2015 MacBook Air: Internal SSD Is Locked and Can't erase/update
Have Early 2015 11" MacBook Air, with original 128GB SSD installed. Running High Sierra 10.13.6 Filevault has never been on.
Computer crashed, and upon reboot, progress bar gets about 3/4 of the way through, and then screen just goes dark.
Am able to boot into all the various recovery modes, but in none of them is DiskUtility able to reformat the internal SSD drive, as it is showing as not writable. I created a boot USB with High Sierra 10.13.6, and can see the internal SSD drive and copy files off the drive, but it is not writable.
Any idea what's going on, and what else I can try?
Here are some various diagnostics: diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme 121.3 GB disk0
1: EFI EFI 314.6 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_APFS Container disk1 121.0 GB disk0s2
/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: APFS Container Scheme - +121.0 GB disk1
Physical Store disk0s2
1: APFS Volume Macintosh HD 90.7 GB disk1s1
2: APFS Volume Preboot 37.9 MB disk1s2
3: APFS Volume Recovery 515.1 MB disk1s3
4: APFS Volume VM 8.6 GB disk1s4
/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *61.5 GB disk2
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk2s1
2: Apple_HFS Untitled 60.7 GB disk2s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk2s3
And some more info:
steves-MacBook-Air:~ sjs$ diskutil info disk1s1
Device Identifier: disk1s1
Device Node: /dev/disk1s1
Whole: No
Part of Whole: disk1
Volume Name: Macintosh HD
Mounted: Yes
Mount Point: /Volumes/Macintosh HD
Partition Type: 41504653-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
File System Personality: APFS
Type (Bundle): apfs
Name (User Visible): APFS
Owners: Disabled
OS Can Be Installed: No
Booter Disk: disk1s2
Recovery Disk: disk1s3
Media Type: Generic
Protocol: PCI-Express
SMART Status: Not Supported
Volume UUID: 0FF5AACE-E455-36E2-9940-5C536F1E3D7E
Disk / Partition UUID: 0FF5AACE-E455-36E2-9940-5C536F1E3D7E
Disk Size: 121.0 GB (121018208256 Bytes) (exactly 236363688 512-Byte-Units)
Device Block Size: 4096 Bytes
Volume Total Space: 121.0 GB (121018208256 Bytes) (exactly 236363688 512-Byte-Units)
Volume Used Space: 100.0 GB (100016209920 Bytes) (exactly 195344160 512-Byte-Units) (82.6%)
Volume Free Space: 21.0 GB (21001998336 Bytes) (exactly 41019528 512-Byte-Units) (17.4%)
Allocation Block Size: 4096 Bytes
Read-Only Media: Yes
Read-Only Volume: Yes
Device Location: Internal
Removable Media: Fixed
Solid State: Yes
Hardware AES Support: No
Attempt to erase:
steves-MacBook-Air:~ sjs$ diskutil eraseVolume APFS Untitled disk1s1
Started erase
Preparing to erase APFS Volume content
Checking mount state
Erasing APFS Volume disk1s1 by deleting and re-adding
Deleting APFS Volume from its APFS Container
Unmounting disk1s1
Deleting Volume
[ \ 0%..10%..20%..30%..40%..50%.......................... ]
diskutil: diskmanagementd (Disk Management daemon) failure
And attempt to verify:
steves-MacBook-Air:~ sjs$ diskutil verifyVolume disk1
Started file system verification on disk1
Verifying storage system
Performing fsck_apfs -n -x /dev/disk0s2
Checking volume
Checking the container superblock
Checking the EFI jumpstart record
Checking the space manager
Checking the object map
Checking the APFS volume superblock
Checking the object map
Checking the fsroot tree
error: (oid 0xa007) apfs_root: btn: dev_read(500805, 1): Device error
fsroot tree is invalid
The volume /dev/disk0s2 could not be verified completely
Storage system check exit code is 0
Finished file system verification on disk1
Any idea what's going on, and what else I can try?
The computer is old enough that maybe the drive is just worn out. Maybe it was damaged.
I'd try finding out who made the parts for the internal drive and see if there is some drive diagnostic software for it. If there is such a tool then chances are it runs on windows, so be prepared for that. Either way the computer can be put into target disk mode for low level access to the drive by Thunderbolt, FireWire, or USB, depending on what specific hardware both computers have. Once you have a diagnostic on the drive you may be able to confirm it is dead or revive it.
If the drive is confirmed dead then you can choose to have it repaired, or run it from an external drive.
Or you can skip the diagnostic part, assume it irreperable, and seek out a repair or workaround.