Hard Drive acting weird + login issue

[cloviseiji]

Hi,



I have different questions that are probably linked to the same problem.

Last night when turning on my laptop, i had an unusual login request where it asked my login and password, and couldn't recognize my usual password.



I have then searched the forum to look for similar problems and tried different things as recommended.



Now i restarted my macbook in recovery mode and tried the "resetpassword" command in terminal. In the Reset Password Utility window, no volume appeared in the volume selection box, and so no user account either.



I then went to the disk utility and saw that my Macintosh HD is greyed out in the sidebar and when i click on it, instead of having different colors to show apps, photos, movies storage usage, i have now just a yellow bar for "Other" that uses my entire 498.8Gb volume storage (with 0 Kb available).



Does anyone know what happened?

When going to the single user mode it tells me that my volume is OK, so what can be the problem, and why this issue happens all of a sudden?



Thanks in advance!

Clovis

 

[cloviseiji]

Here are some pictures of the hard disk and volume details in disk utility:

[doublepost=1489996890][/doublepost]

 

[Weaselboy]

Based on your description, it sounds like you have a failed internal drive, or less likely, a bad drive cable.

 

[cloviseiji]

Based on your description, it sounds like you have a failed internal drive, or less likely, a bad drive cable.

Awesome! (Sarcasm). I changed the SATA cable last year because I had the "question mark problem" and my hdd sidn't want to boot at all. But after that change, everything went well and i was extra careful with my laptop.

So if the internal drive failed, do i have to buy a new one or i should reformat it?

 

[simonsi]

So if the internal drive failed, do i have to buy a new one or i should reformat it?

That kind of failure warrants replacement. Sometimes you can reformat only to have it happen again in short order even if the reformat succeeds - but it can get terminal very fast if it isn't already.

Given your current symptom I'd replace it and restore from your backup.

 

[cloviseiji]

That kind of failure warrants replacement. Sometimes you can reformat only to have it happen again in short order even if the reformat succeeds - but it can get terminal very fast if it isn't already.

Given your current symptom I'd replace it and restore from your backup.

Alright thank you for your answer.
It seems indeed that the disk has failed, i have tried to boot from a previous hard disk (from a previous macbook) and it worked.
I am now thinking of replacing to a SSD.

Now just out of curiosity, why does the failed disk boots correctly, accepts my user password but then after loading, instead of bringing me to my desktop, brings me to a Name and password login page? If the disk was dead it wouldnt boot at all, am I correct? Is it possible then to save this hard disk somehow?

 

[simonsi]

If the disk was dead it wouldn't do anything but as with lots of devices there are varying degrees of near-death, some caused by electronic components in the drive, others caused by magnetic surface issues. Quite common for the surface of the drive platter(s) to start to break up and give rise to issues such as yours. Reformatting may make the disk usable but the area affected can extend etc etc. What data is (was) on the area of disk surface affected will determine the error you get in operation.

 

[DeltaMac]

Your Disk Utility shows your hard drive as a "Logical volume", and not a "Physical volume"

Do you have your volume encrypted with File Vault?
That could explain why you get two separate logins.
First login to unlock the drive, then a second login to actually open your user account.
First works, but second fails.
Along with your other symptoms, I think most likely it's a failing drive.
(Replacing with an SSD would be a Good Thing™ )

 

[cloviseiji]

New thing:
I booted with an external drive (my previous internal disk that i keep now as an external backup disk) and i can access the desktop. Now when i go to finder, i can see my current failed internal disk listed as a "device" in the sidebar, and all my data is there!

What is going on?
[doublepost=1490077441][/doublepost]

Your Disk Utility shows your hard drive as a "Logical volume", and not a "Physical volume"

Do you have your volume encrypted with File Vault?
That could explain why you get two separate logins.
First login to unlock the drive, then a second login to actually open your user account.
First works, but second fails.
Along with your other symptoms, I think most likely it's a failing drive.
(Replacing with an SSD would be a Good Thing™ )

I don't think I encrypted anything with FileVault and if so then I don't understand why wouldnt I have had this second login page before.
This issue actually appeared a few days ago, my macbook was on sleep mode and when i tried to get back on it, it didn't accept my password. So i restarted it and then all my problems appeared.

Now i'm still dealing with my internal disk recognized as a device (and which is formatted as "MacOS Extended Journaled, Encrypted" though) and i'm wondering if "ignore ownership on this volume" would help me? What do you recommend?
I cannot access disk utility or system preferences as the OS on the boot disk i use currently is on an older OSX..

 

[Weaselboy]

Now i'm still dealing with my internal disk recognized as a device (and which is formatted as "MacOS Extended Journaled, Encrypted" though) and i'm wondering if "ignore ownership on this volume" would help me? What do you recommend?

It does sound like you have a failing drive from your comments here.

Your drive is encrypted with FileVault. Try opening Disk Utility then mount the drive from the File menu. You should be asked for a password to unlock the drive. You may be able to recover some data that way.

 

[cloviseiji]

It does sound like you have a failing drive from your comments here.

Your drive is encrypted with FileVault. Try opening Disk Utility then mount the drive from the File menu. You should be asked for a password to unlock the drive. You may be able to recover some data that way.

Ah so i might have made things worse when swapping and trying different hard disks because now when trying to boot with the initial failed hard disk i now have a white screen and impossible to go to safe mode or recovery mode. Booting from my other hard disk with usb works fine still.

Thanks again for your help, i'll try to find an ssd to buy. Most google search results are recommending Samsung 850 Evo 500Gb but most results are dated of 2015. Is this Samsung choice still valid now, or are there better ones for a macbook pro 13 mid 2012?

 

[cloviseiji]

Sorry, I'm posting a lot of different elements in a short time.

I managed to get to the internet recovery mode and the disk utility somehow gave me more options than when using the offline recovery mode (command R).
I was able to verify my disk and i get the message that it "appears to be OK"
(the available and used storage data is also accurate, compared to the "yellow bar" that was shown in the offline Disk Utility, if that makes any sense..)

I'm confused, did the HDD failed or is still alive? I changed the SATA cable one year ago after having the question mark folder upon booting, so can that be a problem with SATA again?
I am now able to decrypt the disk, should i still do that?
Should i just shut up and get rid of this disk?

 

[MRxROBOT]

Most google search results are recommending Samsung 850 Evo 500Gb but most results are dated of 2015. Is this Samsung choice still valid now, or are there better ones for a macbook pro 13 mid 2012?

Yup, the 850 Evo and Pro are the mark other SATA SSDs are measured against. Still the best choice if money is no object. Otherwise any SSD will be leagues ahead of your platter based HDD.

 

[Weaselboy]

Should i just shut up and get rid of this disk?

The real test would be to put the other known good disk back internally and see if that works to verify the internal cable if good.

 

[cloviseiji]

The real test would be to put the other known good disk back internally and see if that works to verify the internal cable if good.

Yes i did it earlier today. The other disk works when plugged internally. And the failed drive can be read as an external drive. So my SATA cable seems fine.

After doing that, i put back as initially, with the failed disk as internal. I then went back to internet recovery and disk utility to verify again, and this time it said that the volume needed to be fixed. Shortly after, the repair failed. So i'm very confused about the status of this disk/volume.

(I know, instead of all this i could use the working disk as my new internal but since i was using it only as a backup drive, i replaced all the apps by apps supported by ElCapitan, whereas the OS on the disk is Maverick so it cannot open any apps when used as the boot drive).

 

[Weaselboy]

After doing that, i put back as initially, with the failed disk as internal. I then went back to internet recovery and disk utility to verify again, and this time it said that the volume needed to be fixed. Shortly after, the repair failed. So i'm very confused about the status of this disk/volume.

That disk is a goner. I'd toss it and replace.

 

[Fishrrman]

MRxRobot wrote:
"Yup, the 850 Evo and Pro are the mark other SATA SSDs are measured against."

Then why -- when I see folks having problems with SSDs -- is it usually a -Samsung- SSD with which they're having problems?

OP:
Take the bad SSD out, set it aside, get things working again using other drives.

Once things are working, connect the problem SSD and try to reinitialize it.

Does it re-initialize quickly and cleanly?
If so, run Disk Utility's "repair disk" function on it.
Do you get a good report?
If so, REPEAT the repair disk function 5 or 6 more times.
Do you get a good report each and every time?

If so, I'd use the drive for non-critical storage.

 

[cloviseiji]

OP:
Take the bad SSD out, set it aside, get things working again using other drives.

Once things are working, connect the problem SSD and try to reinitialize it.

Does it re-initialize quickly and cleanly?
If so, run Disk Utility's "repair disk" function on it.
Do you get a good report?
If so, REPEAT the repair disk function 5 or 6 more times.
Do you get a good report each and every time?

If so, I'd use the drive for non-critical storage.

Well the first disk verification i did was saying the volume was ok. But i did 2 others and now it cannot verify until the end nor repair until the end..

I bought a Samsung 850 Evo SSD, plugged it in as an external and am currently trying to format it but it doesn't show up in disk utility (internet recovery mode).

I'm lost again.

 

[cloviseiji]

Managed to format it and did the GUID partition, loaded Yosemite on it. But cannot do much, i get the spinning wheel for every move i make, it can take up to 2min to get back to a state where i can do one click..
I put the SSD back as external and tried to boot from there but the laptop shuts down in the middle of the loading screen.

I am trying to fix it myself as I am in a very remote area of Indonesia and don't want to be ripped off in small repair shops (or parts being replaced by cheap sh**).

 

[Fishrrman]

Clovise --

Use the following terminal command to disable Spotlight indexing:
sudo mdutil -a -i off

Then see if things don't speed up somewhat...

 

[cloviseiji]

Clovise --

Use the following terminal command to disable Spotlight indexing:
sudo mdutil -a -i off

Then see if things don't speed up somewhat...

My answers are a bit messy as I am always moving one step forward and then 10 steps backwards.. Sorry about that.

So the ssd was very slow with Yosemite booted on, I have spent the day yesterday to boot macOS Sierra and no problem of slow speed or spinning wheel anymore. I installed the SSD internally in the evening and it worked fine, I restarted the system 2 or 3 times to see if it booted correctly and everything could finally be over and it was ok. I shut down the macbook and left it alone for 1 hour or so. Then when i turned it on, again the internal SSD couldn't be booted (white screen, restart with "option" shows no disk to select...and yet the disk appears fine in Disk Utility and both disk and volume "appear to be OK").

I have installed my SSD externally and a working HDD internally and the HDD boots fine...
But I want the SSD as internal boot disk.
As I previously mentioned I am living in a remote area (quite incredible I could manage to get my hands on the SSD), so I prefer to make sure before ordering a new SATA cable (and if that is the only option, then how can I find a SATA that would work with this SSD? The current SATA I have was ordered and installed just one year ago....).