Resolved Cannot format SSD with Disk Utility

[esmitex]

Hi,

I have a huge problem with my computer and I am not at home, I am abroad for an internship.

On friday my computer started to freeze so I forced it to shut down. After restarting the computer, my second partition became unavailable. I ran disk utility and tried to mount it but it was impossible, I repair the disk after verifying it because it was corrupted but I still couldn't mount it. The computer froze again so I restarted it, which took a very long time, then my main partition where OS X 10.8 was installed was unavailable too and it booted automatically on the recovery HD partition. I tried to repair both disk from disk utility and it never worked and eventually it froze again so I restarted then guess what? No partition was available. The computer was freezing on startup, it was stuck to grey screen, sometimes I would see the apple logo then a blinking folder with a question would appear because the startup drive was indeed unavailable... I tried to startup in verbose mode, safe mode, recovery mode NO LUCK and eventually at times I would see an interdiction sign.

Luckily, one of my room mate over here has a mac and I was able to make a bootable usb of Lion OS X. I booted from the usb, tried to repair the disk but it hangs at some points, I tried to format the disk and it always hangs while "mounting" or "unmounting", I tried to erase the disk with partition same thing, for hours it remains "unmounting"... I tried to erase the disk via command line with "diskutil" and it also unmounts for ages and never come through. This is driving me crazy.

When I run "diskutil list" from the Terminal I see that:

-bash-3.2# diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *250.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Mac OS X                124.5 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS                         124.6 GB   disk0s4
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *15.9 GB    disk1
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Mac OS X Install ESD    15.6 GB    disk1s2
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *1.5 GB     disk2
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         30.7 KB    disk2s1
   2:         Apple_Driver_ATAPI                         2.0 KB     disk2s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Mac OS X Base System    1.5 GB     disk2s3
/dev/disk3
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *524.3 KB   disk3
/dev/disk4
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *524.3 KB   disk4
/dev/disk5
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *524.3 KB   disk5
/dev/disk6
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *524.3 KB   disk6
/dev/disk7
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *524.3 KB   disk7
/dev/disk8
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *6.3 MB     disk8
/dev/disk9
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *2.1 MB     disk9
/dev/disk10
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *1.0 MB     disk10
/dev/disk11
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *524.3 KB   disk11
/dev/disk12
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *524.3 KB   disk12
/dev/disk13
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *1.0 MB     disk13
-bash-3.2#

And now my ssd is not even appearing in the list of disk utility.

/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *15.9 GB disk1
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1
2: Apple_HFS Mac OS X Install ESD 15.6 GB disk1s2
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_partition_scheme *1.5 GB disk2
1: Apple_partition_map 30.7 KB disk2s1
2: Apple_Driver_ATAPI 2.0 KB disk2s2
3: Apple_HFS Mac OS X Base System 1.5 GB disk2s3
/dev/disk3
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk3
/dev/disk4
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk4
/dev/disk5
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk5
/dev/disk6
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk6
/dev/disk7
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk7
/dev/disk8
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *6.3 MB disk8
/dev/disk9
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *2.1 MB disk9
/dev/disk10
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *1.0 MB disk10
/dev/disk11
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk11
/dev/disk12
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk12
/dev/disk13
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *1.0 MB disk13
-bash-3.2#

I have a macbook pro 13" mid-2009 with 8Gb of Ram and a 250Gb Samsung 840 pro SSD. The latest version of Mountain Lion was installed on it. I do not mind formatting, I have a time machine backup with me and I also bakcup quite regularly important files. I would like to know if there's a solution for this problem... If I were at home I could just install my old hard drive and see if the problem occurs and return the SSD to Samsung but now I am not at home, I do not have my old hard drive with me and I do not want to spend money in a new one if I can fix the problem another way. I need my computer to work, I have a report to write during my internship.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Weaselboy]

Hate to say this, but from your description it sounds like your SSD is toast. Particularly that bit about not even being able to mount/format it from the Lion USB key.

 

[falconeight]

Hook up an external then load Mac OS onto it and use it to boot. Then see what the options you have with the ssd.

 

[esmitex]

Well I got another disc now I will install lion on it. When I will be back to France I wil return the ssd to Samsung it's only 5 months old. I think there's no hope, it drove me crazy... formatting was impossible always hanging. I have no idea what happened but I already had some problems with it once then it went back to normal. I might have got a defective drive.

 

[esmitex]

The problem was from the sata cable, apple replaced it.