Two days ago suddenly Apple services started to fail on my Mavericks machine. I couldn't shut down (logind - or something like that - crashed but could not be force-quit). I shut down twice from terminal. Then I wanted to repair whatever is happening from recovery mode. I don't remember the message but the next thing I know it won't boot anymore.
Now when I use the (internet recovery/DVD) disk utility I usually can't format the SSD (Samsung Evo 840). In these cases sometimes the drive disappears from the Disk Utility (also from Terminal, there's just no /dev/disk0 anymore). Restarting helps, though. Sometimes I can format but then my Time Machine hangs at deleting the disk when restoring. I also took the SSD out and did a long (not the short one) exFAT format on a windows machine. Afterwards I could format it back in the mac to HFS+, but no luck again with the Time Machine. I tried dd if=/dev/zero but still the same.
Here's what diskutil gives me right after deleting and creating a new partition with HFS+ and GUID (disk0 is the SSD, I have no idea what disk3-12 are but they are multiplying slowly but not consistently during my repair troubles):
-bash-3.2# diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *120.0 GB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS SSD 119.7 GB disk0s2
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *320.1 GB disk1
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1
2: Apple_HFS Intern 319.7 GB disk1s2
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_partition_scheme *1.4 GB disk2
1: Apple_partition_map 30.7 KB disk2s1
2: Apple_Driver_ATAPI 2.0 KB disk2s2
3: Apple_HFS Mac OS X Base System 1.4 GB disk2s3
/dev/disk3
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk3
/dev/disk4
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk4
/dev/disk5
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk5
/dev/disk6
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk6
/dev/disk7
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk7
/dev/disk8
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *6.3 MB disk8
/dev/disk9
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *2.1 MB disk9
/dev/disk10
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *1.0 MB disk10
/dev/disk11
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk11
/dev/disk12
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk12
/dev/disk13
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *1.0 MB disk13
-bash-3.2# diskutil info disk0
Device Identifier: disk0
Device Node: /dev/disk0
Part of Whole: disk0
Device / Media Name: Samsung SSD 840 EVO 120GB Media
Volume Name: Not applicable (no file system)
Mounted: Not applicable (no file system)
File System: None
Content (IOContent): GUID_partition_scheme
OS Can Be Installed: No
Media Type: Generic
Protocol: SATA
SMART Status: Verified
Total Size: 120.0 GB (120034123776 Bytes) (exactly 234441648 512-Byte-Blocks)
Volume Free Space: Not applicable (no file system)
Device Block Size: 512 Bytes
Read-Only Media: No
Read-Only Volume: Not applicable (no file system)
Ejectable: No
Whole: Yes
Internal: Yes
Solid State: Yes
OS 9 Drivers: No
Low Level Format: Not supported
-bash-3.2# diskutil info disk0s2
Device Identifier: disk0s2
Device Node: /dev/disk0s2
Part of Whole: disk0
Device / Media Name: SSD
Volume Name: SSD
Escaped with Unicode: SSD
Mounted: Yes
Mount Point: /Volumes/SSD
Escaped with Unicode: /Volumes/SSD
File System Personality: Journaled HFS+
Type (Bundle): hfs
Name (User Visible): Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Journal: Journal size 16384 KB at offset 0x37e000
Owners: Enabled
Partition Type: Apple_HFS
OS Can Be Installed: Yes
Media Type: Generic
Protocol: SATA
SMART Status: Verified
Volume UUID: 4F94E657-2B64-39BE-9762-0B6DCA8189B3
Total Size: 119.7 GB (119690149888 Bytes) (exactly 233769824 512-Byte-Blocks)
Volume Free Space: 119.5 GB (119468380160 Bytes) (exactly 233336680 512-Byte-Blocks)
Device Block Size: 512 Bytes
Read-Only Media: No
Read-Only Volume: No
Ejectable: No
Whole: No
Internal: Yes
Solid State: Yes
-bash-3.2# diskutil info disk12
Device Identifier: disk12
Device Node: /dev/disk12
Part of Whole: disk12
Device / Media Name: Apple disk image Media
Volume Name: untitled
Escaped with Unicode: untitled
Mounted: Yes
Mount Point: /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration
Escaped with Unicode: /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration
File System Personality: HFS+
Type (Bundle): hfs
Name (User Visible): Mac OS Extended
Owners: Enabled
Content (IOContent): None
OS Can Be Installed: No
Media Type: Generic
Protocol: Disk Image
SMART Status: Not Supported
Volume UUID: 9B741394-5571-3C19-9256-98FEDB96157F
System Image: Yes
Total Size: 524.3 KB (524288 Bytes) (exactly 1024 512-Byte-Blocks)
Volume Free Space: 360.4 KB (360448 Bytes) (exactly 704 512-Byte-Blocks)
Device Block Size: 512 Bytes
Read-Only Media: No
Read-Only Volume: No
Ejectable: Yes
Whole: Yes
Internal: No
OS 9 Drivers: No
Low Level Format: Not supported
Can anyone help me figure out how to properly format the disk (and what to do with the disk4-13?)
mountcommand in recovery mode you can see it.