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Having trouble formatting an SSD

Hackentosher
By Hackentosher
in Storage Devices
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Hello, so I have a spare samsung 840 lying around that was used in my mom's macbook pro before she spilled a glass of water across the keyboard. Now since Windows can't detect hard drives that are formatted in an OSX format, I have always resorted to grabbing my dad's macbook and my SATA to USB adaptor and formatting the drive through disk utility. However, it's not giving me that option on this drive. It seems like it can't unmount the volume that is still on the drive. So, what do? Boot and nuke?

ASU

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A functioning drive should still show up in Windows's Disk Management, whether it has or doesn't have valid or invalid partitions on it.  Can you share some more details about how it is not showing up?

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Just now, Ryan_Vickers said:

A functioning drive should still show up in Windows's Disk Management, whether it has or doesn't have valid or invalid partitions on it.  Can you share some more details about how it is not showing up?

Yeah I checked the disk manager, but it wasn't there. There was no 250gb SSD, or anything, only my existing hard drives and external storage devices were showing up. However, I can read files off of it through mac.

ASU

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3 minutes ago, Hackentosher said:

Yeah I checked the disk manager, but it wasn't there. There was no 250gb SSD, or anything, only my existing hard drives and external storage devices were showing up. However, I can read files off of it through mac.

then maybe the sata cable/port on that PC is faulty? if the drive works it will show.

Insert ram related question here: https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/1197132-setting-ram-speed-xmp-docp-for-dummies/

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1 minute ago, TrigrH said:

then maybe the sata cable/port on that PC is faulty? if the drive works it will show.

but it's not unmounting on OSX. Also disk utility has greyed out all options for formatting.

ASU

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4 minutes ago, Hackentosher said:

Yeah I checked the disk manager, but it wasn't there. There was no 250gb SSD, or anything, only my existing hard drives and external storage devices were showing up. However, I can read files off of it through mac.

I have to agree with this:

1 minute ago, TrigrH said:

then maybe the sata cable/port on that PC is faulty? if the drive works it will show.

I don't think (though I could be wrong) that it will fail to show under any circumstances, other than if it is physically dead.

Solve your own audio issues  |  First Steps with RPi 3  |  Humidity & Condensation  |  Sleep & Hibernation  |  Overclocking RAM  |  Making Backups  |  Displays  |  4K / 8K / 16K / etc.  |  Do I need 80+ Platinum?

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1 minute ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

I have to agree with this:

I don't think (though I could be wrong) that it will fail to show under any circumstances, other than if it is physically dead.

Well, I can read and write files to it from within OSX, so IDEK.

ASU

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Just now, Hackentosher said:

Well, I can read and write files to it from within OSX, so IDEK.

I would be curious to see if Ubuntu finds it.  If you could fire up a live version and plug it into that machine just to check, it would be interesting.  I would almost have to conclude against all other evidence that there is a hardware issue with that computer if Ubuntu fails to see it.

Solve your own audio issues  |  First Steps with RPi 3  |  Humidity & Condensation  |  Sleep & Hibernation  |  Overclocking RAM  |  Making Backups  |  Displays  |  4K / 8K / 16K / etc.  |  Do I need 80+ Platinum?

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1 minute ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

I would be curious to see if Ubuntu finds it.  If you could fire up a live version and plug it into that machine just to check, it would be interesting.  I would almost have to conclude against all other evidence that there is a hardware issue with that computer if Ubuntu fails to see it.

It might be the cable, it was a random one I pulled out of my drawer, but the one I'm using for the adaptor is a different cable. However, my UEFI picks up the drive.

ASU

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Just now, Hackentosher said:

It might be the cable, it was a random one I pulled out of my drawer, but the one I'm using for the adaptor is a different cable. However, my UEFI picks up the drive.

If it is showing up to the computer in the BIOS, it should show up to any competent OS.  I would try Ubuntu ;)

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2 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

If it is showing up to the computer in the BIOS, it should show up to any competent OS.  I would try Ubuntu ;)

K, but what then? Why don't I just get boot n' nuke?

ASU

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Hmm, so I just plugged in the drive via my SATA adapter and it showed up in disk manager... Not sure if the problem is the SATA port or the cable.

ASU

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2 minutes ago, Hackentosher said:

K, but what then? Why don't I just get boot n' nuke?

or that.  At this point, try whatever you want - the right tool is whatever gets the job done :)

Solve your own audio issues  |  First Steps with RPi 3  |  Humidity & Condensation  |  Sleep & Hibernation  |  Overclocking RAM  |  Making Backups  |  Displays  |  4K / 8K / 16K / etc.  |  Do I need 80+ Platinum?

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Just now, Hackentosher said:

Hmm, so I just plugged in the drive via my SATA adapter and it showed up in disk manager... Not sure if the problem is the SATA port or the cable.

It is probably one of them (or something else hardware-based).  You should now be able to format it easily.

Solve your own audio issues  |  First Steps with RPi 3  |  Humidity & Condensation  |  Sleep & Hibernation  |  Overclocking RAM  |  Making Backups  |  Displays  |  4K / 8K / 16K / etc.  |  Do I need 80+ Platinum?

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Just now, TrigrH said:

called it :P solved.

Well, not quite. I haven't plugged the drive into a SATA port with a different cable yet.

ASU

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Welp, time to throw out a SATA cable, confirmed that was the problem. Thanks guys :) 

37 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

It is probably one of them (or something else hardware-based).  You should now be able to format it easily.

35 minutes ago, TrigrH said:

called it :P solved.

ASU

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