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DIY Fusion gone horribly wrong - help please!

B

blueapplepaste

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 30, 2013
18
2
Longtime lurker, first time poster. I was holding out for a mac mini update but decided to go ahead and go for it!

I just got a brand new mac mini, i5, 500 gb and wanted to do a fusion drive from the get-go (240gb Intel SSD). Also doing 16gb RAM upgrade as well.

Got drive and RAM installed no problem. I attempted to make the fusion drive using this guide: http://www.macworld.com/article/2014011/how-to-make-your-own-fusion-drive.html

However, the computer froze during the process. I forced restarted it and when I booted into recovery mode again, the fusion appeared to have worked, as 1 drive was visible in disk utility, but it was red. I used disk utility to fix the problem and it appeared to do so. I then clicked on reinstall OS X and it started the process. I left to do some stuff around the house and when I got back it was booting, but got hung on the start up screen with the gear spinning and a no smoking sign (circle with a slash through it). I couldn't get it to go past this screen.

So I forced restarted it into recovery mode again and now the drive looks like the picture below. Still as a single drive as 740gb. Simply states "Internal Drive" in red. When I click on it, disk utility attempts to fix it:

http://s143.photobucket.com/user/blueapplepaste/media/file_zps25f61756.jpg.html?sort=3&o=2

But then disk utility gets hung:
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r133/blueapplepaste/file_zps0611a868.jpg

If I try to quit I get this error:
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r133/blueapplepaste/file_zps2add8e5f.jpg

If I try going into the terminal I get this error: "forkpty: no such file or directory
Could not create a new process and open a pseudo-tty"

At this point I have no idea what to do. Have thought about trying to take it to apple store, but pretty sure with the DIY fusion that won't fly. Not sure what else to try, I'm in way over my head here.

Any help is greatly appreciated!!
 
did you do the second part of creating the fusion drive?

example : diskutil coreStorage createVolume 50B457C3-ADC6-4EDC-9ABA-FD8C6EEDE69A jhfs+ "Macintosh HD" 100%

I note your screen shows Internal Drive - is that the name you chose? if not then it seems the createVolume has not completed before you tried install

thats about all I can think of. Otherwise - reboot into recovery and start over.
 
mvmanolov said:
reboot, wipe each disk individually, start from scratch ?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, right now I can only boot in internet recovery mode. And when I get to disk utility, the disk is in red and it hasn't been able to "fix it".

Would individually removing the drives and putting them in an enclosure then using my MBP to format them work? Then put it all back together and try again?

----------
costabunny said:
did you do the second part of creating the fusion drive?

example : diskutil coreStorage createVolume 50B457C3-ADC6-4EDC-9ABA-FD8C6EEDE69A jhfs+ "Macintosh HD" 100%

I note your screen shows Internal Drive - is that the name you chose? if not then it seems the createVolume has not completed before you tried install

thats about all I can think of. Otherwise - reboot into recovery and start over.
Click to expand...

No, I wasn't able to do that. The computer froze in the middle of the process before that step. That's where I'm stuck now. I didn't choose internal drive as a name, that was the name that showed up when I force restarted into recovery mode.

And I'm working in recovery mode, but disk utility can't "fix" the red disk. So I'm stumped.

I've been using Apple for ~25 yr and have never not been able to make things right in recovery mode with disk utility. So literally have no idea what else to try
 
OK reboot to recovery. When you get up to the window with the options 'restore from time machine'...yadda yadda - look at the menu bar at the top of the screen and you should have a Utilities menu and in there is Terminal - that means you can get back in and continue where you left off or start fresh.

Sounds like the Fusion Logical group is there but has no volume yet (the missed bit where it hung). As diskutility cannot handle it then the install will fail.

once in terminal - pick up from the part

diskutil coreStorage createVolume 50B457C3-ADC6-4EDC-9ABA-FD8C6EEDE69A jhfs+ "Macintosh HD" 100%
 
costabunny said:
OK reboot to recovery. When you get up to the window with the options 'restore from time machine'...yadda yadda - look at the menu bar at the top of the screen and you should have a Utilities menu and in there is Terminal - that means you can get back in and continue where you left off or start fresh.

Sounds like the Fusion Logical group is there but has no volume yet (the missed bit where it hung). As diskutility cannot handle it then the install will fail.

once in terminal - pick up from the part

diskutil coreStorage createVolume 50B457C3-ADC6-4EDC-9ABA-FD8C6EEDE69A jhfs+ "Macintosh HD" 100%
Click to expand...

Thanks for the continued replies!

I tried going into Terminal and get this error:

"forkpty: no such file or directory
Could not create a new process and open a pseudo-tty"
 
Ok only one more thing I can think of at this stage is to do a PRAM and SMC reset.

if it still wont play ball - whip the drives out and flatten them in another machine.

(reinitialise in a mac or clean in windows)..

knowing the mini as well as I do - taking out the drives is the last resort - its a pain job :)

good luck
 
costabunny said:
Ok only one more thing I can think of at this stage is to do a PRAM and SMC reset.

if it still wont play ball - whip the drives out and flatten them in another machine.

(reinitialise in a mac or clean in windows)..

knowing the mini as well as I do - taking out the drives is the last resort - its a pain job :)

good luck
Click to expand...

OK, will try PRAM and SMC reset (the SMC reset is a new one to me).

And if those still won't work, I guess I'll disassemble them and start over. If I physically separate them, reformat, and then reassemble, will that jack with anything in the mini (eg ghosts of what was the fusion or something?)
 
blueapplepaste said:
OK, will try PRAM and SMC reset (the SMC reset is a new one to me).

And if those still won't work, I guess I'll disassemble them and start over. If I physically separate them, reformat, and then reassemble, will that jack with anything in the mini (eg ghosts of what was the fusion or something?)
Click to expand...

in theory it should put you back to square one.
 
You don't have to remove the drives at all ... you can use recovery to load Disk Utility and fix them back to the starting state. It is too big a risk to unnecessarily remove the disks from a mini ... don't want to break something else. :eek:

Can you reinstall the original RAM until you get the disk issues straightened out? It is possible that the new RAM might be causing problems with the Fusion install.



-howard
 
Thanks for the help everyone. I was able to partially fix the problem.

For whatever reason, Mountain Lion's disk utility couldn't fix the problem, even in recovery mode. So I made a bootable USB drive with Mavericks, booted from that drive, and its disk utility was able to fix the stock HDD no problem and I was able to get the computer up and running.

However, I believe my problem lay with the SSD, and perhaps that is why it froze during the Fusion process. First time around, when the I was prompted that the SSD was unreadable, I ignored and went straight to making fusion.

However, this time, I tried to format the SSD first and then try doing fusion. However, diskutility gets hung trying to partition the SSD. I left it running last night and woke up this morning to it still running and the disk not being formatted, but disk utility stuck at the partitioning stage of formatting.

I'm not sure if there's something wrong with the SSD itself or what. But I can't get it to format. Was brand new, so will probably just return and try a different model.
 
blueapplepaste said:
Thanks for the help everyone. I was able to partially fix the problem.

For whatever reason, Mountain Lion's disk utility couldn't fix the problem, even in recovery mode. So I made a bootable USB drive with Mavericks, booted from that drive, and its disk utility was able to fix the stock HDD no problem and I was able to get the computer up and running.

However, I believe my problem lay with the SSD, and perhaps that is why it froze during the Fusion process. First time around, when the I was prompted that the SSD was unreadable, I ignored and went straight to making fusion.

However, this time, I tried to format the SSD first and then try doing fusion. However, diskutility gets hung trying to partition the SSD. I left it running last night and woke up this morning to it still running and the disk not being formatted, but disk utility stuck at the partitioning stage of formatting.

I'm not sure if there's something wrong with the SSD itself or what. But I can't get it to format. Was brand new, so will probably just return and try a different model.
Click to expand...

I had similar problem with a Crucial SSD (the format part not the fusion) so i quickly returned in it and got me self an 840 Pro :D
 
mvmanolov said:
I had similar problem with a Crucial SSD (the format part not the fusion) so i quickly returned in it and got me self an 840 Pro :D
Click to expand...

Interesting. I wonder why some SSDs would apparently not work? This is an Intel 530 SSD, going to swap it out for a Samsung 840. Now I get the joy of taking apart the mini again...:rolleyes:
 
blueapplepaste said:
Interesting. I wonder why some SSDs would apparently not work? This is an Intel 530 SSD, going to swap it out for a Samsung 840. Now I get the joy of taking apart the mini again...:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

it could be a dud. sometimes these things happen :)

Get the Pro its a really nice drive the 256 is quite fast :)
 
mvmanolov said:
it could be a dud. sometimes these things happen :)

Get the Pro its a really nice drive the 256 is quite fast :)
Click to expand...

True, maybe it was just a dud. Oh well, glad that the problem is (hopefully) fixed and with a new SSD all will be well.
 
Many of the guides I've seen recommend against creating the Fusion Drive from the Recovery Partition, as the version of the utilities isn't always the latest. Though I wouldn't have expected that to cause a crash, so a disk issue is a possibility I suppose.

When I did mine I created a separate bootable partition on an external disk, and ran all the Terminal commands from there. You can use any external disk for this purpose, and I actually used a USB stick that I thought would be fast enough for my purposes, though I was wrong, it was unbearably slow, though it did work, just took ages.

Interestingly I found that "fixing" a custom Fusion Drive from the Recovery Partition won't always work, but if you use a separate bootable partition to then it may work just fine (assuming you have an up to date installation on that boot-disk).

But yeah, if you have a suitable external disk with enough space (at least 8gb I think, preferably more) then run the OS X installer onto a partition on that, once it completes, apply any updates and restart. Then try deleting your Fusion Drive completely and start again.
 
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