Macbook Air 6,2 Won't Boot While SSD Inserted

Question is regarding Macbook Air 6,2 that won't boot after a failed High Sierra upgrade. It will boot into the boot drive selection menu and online recovery when the SSD is left out. I can then create a USB bootable disk, but when I attempt to reinsert the SSD it will only chime and remain on a plain black screen regardless of which key combinations I try to use.

I'm hoping to avoid purchasing another SSD or external enclosure to put in it. Are there any other next steps that I should try?

When the USB bootable drive is connected can you startup and hold option key with the SSD in. This should allow you to boot from the disk. The menu you should then see will include Disk Utility. Open that and assuming your SSD appears in the side bar you can choose it, reformat it as Macintosh OS Journalled and install an operating system via Reinstall OS or if you are referring to a bootable installer you can install a fresh version of whichever OS installer you have.

See this:

How to Wipe Your Mac and Reinstall macOS from Scratch
By Justin Pot on April 5th, 2017

Is it time to sell or give away your old Mac? Or do you just want a fresh start to clean up your machine? Here’s how to securely delete all of your files, then install a fresh version of macOS.
If you’re selling or giving away your computer, this is the only way to make sure whoever ends up with your Mac can’t access to your files, and won’t have to deal with any modifications you’ve made to macOS over the years. Don’t just delete your user profile and call it a day—you’ll want to completely wipe it.
Before you start, make sure you transfer any files you want to keep to a new computer or external drive. Even if you don’t intend on wiping your drive, it’s a good idea to back up before re-installing your operating system.
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But it doesn’t stop there — CleanMyMac 3 can also be used to clean up your startup items list, remove system plugins, clean up after uninstalled applications, and more. It’s the utility that should have been built into OS X in the first place.
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Step One: Boot From Recovery Mode, or an Installer
RELATED ARTICLE
8 Mac System Features You Can Access in Recovery Mode
Your Mac’s Recovery Mode is a treasure trove of useful tools, and it’s the easiest way to wipe your computer and start from scratch. Shut down your Mac, turn it on while holding down Command+R. Your Mac will boot into the recovery partition.
If you’re using an older Mac (from 2010 or earlier), there’s a chance that you can’t use Recovery Mode. On those devices, hold “Option” while turning your computer on, then select the recovery partition instead.
If neither of these options work, don’t panic! You’ve got a couple of options yet. You can access recovery without a partition using Network Recovery: hold Command+Shift+R while turning on your Mac and it will download the Recovery features for you. Failing that, you can create a bootable USB installer for macOS Sierra, and boot from that by holding “Option” while turning on your Mac.

Once you’ve managed to open up the Recovery Mode in some fashion, we can move on to wiping your drive securely.
Step Two: Securely Wipe Your Hard Drive (Optional)
If you want to re-install your operating system, but leave your files in place, you can skip this step. Your user accounts and files will stay exactly where they are—only your operating system will be overwritten. We recommend backing up files before you do this, just in case, but otherwise you’re ready for step three.
If you want a truly clean installation, however, you need to first wipe your hard drive. We’ve shown you how to securely wipe a hard drive with your Mac, and doing so in Recovery Mode isn’t really different from doing so within macOS.
To get started, click the Disk Utility option.

Depending on how you started Recovery Mode, you may be presented with the option to start Disk Utility right away, as seen above. If not you can find Disk Utility in the menu bar: click Utilities then Disk Utility.

You’ll now see your list of hard drives. Click your primary drive, then click “Erase”

If you’re wiping a mechanical drive, click “Security Options” in the window that pops up. (If your Mac has a solid state drive, you can skip this part: your SSD will already securely erase files thanks to TRIM. You still need to wipe the drive, however, or your files will remain in place, so skip to the end of this step to do so.)

Now move the dial up, to randomly write data over your entire drive. You only need to write over a drive once to securely wipe it, but if you’re paranoid you can also wipe it three or five times.

RELATED ARTICLE
How to Wipe Your Mac and Reinstall macOS from Scratch
Click “OK” once you’ve decided, but remember: if your Mac has a solid state drive, you do not need to use these options. Just give your drive a name (I recommend “Macintosh HD”, just for consistency’s sake), then click “Erase” to start the overwriting process.

If you opted to wipe your drive securely, this might take a while—30 minutes to an hour is not unreasonable for one pass. If you choose three or five passes, you might want to leave this running overnight.
Step Three: Reinstall macOS
With your information wipe complete, you are now ready to reinstall macOS. If you booted from a functioning recovery partition, click the “Reinstall macOS” button. The installation process will begin.
If you booted from an USB disk, click “Continue” to advance to the installer.

You’ll be asked which hard drive you want to install to. Choose the Macintosh HD you named earlier.

Just like that, macOS will begin installing.

This might take a while. Eventually your Mac will restart and ask you to create an account. If you’re giving your Mac away, or selling it, I recommend that you simply shut down at this point and let whoever you’re giving your Mac to create their own account. After all, it’s theirs now. Otherwise, enjoy your now-fresh Mac!

Right, but as mentioned in my post when I try to boot with the SSD inserted it only chimes and does not allow me to boot into these other modes. When the SSD is left out I am able to.

Stanieley said:

Right, but as mentioned in my post when I try to boot with the SSD inserted it only chimes and does not allow me to boot into these other modes. When the SSD is left out I am able to.

Click to expand...

Did you try booting when pressing and holding the option key or any other key sequences with the SSD still connected and installed???




- Patrick
======

Sorry to jump in but I have this exact same problem and has happened to 2 macbook Airs from 2014 within a week of each other

We have a few MacBook Airs in our office and 2 of the 2014 MacBook Air 11 inch SSD drives failed within a week of each other.

Both run toshiba 128GB ssd, and with them inserted in the Mac I just get a blank screen on boot up. not even to target mode and not to an external drive using option key. Just a chime and a blank screen.
If I take the hard drive out then i get the no OS icon come up. If I put in an SSD from one of the other mac airs then it boots up fine.

I've never had an issue with the drives on this model, and now 2 fail in a week made me suspect an update causing corruption, but could be just coincidence.

I purchased a USB adaptor for the drive. but nothing comes up in Mac OS. If I plug it into a windows PC then I do get initialize disk in disk manager.

So now i'm stuck on what to do next also.

Keep in mind that the update to High Sierra will re-format an internal SSD to APFS. It is possible that some SSDs may no longer function properly using that new format. The solution may be to re-format the SSD to HFS+. That's just my opinion here and may not be true in all cases, but should be looked at. Apple branded SSDs and PCIe Flash Storage have no problem with APFS, but according to some on line articles that may not be true for other brands.

The solution may be to re-format the SSD to HFS+. That's just my opinion here and may not be true in all cases, but should be looked at.

Click to expand...

I'm afraid you may have to or suggest that you may want to bury that suggestion Charlie as it's not even the easiest thing to do, and now not even advisable:

macOS High Sierra: Why you can't format an internal SSD with HFS+ format
https://www.macworld.com/article/32...t-format-an-internal-ssd-with-hfs-format.html

Personally, I'd say Apple blew it again and that their High Sierra formating and APFS stuff was released before it was ready, at least as far as being used with anything other than apple's own suff, but even that's questionable for some users.





- Patrick
======

From the same article quoted above:

"It’s possible you could force HFS+ on a boot SSD with High Sierra with some Terminal monkeying around, but I can’t see that would end well, and I’m not sure it offers any advantages. It’s too risky to recommend."

There are solutions that can be found on line or in some other forums. But like Macworld stated, it's not for someone who does not understand how to use terminal.

By the way, lately Macworld has been puppetering for Apple and I'm not sure I agree with many of their hints and articles. As a matter of fact, I cancelled my automatic renewal of their digital magazine which means I have one more issue to go before it ends. I have renewed my subscription to MacLife which I consider heads above Macworld.

By the way, lately Macworld has been puppetering for Apple and I'm not sure I agree with many of their hints and articles. As a matter of fact, I cancelled my automatic renewal of their digital magazine which means I have one more issue to go before it ends. I have renewed my subscription to MacLife which I consider heads above Macworld.

Click to expand...

I would agree with you Charlie, and I didn't even bother with the MW digital mag after being a MW subscriber from waaaay back, but did switch to the Mac|Life mail subscription some years ago which I prefer.
Even that, the preferences seem to seep through the cracks, but I guess they all have to pay their bills.

Anyway, as for this thread, it seems that Apple's High Sierra and its SSD APFS formatting seems to have a few bugs that I for one will be avoiding. I really don't need any extra hassles at this point in my Mac working life thanks Apple.




- Patrick
======

It seems though that even the better developers are embracing APFS. The best example of this is Mike Bombich the developer of CCC. The latest version of CCC (5.1) now allows the user to choose whether or not to make "Local Snapshots". He even goes further with it.... CCC 5.1 now gives you the option of removing the "Local Snapshots" that are created by Time Machine. As you might remember, I beta test CCC and was relating to those options in another thread.

I guess APFS is here to stay. What's next? No more Intel? Fun and games as we juggle those Apples. LOL.

I have not yet seen an answer to PM-R ( and my suggestion). "Did you try booting when pressing and holding the option key or any other key sequences with the SSD still connected and installed???"

I have not yet seen an answer…

Click to expand...

Maybe it will show up sometime later Rod.



- Patrick
======

I was hoping to retain the data but no other choice but to try reformatting now i guess.

haash80 said:

I was hoping to retain the data but no other choice but to try reformatting now i guess.

Click to expand...

I assume that no backup exists???

What about trying with a different Mac and/or using an external enclosure or even trying Target Disk Mode if it's supported.

I gather it's probably using the APFS format at this point??? That will reduce the recovery methods I would think.

Even if it won't boot, data recovery may still be available.




- Patrick
======

If i put it in another mac the same symptoms happen where it boots to a blank screen. Pressing option doesn't work, target mode doesn't work.
I purchased 2 external enclosures neither of them seem to work with Mac, even though these drives are unique to Apple macs. It comes up on disk management on a windows PC.