I’ve got a 2017 MacBook Pro with touchbar. The hard drive has gone bad. Was spit balling options on how to handle it as I would still like to use the machine. Has anyone run one of these machines using an external USB or thunderbolt 3 drive as their primary drive with a bad internal drive? Are there other options maybe I’m not considering? I’m happy to try to replace the logic board myself but I’m not seeing any for a reasonable price on eBay or elsewhere but maybe I could look a little further.
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What to do with 2017 MacBook Pro Bad SSD
- Thread starter Grubster
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Right, I have a A1708 as well with removable SSD. This unit seems to be fully functional, passes apple's hardware tests when booting with "D" for diagnostic, so thought, how will it run if I just plug in small external SSD? I would have a really cheap Touch Bar model MacBook Pro to use, or just sell it to someone looking to get one on the cheap, rather than scrap it\sell it for parts.
OP:
What makes you think the internal SSD has "gone bad"?
What symptoms does it present?
What results do you get if you run disk utility's "first aid" process on it?
Does the MBP that you have, have a t1 or t2 chip in it?
If the answer is, "yes", then...
... don't I recall reading that if the drive itself fails, a t1/t2 Mac won't boot at all?
Not even from a good external drive? (or is this a problem only on m-series Macs?)
(others, please jump in and correct me).
What makes you think the internal SSD has "gone bad"?
What symptoms does it present?
What results do you get if you run disk utility's "first aid" process on it?
Does the MBP that you have, have a t1 or t2 chip in it?
If the answer is, "yes", then...
... don't I recall reading that if the drive itself fails, a t1/t2 Mac won't boot at all?
Not even from a good external drive? (or is this a problem only on m-series Macs?)
(others, please jump in and correct me).
Appreciate the help, I got it fixed. turns out when I was erasing the drive, I was only erasing the "Volume" When I erased the Top Level "Apple SSD" it rebuilt and then did internet recovery and I'm back in business. I had tried first building off a USB Monterey installer and then First Aid kept telling me something was wrong with the disk. I think I might have had the wrong version of monterey or maybe the firmware of the laptop wasn't at the right level against the version of Monterey I had. Internet recovery and install fixed it all after properly erasing the SSD.
That being said, I got a really good deal on this laptop, the seller thought was Broken, was only 150!
That being said, I got a really good deal on this laptop, the seller thought was Broken, was only 150!
