unreasonable to expect the raw SSD to be available as a format-able drive? Looking around now, it seems like most instructions advise cloning or pre-formatting the disk.

I'm going to try booting from an external drive. Hopefully, at that point I'll be able to format the SSD as a boot drive. Since it is a smaller drive, cloning from an HD partition seems a little iffy to me.
 
An install disk utility won't indicate or "see" a disk that the OS can't boot from. So being sure it's properly formatted GUID is important as stated above. An OWC disk should have been formatted properly from them, since most of their products are set to work with Macs. Yet, properly reformatting it should work just fine, too.

To the original poster, it sounds like there may be a problem with the SSD. Contact OWC to discuss getting it replaced. I've had no problem booting from their disks in an internal and external setting with an iMac, and using OS's from Snow Leopard through Mavericks on them without issue.
 
Success

I booted from an external drive with Yosemite. Disk Utility saw the SSD drive right away, which appeared to be unformatted. I erased and formatted the drive making sure that the GUID options were the default. At that point, I was able to install Yosemite locally and boot as expected. The machine seems perfectly stable and quite snappy so far.

Thank you all for your input and assistance. It was much appreciated.
 
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