MBP Crashing/File Folder?

[kiwii4k]

Hello,

I recently purchased a second hand late-2013 MacBook Pro. Everything was working great until the last couple days I noticed some issues. First, I was experiencing whole system freezes, where the color wheel would spin and I was able to move the cursor around but everything was unresponsive. Then, I had a new larger issue crop up today where when I went to use the machine, it was giving me the flashing file folder error.

I booted into recovery and this is all I can see:

dang - Album on Imgur

weirdly enough, after receiving the file folder error earlier today I entered recovery (and didn’t see my 128gb HDD) but was still able to boot back up after shutting it down and turning it back on again. This only worked for a little while until it gave me a system freeze and booted into the flashing file.

Is my SSD failing? Or what is going on? Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

What the specifics of the Mac? I believe the 2013 MBPs don't have the flash chips soldered onto the Logicboard and it does sound like your SSD is failing. So you might want to replace that perhaps with a larger than 128GB SSD.

 

[Rod]

First things first. When you bought this MBP did it start up to the Set Up Wizard? Did you see a Welcome Screen in different languages? Did you have to create a User name and Password, enter your Apple ID and Password and select a language?
The reason I ask is because there are certain steps which should be followed to prepare a second hand device for sale and the important one of those involves completely erasing the device and reinstalling the original macOS that came with the device when new.
If this has not been done it is impossible to know what may be running or conflicting with the system in the background.

 

[Rod]

If you answer is yes to all the above then as suggested by Aswin, it may well be that your HDD is failing. The average life span (dependant on use) is only about 5 years for a spinning disk and its well past that. Its also a known issue that a failing HDD does not always handle erasure and reinstallation of the macOS. Sometimes its the final straw that tips it into complete failure.
As Ashwin has stated though now would probably be a great opportunity to upgrade the storage to an SSD and RAM too if you wish.
Hopefully if you got it at a good price you will after upgrading have a better device that is upgradeable to the current macOS and much faster HD than the old spinning disk.

 

[kiwii4k]

What the specifics of the Mac? I believe the 2013 MBPs don't have the flash chips soldered onto the Logicboard and it does sound like your SSD is failing. So you might want to replace that perhaps with a larger than 128GB SSD.

It isn't soldered, I believe you can change them pretty easily, like a m.2 drive or something. I am typing on the macbook right now, but this thing is unreliable. Who knows when it will happen again. I booted into recovery today (had some time after work) and saw the drive there, and ran first aid on it. Then reset NVRAM.

I don't believe this fixed it though. I bet it will happen again.

 

[ferrarr]

What we need to know;

Screen size? 13” or 15”?
Which OS?
Did you try safe mode, Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support?
Did you try Apple Diagnostics,How to use Apple Diagnostics on your Mac - Apple Support or Apple Hardware test, How to use Apple Hardware Test on your Mac - Apple Support?

 

[IWT]

@kiwii4k

It might help, or at least reassure us, if you answered Rod's question in Post #3.

Ian

 

[lclev]

It does sound like the SSD is failing. The 13" MBP 2013 came with a 128 SSD. The 15" did not come with a 128 SSD. So I am going to assume it is a 13" unless the original SSD was changed. The SSD is replaceable according to ifixit.com.

MacBook Pro 13" Retina Display Late 2013 SSD Replacement - iFixit Repair Guide

With the information we have been given I would suggest replacing the SSD with a larger capacity one. Although it would be nice to have the information Rod requested in Post #3.

Lisa

 

[chscag]

With regard to Rod's questions in post # 3, we have found that most folks who purchase a second hand machine do not wipe it and do a clean install. Usually it's because the second hand machine came with certain software that the purchaser would like to keep even though the software is not legally registered to them. There are also other reasons....

 

[kiwii4k]

First things first. When you bought this MBP did it start up to the Set Up Wizard? Did you see a Welcome Screen in different languages? Did you have to create a User name and Password, enter your Apple ID and Password and select a language?

The answer to all of these questions would be no. It came with everything already installed and a user account already created, just without an iCloud login. I created a new admin account and deleted the original one.

 

[kiwii4k]

It does sound like the SSD is failing. The 13" MBP 2013 came with a 128 SSD. The 15" did not come with a 128 SSD. So I am going to assume it is a 13" unless the original SSD was changed.

So that's interesting.. this is a 15 inch MacBook Pro. Someone must have swapped the SSD out at some point.

MacBook info - Album on Imgur

 

[kiwii4k]

What we need to know;

Screen size? 13” or 15”?
Which OS?
Did you try safe mode, Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support?
Did you try Apple Diagnostics,How to use Apple Diagnostics on your Mac - Apple Support or Apple Hardware test, How to use Apple Hardware Test on your Mac - Apple Support?

15", Catalina, I haven't tried safe mode, but recovery instead, I did do diagnostics and received no errors when I ran it. Just find it strange that my entire SSD was missing at one point and is now showing up.

 

[ferrarr]

15", Catalina, I haven't tried safe mode, but recovery instead, I did do diagnostics and received no errors when I ran it. Just find it strange that my entire SSD was missing at one point and is now showing up.

Thanks for those answers.

Yes, that is strange, that your drive was missing, and now it’s not. Sometimes a restart will fix that, sometimes it requires a little more effort.

Ok, going by your first Imgur post “dang”, in Disk Utility, can you click on “View”, and select “Show All Volumes”?