Dead 2013 rMBP, trying to fresh install from bootable USB but getting stuck in Disk Utility

[circa7]

My 2013 rMBP wouldn't boot, so I'm trying to fresh install. I made a bootable USB with a separate disk, and before install I'm trying to erase and partition my internal drive for the new OS.

I get to the screen where I get to choose whether to install the OS or use Disk Utility. I choose Disk Utility. My hard drive is listed as "Apple SSD SD512E", not "Macintosh HD". So I select it, hit erase, and it's stuck on "Waiting for partitions to activate". This drive did have FileVault enabled.

Anything I can try to fix this? Or am I likely looking at a dead drive?

 

[Orbsandoz]

My 2013 rMBP wouldn't boot, so I'm trying to fresh install. I made a bootable USB with a separate disk, and before install I'm trying to erase and partition my internal drive for the new OS.

I get to the screen where I get to choose whether to install the OS or use Disk Utility. I choose Disk Utility. My hard drive is listed as "Apple SSD SD512E", not "Macintosh HD". So I select it, hit erase, and it's stuck on "Waiting for partitions to activate". This drive did have FileVault enabled.

Anything I can try to fix this? Or am I likely looking at a dead drive?

 

[Audit13]

Did you try using Internet recovery?

 

[Orbsandoz]

I would start with a Apple hardware test and then proceed from there....

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5227846

Hopefully you have a time machine backup that you can load onto a new drive!? OWC has some options and used on bay is an option.... Good Luck!

 

[circa7]

Did you try using Internet recovery?

I did, does not work. The drive is not mounted so it doesn't show up as an option to install it there. I think it's fried. Wondering if this is because I had FileVault enabled.

I would start with a Apple hardware test and then proceed from there....

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5227846

Hopefully you have a time machine backup that you can load onto a new drive!? OWC has some options and used on bay is an option.... Good Luck!

Hardware test says no issues found. But Disk Utility doesnt show Macintosh HD when I boot it with option+start, when I go into recovery mode (Mountain Lion Disk Util) it shows Macintosh HD but it's red and no repairs work.
[doublepost=1524344986][/doublepost]When I try to erase "Apple SSD" with Disk Utility, it gets stuck on "Waiting for partitions to activate".

 

[glhiii]

If you have APFS installed on the disk and try to mount it with a pre-High-Sierra OS, the disk won't mount. You have to use High Sierra. What OS does your bootable USB have? This is probably not your problem, but it's worth looking into.

 

[Fishrrman]

There may be ways to "obliterate" the internal drive and start over by using the terminal instead of Disk Utility.

I'm not sure of the commands myself -- you might do a web search.
Weaselboy is the person who is good at "terminal-fu".
Perhaps he'll enter the conversation...

 

[Modernape]

Wondering if this is because I had FileVault enabled.

It is indeed.

If you can open Terminal then do this:

diskutil corestorage list

Which will give you something like this:

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)

|

+-- Logical Volume Group D97186D1-CE21-46AC-AA81-84829DE388FE

=========================================================

Name: Macintosh HD

Status: Online

Size: 250140434432 B (250.1 GB)

Free Space: 18882560 B (18.9 MB)

|

+-< Physical Volume ECE9D3F5-2B08-49B9-AFB7-986B63FDD78B

| ----------------------------------------------------

| Index: 0

| Disk: disk0s2

| Status: Online

| Size: 250140434432 B (250.1 GB)

|

+-> Logical Volume Family 726F9B5D-C01B-48A6-8D4A-C4BA92195E6F

----------------------------------------------------------

Encryption Type: None

|

+-> Logical Volume E1DD4DAF-CB71-4AA6-B15D-4410832324F0

---------------------------------------------------

Disk: disk1

Status: Online

Size (Total): 249769230336 B (249.8 GB)

Revertible: Yes (no decryption required)

LV Name: Macintosh HD

Volume Name: Macintosh HD

Content Hint: Apple_HFS

Then:

sudo diskutil cs deleteLVG D97186D1-CE21-46AC-AA81-84829DE388FE

replacing D97186D1-CE21-46AC-AA81-84829DE388FE with your identifier instead of mine.

 

[BLUEDOG314]

The above suggestion is good. Other things to check are:

If fsck is running in the background you have to kill it. Type "ps -ax | grep fsck" in terminal. You should get one result representing the "search" you just did, but if you get another result that specifies something like /dev/disk0s1 or something along those lines, not the PID or process ID. Then type "kill PID" replacing PID with the actual number. If this was the case try using disk utility again to erase.

If the drive had an APFS partition on it, type "diskutil apfs list" and copy the container UUID string towards the top, then do "diskutil apfs deletecontainer UUID" replacing UUID with what you copied. Then try your erase again.

Lastly you can try "diskutil unmountdisk force disk0" as disk0 is always first internal drive. You may need to do the fsck kill from above if that is an issue. After the drive is unmounted, do "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk0 bs=1m count=10" which writes zeros over the first 10MB of the storage, well over the partition map.