SSD Issue with Macbook Pro 2011

[techsidd]

Hardware: Macbook Pro Early 2011, upgraded to Corsair 16gb ram, data doubler instead of optical drive currently with the stock 500gb hard drive. SanDisk Extreme 120gb SSD in the main hard drive slot.

Software: OSX Mountain Lion

I was running this setup fine for about 7 months when all of a sudden my computer freezes up and I have to power it off manually. Upon restart, the computer showed a circle with a slash through it (I have found online that this is a boot efi issue).

So I decided to take my SSD out, read it in an enclosure through USB and it read fine on other computers. To make sure though, I wiped the drive clean and got ready to reinstall OSX on it. Turns out the computer freezes up when reading the drive in Disk Utility (through either USB recovery or internet recovery). Again the drive reads fine in an enclosure. And surprisingly the drive even reads fine in a different Macbook Pro (2011 version as well).

Right now I have an install of OSX running on my backup hard drive, the one in the optical drive so that I can use my computer. Putting my SSD in causes the computer to freeze up at login screen.

What is going on? The SSD seems to be fine. Putting a different hard drive in the primary SATA slot works fine. Just this particular drive causes lots of weird problems.

Any suggestions, similar issues, thoughts on fixes? Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[Ledgem]

That's a really bizarre issue. One thing I didn't quite follow: you said that the drive freezes Disk Utility when viewed either in an enclosure or when connected directly via SATA. How did you wipe the drive?

Does this drive support TRIM? Did you have TRIM enabled in OS X?

As a last-ditch resort, if the drive has any firmware updates available then it may be worth attempting that update. Worst-case scenario, being only seven months in, I would guess that you're still under warranty. It'd be a pain, but you should be able to report your problem, send it back, and get a new one.

 

[techsidd]

The SSD works perfectly fine in an enclosure or inside another Mac. So I was able to wipe the drive and read from disk utility reformat and all that using a different Macbook.

I did notice that my drive's firmware was R112 and the latest was R211. So I updated the firmware using a friend's computer and now the drive reads R211 as the firmware version.

The problem still persists though. When running on my backup drive and nothing in the primary slot the computer runs fine. When I insert the SSD (now blank). The computer freezes up at login.

If I come up with no solution in the next day or two, I'll probably RMA it, but wouldn't they just send me my drive back if they found no problems?

 

[Orlandoech]

You mentioned;
SSD in Bay#1
HDD in Bay#2 (opti)


You said the following works;
HDD in Bay#1

You said the following causes the Mac to freeze now:
SSD in Bay#1


But have you tried;

1. Removed all HDDs and place SSD in Bay#1 with a clean install of OS X?
2. Removed all HDDs and place SSD in Bay#2 with a clean install of OS X?
3. Ensured the start-up drive is set to the SSD and nothing else?
   

 

[techsidd]

Update: So I completely removed my hard drive caddy and second hard drive from the computer and then inserted only my SSD. Lo and behold, the SSD read fine from OSX recovery. I was able to get a fresh install of Lion on the drive and everything works fine.

The next step will be reinserting the HDD back in with the caddy and wiping it clean. Hopefully both drives work together again. I have a feeling this had something to do with conflicting boot.efi on the drives. But hopefully this will be resolved. Will make a final update once everything is resolved.