I have a 2 TB Samsung T7 external SSD that I'm using with my 14" M1 Pro MacBook Pro with Monterey 12.2.1.
Lately the SSD isn't being recognised most of the time when I connect it to the MBP. It gives the following error in the Disk Utility (or it isn't recognised by Disk Utility at all):
com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error -119930868
Is the SSD faulty or my MBP?
MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 12.2
It is, it has video files on it so formatting isn't an option right now.
When Disk Utility recognises the disk (which isn't always the case) the options First Aid, Erase, Restore and Unmount are available.
First Aid is fine and won't harm a thing, if the drive is healthy. If you think the drive is under 2 years old, you should be fine. Keep in mind what can weaken long term archival storage of SSDs is different than HDD:
https://www.partitionwizard.com/clone-disk/is-ssd-good-for-long-term-storage.html
I tried First Aid a few times, it throws an error
"File system verify or repair failed. : (-69845)."
I ran fsck in Recovery Mode to no effect.
However I managed to copy the important files from the SSD using a Windows PC.
Should I just erase and partition the SSD if I want to use it again? It’s only 6 months old.
A wipe can help, but the fact there are errors on specific blocks, suggests that a wipe may lock out some bad sectors. Eventually you will get enough bad sectors large files won't be able to write, and the drive is unusable. If this was recently purchased I would see about getting a replacement.
Ah okay, so it's a physical defect of the SSD?
One thing that I discovered yesterday is that there doesn't seem to be any problem when I use the drive with my 2014 MBP. On that machine Disk Utility finds no faults. The drive also appeared to work fine with my M1 Mac Mini.
So could there be an issue with my 2022 MacBook Pro after all? Unfortunately I don't have additional SSD's to test it with but it works fine with USB thumb drives and SD cards.
Is it an SSD that has data on it you wish to read?
If not, does Disk Utility let you format it?
A lot of memory tests are hard to reproduce consistently because of the complexity of random access memory. Once an error is found, it is to be believed.
Okay I think I can consider this drive beyond repair, the Mac Mini doesn't recognise it anymore either. Too bad, but stuf happens..
Thank you so much A Brody for sharing your knowledge!
MacBook Pro doesn't recognise external Samsung T7 SSD
