Cannot format MacBook Air SSD, stuck at waiting for disks to reappear

Question

I have a Macbook Air with 128GB SSD and 4GB RAM with OS X Mavericks. I was using my Mac normally but suddenly Chrome got stuck. So I held down the power button and force-shut down the Mac.

When I switched my Mac on again, it won't start. I tried to repair my SSD using Disk Utility from Recovery Partition, but it says something is wrong with my Partition Map and that I have to erase and reinstall OS X. But I cannot erase my SSD. The progress bar gets stuck at 50%.

When I used command line diskutil eraseDisk, it shows "Waiting for disks to reappear" and is stuck at 50%.

Is it a problem with my SSD. If yes, will I be eligible for Warranty?

Answer 1

It is completely possible that the SSD is toast. It is also possible that Disk Utility just can't fix it. There are other disk repair utilities out there like DiskWarrior, Drive Genius and the like.

If you don't have one, you should. you won't use it often but will be glad you have it when stuff like this happens.

Failing that and assuming that you already have a backup you can boot to the recovery partition and use disk utility to remove the current partition and reformat a new one. Then use internet recovery to re-install the OS.

If Disk Utility won't format/re-partition the SSD then the drive is likely toast and you should make an appointment with an Apple Genius to have it repaired.

Answer 2

I had the same "waiting for disk to reappear". it was the Hard Disk cable. it's easy to replace, once you take the HD out. Cable cost around $40 on ebay.

Answer 3

Apple laptops need Trim support for the SSD to work - however this should not be a problem if that hard drive is the original drive that shipped with it. However if it's in warranty you might as well have Apple fix it - a new hard drive is always nice. To check go to https://checkcoverage.apple.com/ and put in your Serial Number which can be found under the Apple logo in the top left and pick About this Mac

Answer 4

Power on your Mac, then hold down the Command (⌘) – Option (⌥) – R combination immediately upon hearing the startup chime.

Hold the keys until the animated globe appears on the screen. “Starting Internet Recovery,” the message reads. ”This may take a while.” Internet Recovery will download a fresh recovery to your RAM then run that so that your hard drive is completely unrelated to the process.

Repartition the disk from Internet Recovery and then format and install as normal. This will delete your recovery and files and reset your mac to a fresh install. Sorry there is no alternative without another drive handy.

I'm pretty sure your standard recovery would not work without a working SSD, so your partition map is probably the reason a reformat doesn't work. This should load directly over the internet and may need you to login to the App Store and WiFi during startup. It will allow you to reformat your entire SSD, deleting all data on it and starting again to ensure any corruption is eliminated.

If your drive is faulty, you will probably encounter the same thing again, but this can happen due to improper shutdown or shock.