Windows keeps asking me to format my SSD

[Guest]

For context: I recently replaced the built-in SSD in my MacBookPro11,5 with an aftermarket one. The aftermarket kit came with an enclosure ("Envoy Pro") to put my Apple factory SSD in. It worked fine for transferring the data to my new SSD (via the dd command).

 

However, whenever I try to format this 500GB drive as ExFAT, it doesn't seem to stick. If I unplug it and plug it back in, all is lost. Windows forgets the drive had a filesystem on it, it shows up as "Local Disk", and Windows keeps popping up dialogs telling me to format the disk before I can use it. I've tried formatting it via Windows Explorer (both quick format and not), formatting it via MiniTool Partition Wizard, formatting it via Disk Management, etc...

 

Obviously this is not sustainable for a storage drive. How do I solve this problem?

[RageTester]

Maybe it's supported in read only...  won't let you modify the drive if it's been formatted previously by an older mac OS.

To be safe format as exFAT, but do so from windows.

 

Quote

Not compatible with older operating systems. You must have Mac OS X 10.6.5 or newer, and PCs need to be Windows Vista SP1, Windows 7, or newer.

 

[Guest]

45 minutes ago, yaboistar said:

could this be some kind of apple fuckery stopping the drive from being used outside of an apple device? honestly it's really not off the cards for them all things considered

I don't think so. The drive says it ONLY supports Apple SSDs, and not other SSDs (doesn't even work with the aftermarket SSD), so clearly it includes the apple fuckery in order to work correctly.

41 minutes ago, RageTester said:

Maybe it's supported in read only...  won't let you modify the drive if it's been formatted previously by an older mac OS.

To be safe format as exFAT, but do so from windows.

 

 

I'm booted into Windows right now. I also cleared the drive with zeroes using MiniTool Partition Wizard before trying any of this.

 

I've tried many different methods of formatting. Have you read the post?

56 minutes ago, LoganDark said:

I've tried formatting it via Windows Explorer (both quick format and not), formatting it via MiniTool Partition Wizard, formatting it via Disk Management

All of these are Windows-exclusive tools.

 

And this is not read only. Read only doesn't tell you to format the drive. Read only lets me see the files that were previously put on there but this is what I get instead.

 

 

I can format it, and it works... but only until I unplug it. Then if I plug it back in, Windows tells me I need to format it again.

[RageTester]

Are you using safe removal? Else you might have corrupted files or maybe it's USB port to blame, have you tried another?

[Guest]

Just now, RageTester said:

Are you using safe removal? Else you might have corrupted files or maybe it's USB port to blame, have you tried another?

Disconnecting a drive shouldn't corrupt anything if there is no activity and all buffers have been flushed. But safe removal does have the same result.

 

Maybe it's the USB hub, I'll try without one.

[Guest]

USB hub has no effect. This happens connected directly to a different physical port on my laptop bypassing the hub.

[Kilrah]

Have you made an MBR or a GPT partition table with minitool? Try the other.

[RageTester]

Have you checked remaining life of your old SSD? 500GB ain't small, but if that was your only drive, you might have killed it...

I use Open Hardware Monitor on windows for it.

[Kilrah]

1 hour ago, yaboistar said:

could this be some kind of apple fuckery stopping the drive from being used outside of an apple device? honestly it's really not off the cards for them all things considered

These drives use an Apple proprietary connection, they aren't m.2. So any enclosure that works with them was made specifically for the purpose.

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, RageTester said:

Have you checked remaining life of your old SSD? 500GB ain't small, but if that was your only drive, you might have killed it...

It was my only drive, and it has seen constant, daily usage since I got my computer in 2016 - has never been replaced, since it's not soldered to the board...

 

Simply having the external enclosure connected to my computer makes everything freeze and die, my laptop won't even boot if I have it connected because the boot manager gets stuck trying to figure out if it has any bootable volumes.

 

MiniTool just took about 30 seconds to a minute to simply identify that this disk existed. (As in, I connected it, and it says 'Refreshing' for 30 seconds) It correctly identified the lone partition as exFAT, but couldn't read the label and said that 3.75 GB was used, even though I hadn't copied any files to it.

 

When I converted to MBR, Windows once again popped up a dialog asking me to format the disk. Seems like it still wasn't recognized, ooookay. Formatted again using Explorer, copied a zip file to it, it was blazing fast. Disconnected it and reconnected it... now I got this.

 

 

It recognizes the label and I have an option to scan it. I'll let you know the results of that.

 

[Guest]

Ok, I scanned it and it said no errors found.

 

Reconnected it, and it said there were errors again.

 

So now I'm going to use this dialog, which is different than the one in Properties for some reason.

 

(copy and paste stopped working for this post so I had to use puush)

 

Then there's this again:

Now this:

Reconnecting it to my computer shows errors again. Ugh.

[Guest]

I'm just going to fill the drive with zeros again using Partition Wizard and try formatting again.

 

At least with MBR, Windows can still read the partition, and read files that I put there before I reconnected it.

[Guest]

Filling the drive with zeroes and reformatting using Partition Wizard caused Windows to start asking me to format it again (Windows read the Partition Wizard-created partition fine before I reconnected it). I'm really confused, dunno what's going on...

 

I'll wait for someone else to voice their input on this.

[Kilrah]

"There's a problem with this drive" is typical of not using the proper "eject" command. 

Since this drive wasn't meant to be used any other than internally it might have cache flushing methods that cause it to misbehave if you don't properly eject.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

"There's a problem with this drive" is typical of not using the proper "eject" command. 

Since this drive wasn't meant to be used any other than internally it might have cache flushing methods that cause it to misbehave if you don't properly eject.

Yes and I did properly eject and it didn't do anything. Sorry if that wasn't more clear.

 

Same result. I doubt this disk has any weird cache flushing methods that we need to worry about.

[A.Hruskach]

Try using the CLEAN command with DISKPART in CMD. this usually wipes the entire disk... Data, partitions, every little thing. Just create a new partition afterwords and format it as exFAT.

[Programmer Frank]

If you want to take all data out, use a software called "R-Studio", it can take all your data back. 

If the data weren't important, you can format the entire disk.

Open Command Prompt.

Enter these commands:

diskpart

list disk

Then select your disk, e.g. my disk is Disk 1.

select disk 1

Then clean.

clean

Create partition.

create partition primary

Format.

format fs=ntfs label=SSD quick

 

Then you'd see your drive.

If that didn't work.

Open Disk Management, right click the partition, assign a drive letter.

 

 

If that still didn't work, you can low format it.

[Guest]

On 3/11/2020 at 9:48 PM, Programmer Frank said:

If you want to take all data out, use a software called "R-Studio", it can take all your data back. 

If the data weren't important, you can format the entire disk.

Open Command Prompt.

Enter these commands:

diskpart

list disk

Then select your disk, e.g. my disk is Disk 1.

select disk 1

Then clean.

clean

Create partition.

create partition primary

Format.

format fs=ntfs label=SSD quick

 

Then you'd see your drive.

If that didn't work.

Open Disk Management, right click the partition, assign a drive letter.

 

 

If that still didn't work, you can low format it.

That isn't the problem. I'm not trying to recover data, I'm trying to get the SSD to retain it.

[Guest]

On 3/11/2020 at 8:56 PM, A.Hruskach said:

Try using the CLEAN command with DISKPART in CMD. this usually wipes the entire disk... Data, partitions, every little thing. Just create a new partition afterwords and format it as exFAT.

I tried it, and nothing changed... disk still isn't recognized if you unplug it and plug it back in.

[Kilrah]

What happens when you connect the external drive to your mac, and create the partition there using Disk Utility?

Then unplug/replug to the mac a few times, any errors? Then same on the PC?