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User profile for user: rutger290
rutger290 Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Startup SSD Suddenly Not Recognised - MBP 13" Mid 2012

I have a MacBook Pro 13 inch 2012 edition and It has a dual harddrive.


The main hard drive (512GB Samsung 850 Pro SSD) had the OSX operating system on it, recently upgraded from Mojave to Catalina. The second hard drive (1TB Samsung 850 EVO) was just for extra storage and located in the optical drive. This setup worked well without any malfunctioning ever.


From one moment to the other somehow the main hard drive with the operating system isn't recognised anymore by the computer. So I couldn't start up my laptop and it gave the folder with question mark.


I've taken these steps:

  1. Tried a bunch of different ways to boot my mac, a lot didn't work.
  2. Took out the malfunctioning hard drive and tried it through a SATA to USB rack, didn't work. Also tried it on another laptop, wasn't recognised either.
  3. Took the hard drive from the optical drive and tested it in the normal startup disk spot, did work.
  4. Put the optical drive hard drive back to the optical spot, put the startup disk hard drive back to the startup disk spot.
  5. Installed OSX Mojave on the optical drive hard drive.


This gives me the conclusion that the SATA cable in the MBP and the motherboard are working fine, thus the malfunction is in the hard drive.


Now I would really like to recover my files from the malfunctioning hard drive, however I have no idea how I can do this without the drive being recognised by my laptop.


Does anyone know how I can handle this? Preferably in a way that doesn't involve completely erasing the drive. (which also isn't possible now because disk utility isn't recognising it).


Hope someone can help, thanks in advance!

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on May 9, 2021 6:51 PM

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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,380 points

Posted on May 10, 2021 10:01 AM

You've performed great troubleshooting and have confirmed your SSD has failed.


If you don't have a backup, then you will need to have a professional data recovery service such as Drive Savers or Ontrack examine the SSD to attempt data recovery. Both vendors provide free estimates and both are recommended by Apple and other OEMs.


You should always have frequent and regular backups. FYI, it is impossible to recover accidentally deleted data from an SSD after the Trash has been emptied. Plus as you have just found out an SSD can fail at any time without any warning signs.

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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,380 points

May 10, 2021 10:01 AM in response to rutger290

You've performed great troubleshooting and have confirmed your SSD has failed.


If you don't have a backup, then you will need to have a professional data recovery service such as Drive Savers or Ontrack examine the SSD to attempt data recovery. Both vendors provide free estimates and both are recommended by Apple and other OEMs.


You should always have frequent and regular backups. FYI, it is impossible to recover accidentally deleted data from an SSD after the Trash has been emptied. Plus as you have just found out an SSD can fail at any time without any warning signs.

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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,380 points

May 12, 2021 11:08 AM in response to rutger290

If you do not see the physical SSD especially when connected externally, then it means the SSD has most likely failed. Unfortunately beginning with macOS 10.13+ Disk Utility now hides the physical drive from view by default so you must now click "View" within Disk Utility and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drives appear on the left pane of Disk Utility.


If you tried the SSD on a Windows PC keep in mind File Explorer won't see anything. You would need to use Disk Management to see if the physical SSD was seen.


You can also try checking the System Profiler to see if the physical SSD is seen at all. If the physical SSD is seen then maybe you can try to use the SSD's hardware secure erase feature to reset the SSD to factory defaults (Samsung defaults not Apple or macOS defaults). The only way to do this is by using Linux, but I doubt it will work since most SSD failures involve the SSD's controller that will no longer respond correctly.


If the SSD has failed which seems very likely from what you have described in your troubleshooting (including what I just mentioned), then you will need to replace the SSD.

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Startup SSD Suddenly Not Recognised - MBP 13" Mid 2012

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