Solid State Not Recognized

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Hi All,

I'm a long-time Mac user, but recently got my first Apple laptop. I picked up a (thrashed but totally working) Macbook 13" 2.16GHZ from eBay. I think this is a mid-2007 model.

I have a spare Samsung SATA solid state drive from one of my Windows laptops and I'd really like to use it in the Macbook. Unfortunately, it isn't recognized whether I use an external USB/SATA carriage or inside the Macbook.

I double-checked it with two Windows systems and it's just fine, but none of my Macs will recognize the darned thing. It doesn't show up in Disk Utility or in the System Profiler.

Has anyone had this problem or have ay suggestions?

Many thanks
 

chscag

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What file format is the SSD using? If it's NTFS, you may have to wipe it first with Disk Manager before it will be recognized by the Mac. You might try that if there's no data on the drive you wish to save. If it's still not recognized, it may just be incompatible.

One more suggestion: If the drive is encrypted or locked (using NTFS) it won't be "seen" by OS X. Remove all encryption first if that's the case.

Regards.
 
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Hi there, thanks for your reply.

Well, the drive does have an NTFS partition on it, but it's definitely not encrypted. Disk Utility does not see the drive, otherwise, I'd just erase and repartition with GUID and Mac OS Ext filesystem and be done with it.

Is it possible for a disk drive to simply be incompatible with a Mac? Seems odd.

Cheers
 
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Someone (who I think is knowledgeable) told me not all SSDs will work with a Mac. They are still too spendy for me so I haven't researched it.
 

chscag

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Is it possible for a disk drive to simply be incompatible with a Mac? Seems odd.

There have been reports of some SSD drives not working in a Mac but were OK when used in a PC. Seems odd to me also. However, since you tried to use the drive internally and from a carrier and it's not recognized but works fine in your PC, it does look like that drive may not be compatible.

Regards.
 

cwa107


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Which model SSD is it?
 
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The SSD is a Samsung MCC0E64G8MPP-0VA. It also has an OEM Lenovo part number, but the Samsung seems to be a common model among different laptop manufacturers.

It's a 1.8" mini SATA connector, so I'm using it in the 1.8-2.5 carriage. That wouldn't make much of a difference, would it? It looks to me like it just changes the connector style to the 2.5" standard.

Thanks to all for your thoughts on this.
 

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