SSD Not Supported by Disk Utility

[AlDavis]

All of the sudden, my Macbook Pro just hanged with the spinning wheel. I had to powered it down and now it will not reboot. OS X does not recognize the SSD when I try to reinstall OS X Maverick. The only thing appears at start-up is the USB installation disk (Mavericks). I went to disk utility from the installation disk and it say " SSD Not Supported by S.M.A.R.T".

Windows-7 volume is on the same SSD and Windows works great! The problem is OS X. There is no more dual boot.

So I targeted disk the Macbook Pro on my Mac Pro and the Disk Utility say the same thing " SSD Not Supported by S.M.A.R.T". I reseted the SMC, PRAM and all that other stuff to no avail.

So now, all I have is a Macbook Pro for Windows. It seems like a software thing since Windows works fine.

Any suggestion for how I can get OS X to be recognized on the same SSD?
--Al

 

[taz92]

what brand of ssd are you using?

 

[AlDavis]

what brand of ssd are you using?

The brand is Intel and I have two of them in my Mac Pro that work great.
--Al

 

[hallux]

S.M.A.R.T is just error/failure reporting, that message is telling you that Disk Utility can't read the S.M.A.R.T status of the drive. It's POSSIBLE you're seeing the beginnings of a disk failure, but what does Disk Utility show you for partitions? Do you have a normal computer you can plug the drive into? That might support S.M.A.R.T and get you any failure codes.

Download and install the Intel SSD toolbox from here: http://www.intel.com/support/utilitytools.htm using your Windows 7 partition and see if it can report more data.

 

[AlDavis]

It's POSSIBLE you're seeing the beginnings of a disk failure, but what does Disk Utility show you for partitions?

Two volumes are on the partition. Windows 7 and disk 12s2. OS X should be on disk 12s2. OS X created that name all by itself somehow because it should be called Macintosh HD. Weird stuff is happening all by itself. Who would name a disk 12s2? ...not me of course.
--Al

 

[hallux]

Two volumes are on the partition. Windows 7 and disk 12s2. OS X should be on disk 12s2. OS X created that name all by itself somehow because it should be called Macintosh HD. Weird stuff is happening all by itself. Who would name a disk 12s2? ...not me of course.
--Al

I've found 12s2 is a default name given by Disk Util when it doesn't know what to name it. Sounds like the partition table got corrupt.

 

[AlDavis]

Sounds like the partition table got corrupt.

I can only fix it from targeted disk mode, but when I try to install OS X from the Macbook Pro, the OS make it 12s2 and then hangs.

I am now logging into Windows 7 to download the tool box....
Al

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Download and install the Intel SSD toolbox from here: http://www.intel.com/support/utilitytools.htm using your Windows 7 partition and see if it can report more data.

All that I see is firmware update for SSD's. Is this what you are referring too?
--Al

 

[hallux]

I can only fix it from targeted disk mode, but when I try to install OS X from the Macbook Pro, the OS make it 12s2 and then hangs.

I am now logging into Windows 7 to download the tool box....
Al

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All that I see is firmware update for SSD's. Is this what you are referring too?
--Al

Go to the Diagnostic tools section.

Let's see if I can link it.. Link

 

[AlDavis]

Go to the Diagnostic tools section.

I ran everything from the diagnostic tool box and got great results. According to Intel, the SSD is ok. Now i'm really confused. I hope the problem is not a virus, but I thought Mac's rarely get viruses. For some reason, the OS X will not install or even recognize the SSD. It all happen after reading google docs from Safari. Then the system hanged with the spinning wheel and eventually quit working. Weird stuff.
--Al

 

[hallux]

I ran everything from the diagnostic tool box and got great results. According to Intel, the SSD is ok. Now i'm really confused. I hope the problem is not a virus, but I thought Mac's rarely get viruses. For some reason, the OS X will not install or even recognize the SSD. It all happen after reading google docs from Safari. Then the system hanged with the spinning wheel and eventually quit working. Weird stuff.
--Al

That's good that at least the drive isn't dead or failing!

Maybe Apple was revolting for you using a Google product? Kidding of course, except for my Mac and ATV I'm an Android/Google guy.

Only thing I can think of, which seems kind of rare and unusual, is that the file table got corrupted somehow. I'm not familiar with any resolutions to that with a Mac, short of reformatting the disk.

 

[AlDavis]

While using Disk Utility from my Mac Pro, the Macintosh OSX drive (originally installed on the Macbook Pro) is perfectly formatted. The Mac Pro has no problem with this hard drive; I even deleted the Windows volume. However, OSX from the original CD will not recognize it on the Macbook Pro. Out of numerous reinstalls attempts, the OSX recognized it only once and it hanged over night. From the MBP, even the Disk Utility will hang at times as well. I installed this SSD about 6 months ago on the Macbook Pro with no problem.

Any more ideals to fix this situation?
--Al

 

[hallux]

Have you tried a PRAM reset? Here's a few articles on the process (you don't say what version of OS X you're using).

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
http://support.apple.com/kb/ph11243
http://support.apple.com/kb/ph14222

The first is a generic article, the last 2 are ML and Mavericks (in that order).

Just being able to format it doesn't tell us much, have you also tried repairing permissions (use recovery mode and disk utility on the MBP itself). When it was functioning, did you have TRIM enabled? Why do we see 3 180 GB SSD drives in that Disk Util view?

 

[AlDavis]

Problem Solved!!!

I fix the problem. The problem was related to the HD controller. So I purchased this from the local store to be sure. Everything is great when using USB. So it was not the hard drive. Now I should purchase the hard drive cable for the controller because that's an easy fix if that's the problem for the controller. If it's the actual controller, I'm doomed!

What's weird is that the Windows drivers worked very well for the controller. Windows 7 was flawless and it performed very well. The Mac OSX did not boot-up! OSX did not recognized the hard drive. So now, I hope it's just the hard drive cable. If it's the actual HD controller, then the Macbook Pro will be a Windows machine because the controller is built-in the logic board. Microsoft prevailed with this situation for sure.

 

[hallux]

VERY unusual that a hardware problem would cause an issue with one OS and not the other.