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Late 2009 27" iMac not installing on and booting from Samsung 860 EVO

M

Maxx1987

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 13, 2015
20
3
Hi,

Recently I bought an Samsung 860 EVO 1TB SSD as a replacement for a 2TB HDD in a late 2009 27" iMac pro.

The iMac was running OSX 10.10 Yosemite so was behind on firmware updates to run 10.12 High Sierra.
So I first upgraded the iMac to High Sierra and then replaced the HDD with the SSD.

When booting from a bootable High Sierra USB drive the installer recognises the SSD and I can format the drive in APFS or HFS+. To be sure I formatted the drive in HFS+ and started the installation. When the first part is finished the iMac reboots and then it shows the prohibitory sign and finally boots back into the High Sierra USB drive.

I tried installing High Sierra, Sierra, El Capitan and Yosemite, but all installations show some kind of error or don't continue the installation after rebooting.

I also tried cloning the original drive with Carbon Copy Cloner to the SSD but that also didn't help.

When connecting the SSD via a USB enclosure there is no problem installing, booting and using High Sierra or whatsoever.
Even swapping the original HDD with a different HDD any installation works, but when the SSD is installed no version of MacOS is installable.

Does anybody know why the 860 EVO doesn't work and the installation won't work as well?
Do I need to swap the SATA cable or is something else going on?

Thanks in advance!
 
If you still have the os installed on the 860, boot into it and run verbose mode by pressing cmd+v as soon as it starts loading. The normal grey boot screen will be replaced with white on black scrolling text with everything the system is doing in the background (it’s typically a lot of text depending on how far it gets in the boot process). When you would normally get to the prohibitory sign, the text will stop and the last line or two will tell you why it won’t go any further. Sometimes the message pretty much spells it out, sometimes it cryptic and warrants further investigation.
 
Thanks for the reply's!

@faraway52
CCC says it is bootable yes.

@jwhazel
Tried the Safe Boot and Verbose as well, the messages I got where:

Recovery Image verification fail with status [0xB000000000006] when trying to install Sierra or High Sierra

and after using CCC I got:

Error loading kernel cache (0x6), tried to fix this but didn't help.
 
I’m afraid none of those errors jump out at me. Can you verify the system clock is set? I’ve had the installer fail cryptically before due to this.
 
jwhazel said:
I’m afraid none of those errors jump out at me. Can you verify the system clock is set? I’ve had the installer fail cryptically before due to this.
Click to expand...

I don’t know how to set the system clock, but I think it is set correctly since installing a new HDD is no problem, as mentioned in my initial post. Only the SSD doesn’t install or boot.
 
I can only share my experience with my 27" late 2009 2.8 i7 iMac. I shortly after bought a 640GB Intel 320 sata2 ssd and it was running perfectly. Then at one point I had an extra 512GB sata 3 lying around (think it was a Crusial M4 512GB). I replaced the dvd with an optical drive caddy. I got it up and running, but after a few days it became unstable. I tried switching drives, but it didn't help. It got worse till it wouldn't even boot. I tried with just the 512GB at the harddrive location and it still didn't work. It wasn't until I dropped the 512GB and put the Intel ssd back, that everything went back to normal and ever since, I haven't messed with it (though the the intel drive has 8mb error, which has erased everything about 4-5times). Instead I put the 512 into a core 2 2.4GHz macbook pro 13" and it has worked perfect ever since. That macbook is only Sata and the iMac Sata2, but a sata3 drive should be backward compatible with both sata and sata2). I am not sure what the problem is, but in my limited experience, the iMac was more sensitive.
 
Maxx1987 said:
I don’t know how to set the system clock, but I think it is set correctly since installing a new HDD is no problem, as mentioned in my initial post. Only the SSD doesn’t install or boot.
Click to expand...
Then I would say there is something wrong with the SSD. If you have access to a PC, you can try updating the firmware and/or doing a secure erase via Magician. But if that doesn't work, I'd return the drive.
 
@Significant1, Thanks for sharing! I have installed Samsung drives regularly in iMacs and they always worked, this is the 1st time that it doesn't work.

@jwhazel, I've put the SSD in my Mac Pro and booted into Windows. The Magician software says the firmware is up-to-date and a secure erase of the SSD requires a bootable USB drive with the Samsung software on it :/ Also the Magician software says that everything is fine in the S.M.A.R.T. status.

@nambuccaheadsau, The Magician software also says that the drive runs at SATA 3Gb/s in my Mac Pro, so I don't think it is locked at 6Gb/s.
 
nambuccaheadsau said:
Your problem may be lack of backwards compatibity between the Samsung's 6GB/ps speed and your iMacs 3GB/ps speed.


https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/502985/iMac+2010+27"+HD+Failure+and+SSD+replacement
Click to expand...
I don't believe that. I have 860 EVO drives in my 2010 and 3 of 2009s: a late 27" and a pair of early 24".

I have recently switched to Crucial MX500s but only because they are less expensive.
[doublepost=1562464035][/doublepost]Is there a reason you didn't let it format APFS?

Let me rephrase that. It doesn't matter why you didn't allow APFS. Only during beta did you have a choice.

Do it the way Apple wants and see if you still have a problem. Boot with the HS installer. Wipe the SSD in Disk Utility, format it correctly, install High Sierra.

If it boots correctly—and it should automatically, use Migration Assistant to pull everything off your backup.

Cloning software may have uses but this is most definitely not one of them.
 
mikehalloran said:
I don't believe that. I have 860 EVO drives in my 2010 and 3 of 2009s: a late 27" and a pair of early 24".

I have recently switched to Crucial MX500s but only because they are less expensive.
[doublepost=1562464035][/doublepost]Is there a reason you didn't let it format APFS?

Let me rephrase that. It doesn't matter why you didn't allow APFS. Only during beta did you have a choice.

Do it the way Apple wants and see if you still have a problem. Boot with the HS installer. Wipe the SSD in Disk Utility, format it correctly, install High Sierra.

If it boots correctly—and it should automatically, use Migration Assistant to pull everything off your backup.

Cloning software may have uses but this is most definitely not one of them.
Click to expand...

There are two reasons I didn't format it to APFS:

1st: When I put the SSD in the iMac and booted from the USB drive installer I couldn't format it to APFS because Disk Utility didn't show APFS as an option. So I formatted the drive as HFS+ and started the installer, which didn't proceed after rebooting and the iMac booted back into the installer on the USB drive

2nd: When it booted back into the installer on the USB drive it showed APFS, but since it didn't show up earlier I just formatted it again as HFS+. Still no succes, since the installer won't continue after the first reboot and only showing the prohibitory sign.

Again the prohibitory sign only shows when the SSD is build in, any other HDD the iMac boots up, installs no problem.
When the SSD is connected through USB to the iMac it works. My Mac Pro also recognises the SSD and is functioning normally.
 
Maxx1987 said:
There are two reasons I didn't format it to APFS:

1st: When I put the SSD in the iMac and booted from the USB drive installer I couldn't format it to APFS because Disk Utility didn't show APFS as an option. So I formatted the drive as HFS+ and started the installer, which didn't proceed after rebooting and the iMac booted back into the installer on the USB drive

2nd: When it booted back into the installer on the USB drive it showed APFS, but since it didn't show up earlier I just formatted it again as HFS+. Still no succes, since the installer won't continue after the first reboot and only showing the prohibitory sign.

Again the prohibitory sign only shows when the SSD is build in, any other HDD the iMac boots up, installs no problem.
When the SSD is connected through USB to the iMac it works. My Mac Pro also recognises the SSD and is functioning normally.
Click to expand...
Since you are using High Sierra Disk Utility on the USB drive, make sure you set the Disk Utility View to "Show All Devices" then select the top level of the Samsung 860 EVO 1TB SSD (model name) to Erase, also make sure that the Partition Map is GUID and not MBR.
 
CoastalOR said:
Since you are using High Sierra Disk Utility on the USB drive, make sure you set the Disk Utility View to "Show All Devices" then select the top level of the Samsung 860 EVO 1TB SSD (model name) to Erase, also make sure that the Partition Map is GUID and not MBR.
Click to expand...

I formatted the drive on the highest level to HFS+ and APFS, but both don't work. And the partition map was GUID of course :).
 
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