MacBook Pro will not mount/boot to external SSD
This is long, but it lists most things I’ve tried.
So far, I’ve only been able to upgrade to El Capitan (I don’t have access to the Sierra installer, only High Sierra). Every time I try to upgrade to High Sierra, there’s a Firmware error, which I was assuming was because the SSD was formatted to HFS_+ instead of APFS.
Well, I reformatted to APFS and it didn’t work. Both using GUID partition…
Side note: I do Not have an internal ssd in this computer. This may be the issue entirely, but figured there has to be a workaround somehow?? Don’t really feel like shelling out the cash for their almost proprietary M.2 SSD..
I’ve tried most of the routine stuff:
- Reset NVRAM
- Reset SMC
- Repair disk
- First-aid
- Unmount & re-mount Disk
- Reformat ssd to APFS
- Reformat ssd to HFS+
- … None of those have worked.
Borrowed a newer Macbook Pro (2017), which has an internal ssd (with High Sierra installed), and was able to completely upgrade the external ssd to OS X Mojave AND migrate my old time machine backup to the ssd. This worked like a charm!
Well check this out - plugged the ssd into my late 2013 Macbook pro - it didn’t even see the drive as bootable... This is regardless of whether the ssd is formatted to APFS or HFS+ using GUID partition…
On to the firmware:
The EFI partition shows up in terminal when using the “diskutil list” command.
I’m to the point of wanting to go ahead and apply a firmware update via terminal. I’ve done plenty of firmware updates on Windows based computers, but never a Mac product, so I’m not sure if they’re as stable (as a Windows firmware update) when done manually.
Hopefully we can fix this issue!
Thanks!
Questa è una buona domanda?
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2 Commenti
Where is the original SSD you had in the system?
da Dan
It was a used purchase with no internal SSD.
da Anthony Arreola