MacBook Pro internal drive possibly just died, please help!

[mjones92]

Hi all,

Basically think my hard drive may have died but need some help diagnosing what happened and how I can resolve it (mainly recovering the data).

It’s a MacBook Pro 15” I think it’s early or late 2013, retina screen. With an internal 500gb SSD. I’ve had boot camp installed with windows and Mac OS with no issues until now. I have Catalina installed on Mac and windows 10 on the other partition. I only use windows on the odd occasion.

Anyway, opened my computer (was using Mac OS as I normally would) back up after it was sleeping and it sort of bugged out and froze a bit. I turned it off and then when it came back on it didn’t boot Mac OS and then tried to boot windows which just appeared with a black screen and flashing underscore in the corner.


I’ve then tried to select the disk on start up and only ‘bootcamp’ is there.

Then I used command+R to start the recovering thing which it went straight into network recovery, I downloaded that and then used disk utility to try to repair the disk. On the left side where the disks are, it just says ‘disk0s2’ (which would be the main disk I imagine) and then ‘bootcamp’. The disk0s2 is greyed out. I tried to select the drive at the top level and verify/repair the disk but just comes up with an error saying: some information was unavailable during an internal lookup. It also won’t let me mount ‘disk0s2’, the mount button does nothing.

I then tried using the reinstall OS X function on the recovery menu bit but when it gets to the bit where you select a drive to choose to install the OS on it only shows the ‘bootcamp’ drive which it says I cant install it on and it’s locked anyway.

It just looks like the hard drive or partition has unmounted and I cant access it or reinstall it.

Pretty sad at this point as not sure what to do I don’t know if there is still data on the Mac OS partition or not.

I’d really like to be able to recover the data, would data recovery software help this? Or is there any other advise or steps I can take?

Please let me know, would be a massive help.

Thanks all!

 

[cmaier]

Hi all,

Basically think my hard drive may have died but need some help diagnosing what happened and how I can resolve it (mainly recovering the data).

It’s a MacBook Pro 15” I think it’s early or late 2013, retina screen. With an internal 500gb SSD. I’ve had boot camp installed with windows and Mac OS with no issues until now. I have Catalina installed on Mac and windows 10 on the other partition. I only use windows on the odd occasion.

Anyway, opened my computer (was using Mac OS as I normally would) back up after it was sleeping and it sort of bugged out and froze a bit. I turned it off and then when it came back on it didn’t boot Mac OS and then tried to boot windows which just appeared with a black screen and flashing underscore in the corner.


I’ve then tried to select the disk on start up and only ‘bootcamp’ is there.

Then I used command+R to start the recovering thing which it went straight into network recovery, I downloaded that and then used disk utility to try to repair the disk. On the left side where the disks are, it just says ‘disk0s2’ (which would be the main disk I imagine) and then ‘bootcamp’. The disk0s2 is greyed out. I tried to select the drive at the top level and verify/repair the disk but just comes up with an error saying: some information was unavailable during an internal lookup. It also won’t let me mount ‘disk0s2’, the mount button does nothing.

I then tried using the reinstall OS X function on the recovery menu bit but when it gets to the bit where you select a drive to choose to install the OS on it only shows the ‘bootcamp’ drive which it says I cant install it on and it’s locked anyway.

It just looks like the hard drive or partition has unmounted and I cant access it or reinstall it.

Pretty sad at this point as not sure what to do I don’t know if there is still data on the Mac OS partition or not.

I’d really like to be able to recover the data, would data recovery software help this? Or is there any other advise or steps I can take?

Please let me know, would be a massive help.

Thanks all!

Your best bet is probably to remove the ssd and stick it in an enclosure plugged into a working computer, and see whether you can recover the data that way.

 

[mjones92]

Your best bet is probably to remove the ssd and stick it in an enclosure plugged into a working computer, and see whether you can recover the data that way.

Thanks for the reply.

Do you think it would be possible to boot the Mac off a USB drive or something and access the internal drive like that? Or would I still have the same issue?

Also if I were to take the MacBook apart and get the SSD out, would a normal SSD caddy work because I’ve looked online for tutorials and the SSD element just looks like a chip/board as opposed to a cased hard drive element. Just not sure if the SSD chip/board section would plug straight into a standard SSD caddy?

 

[mjones92]

Ahhh guess I’d need a smaller caddy like the image attached.

Does anyone know what type connector the SSD chip is? So I can buy the right caddy.

 

[mjones92]

So think I need to know what this connector is, then will get a caddy to fit it.

Think it might be PCI-e?

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:
The internal drive probably is not "dead".
However, it could have gotten messed up because of the bootcamp partition, and has somehow gotten "stuck" into booting only into bootcamp.

I have a solution that may get you going again, and it may not cost you anything.

First... do you have around:
- a USB flash drive 32gb or larger
or
- a USB hard drive
???

If so, I would suggest this:
1. Try booting to INTERNET recovery (command-OPTION-R at boot)
2. Get to the internet utilities.
3. Connect the external USB drive
4. Open Disk Utility
5. Go to the view menu and choose "show all devices" (VERY important)
6. Use Disk Utility to ERASE the USB drive to APFS, GUID partition format
7. Close DU and open the OS installer
8. Begin clicking through... BUT... when the installer asks WHERE you wish to install...
9. Choose the external USB drive (NOT the internal drive).
10. See if you can get a copy of the OS installed to the EXTERNAL drive.
11. If this is successful, create a simple account (username and password is ALL YOU NEED, don't bother with the other stuff).

Now what you need to do is go to finder preferences and make hard drives and external drives visible in the finder.

Now... can you "see" the INTERNAL drive on the desktop?
If you open the icon and browse around, can you SEE the Mac partition on it?
If you can see it, you can probably "get your files off of it" by copying them to either the external USB drive (the one you're booted from), or, to another external drive.

The idea here is to get booted, then "get your files" to a safe harbor.
Once this is done, you can "attack" the internal drive.
That is, ERASE it completely and start over.

By the way, I would not use bootcamp again.
Using it "got you to where you are now"...

 

[Audit13]

Remember, the early 2013 and late 2013 do not use the same SSD.

 

[posguy99]

I’d really like to be able to recover the data, would data recovery software help this? Or is there any other advise or steps I can take?

How old is your backup?

 

[mjones92]

OP:
The internal drive probably is not "dead".
However, it could have gotten messed up because of the bootcamp partition, and has somehow gotten "stuck" into booting only into bootcamp.

I have a solution that may get you going again, and it may not cost you anything.

First... do you have around:
- a USB flash drive 32gb or larger
or
- a USB hard drive
???

If so, I would suggest this:
1. Try booting to INTERNET recovery (command-OPTION-R at boot)
2. Get to the internet utilities.
3. Connect the external USB drive
4. Open Disk Utility
5. Go to the view menu and choose "show all devices" (VERY important)
6. Use Disk Utility to ERASE the USB drive to APFS, GUID partition format
7. Close DU and open the OS installer
8. Begin clicking through... BUT... when the installer asks WHERE you wish to install...
9. Choose the external USB drive (NOT the internal drive).
10. See if you can get a copy of the OS installed to the EXTERNAL drive.
11. If this is successful, create a simple account (username and password is ALL YOU NEED, don't bother with the other stuff).

Now what you need to do is go to finder preferences and make hard drives and external drives visible in the finder.

Now... can you "see" the INTERNAL drive on the desktop?
If you open the icon and browse around, can you SEE the Mac partition on it?
If you can see it, you can probably "get your files off of it" by copying them to either the external USB drive (the one you're booted from), or, to another external drive.

The idea here is to get booted, then "get your files" to a safe harbor.
Once this is done, you can "attack" the internal drive.
That is, ERASE it completely and start over.

By the way, I would not use bootcamp again.
Using it "got you to where you are now"...

Thanks for this, I’ll give it a go. Not sure I have a 32gb one laying about but I can order one if not. Pretty sure I have a 16GB one but guess this won’t be big enough to install the OS on?
[automerge]1597246966[/automerge]

Remember, the early 2013 and late 2013 do not use the same SSD.

Okay I’ll be sure to check the model before ordering a SSD caddy to ensure it has the correct connection, thank you!

 

[mjones92]

How old is your backup?

So I don’t actually have a back up of the OS, when I say recover the files I was hoping to be able to access the HD and extract some files out. This is what I thought some file/data recovery software might be able to do if I can’t do it manually?

 

[posguy99]

So I don’t actually have a back up of the OS, when I say recover the files I was hoping to be able to access the HD and extract some files out. This is what I thought some file/data recovery software might be able to do if I can’t do it manually?

Backing up the OS is irrelevant. If your data is important, it's backed up. How old is THAT backup? You have to balance that with how hard it would be to get this drive back.

 

[mjones92]

Backing up the OS is irrelevant. If your data is important, it's backed up. How old is THAT backup? You have to balance that with how hard it would be to get this drive back.

So I have lots of my files backed up on an external hard drive but some more recent files I hadn’t backed up, which I know is foolish but I’d prefer to get the files back than redo the work which will take a lot of time.

The memory stick I had with me wasn’t sufficient memory to load the OS onto from the recovery mode/utility. I’ll have to get a larger external drive and try what was mentioned previously and see if that works.

 

[benshive]

I had an issue once using bootcamp where something similar happened. macOS disappeared from the boot menu and I could only boot into Windows. Tried everything (I thought it was a bad drive too) including reaching out to Apple's support when I was out of ideas and I ended up having to wipe the entire thing using disk utility in recovery and install macOS fresh. The drive was fine but I lost everything (learned my lesson on keeping a backup). Not saying the same thing happened here but worth considering. Hopefully you can at least get the files.

 

[posguy99]

So I have lots of my files backed up on an external hard drive but some more recent files I hadn’t backed up, which I know is foolish but I’d prefer to get the files back than redo the work which will take a lot of time.

A backup solution should not require manual intervention. After you are done with this, set up regular backups.

 

[brainkilla]

It might be that your partition table got borked... there are a couple of great tutorials out there, easily found with Google, that could help you fix the issue without losing data.

 

[Fishrrman]

Again... "the key" may be using an EXTERNAL drive to boot the MacBook, and then try to access the internal drive that way.

This is why a BOOTABLE CLONED BACKUP of one's main drive is the most important "repair tool" a Mac user can have.

 

[mjones92]

OP:
The internal drive probably is not "dead".
However, it could have gotten messed up because of the bootcamp partition, and has somehow gotten "stuck" into booting only into bootcamp.

I have a solution that may get you going again, and it may not cost you anything.

First... do you have around:
- a USB flash drive 32gb or larger
or
- a USB hard drive
???

If so, I would suggest this:
1. Try booting to INTERNET recovery (command-OPTION-R at boot)
2. Get to the internet utilities.
3. Connect the external USB drive
4. Open Disk Utility
5. Go to the view menu and choose "show all devices" (VERY important)
6. Use Disk Utility to ERASE the USB drive to APFS, GUID partition format
7. Close DU and open the OS installer
8. Begin clicking through... BUT... when the installer asks WHERE you wish to install...
9. Choose the external USB drive (NOT the internal drive).
10. See if you can get a copy of the OS installed to the EXTERNAL drive.
11. If this is successful, create a simple account (username and password is ALL YOU NEED, don't bother with the other stuff).

Now what you need to do is go to finder preferences and make hard drives and external drives visible in the finder.

Now... can you "see" the INTERNAL drive on the desktop?
If you open the icon and browse around, can you SEE the Mac partition on it?
If you can see it, you can probably "get your files off of it" by copying them to either the external USB drive (the one you're booted from), or, to another external drive.

The idea here is to get booted, then "get your files" to a safe harbor.
Once this is done, you can "attack" the internal drive.
That is, ERASE it completely and start over.

By the way, I would not use bootcamp again.
Using it "got you to where you are now"...

So I tried this method and ordered a 32gb memory stick, all installed the OS fine but the hard drive isn’t appearing in finder. I can see the ‘bootcamp’ drive/partition but not Macintosh HD.

Would it be worth trying to get some data recovery software whilst running the operating system off the memory stick to try remount and access the drive?

Obviously I don’t want to mess it up further but I know some programs are effective.

Does anyone have any recommendations on which to use as there is loads out there?

 

[mjones92]

It might be that your partition table got borked... there are a couple of great tutorials out there, easily found with Google, that could help you fix the issue without losing data.

Would this be something I’d have to fix within the OS which I have running off the memory stick?

I’ve had a quick look into it but will keep reading up on it. Is this like a last resort as think I read it could jeopardise getting the data if it doesn’t work?

 

[Fishrrman]

"So I tried this method and ordered a 32gb memory stick, all installed the OS fine but the hard drive isn’t appearing in finder. I can see the ‘bootcamp’ drive/partition but not Macintosh HD."

So you ARE able to boot "from the USB flash drive/memory stick", is this correct?

And... when you get the MBP booted you cannot "see" the internal drive?

Questions:
- Do you see an icon for the internal drive on the desktop?
- If not, did you:
a. click on the desktop to bring finder to the front
b. open finder preferences
c. put checkmarks into "hard disks" and "external disks"
???

(You probably did this already, but I mentioned it in case you didn't.)

If you see an icon that represents the internal drive, do this:
1. open it to "the first level"
2. take a screenshot (command-shift-4, then draw a selection rectangle over it and let go of the pointer).
3. Post what you see here so WE can see it.