MacBook Pro APFS issue?

Associate
Joined
15 Oct 2010
Posts
1,461
Evening all,

Just wondering whether anyone could provide some advice or support on the following.

I was using my MacBook as normal and everything has been fine until today when I started my e-learning course for work and about halfway through my browser locked up and my computer froze. I hard re-started and the issue persisted so I restarted the machine again. The issue that I had hasn't happened on any other computer that I've tried my e-learning on.


However now I'm having different issues, the computer initially wouldn't boot and would stay on the grey startup screen with a flashing folder icon, I re-seated the SSD and that issue has now gone.


The computer now boots and gets to the sign in screen but my account is no longer there and it asks me to enter a username and password where before it would only ask for my password, I've trawled through the internet but to no avail. However when I sign into my Apple ID my account states that my ID is linked to that computer.


And I'm now all out of ideas, I don't really want to have to go down the route of formatting the SSD and only want to use that option as a last resort.

I did some more digging around on the internet after and it seems like it may be related to an APFS issue and fsroot tree is invalid? And the only option seems to be reformatting the computer? I've tried the guides to use the terminal in recovery mode etc but nothing has worked.


Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
15 Oct 2010
Posts
1,461
Was the SSD originally formatted as HFS+ or APFS, ie has it gone through the OS updates and been converted from HFS+ to APFS?

I'm not too sure, when I bought the SSD I formatted it to what was recommended before installing a fresh version of MacOS. Sorry that I couldn't be of more help in answering this.
 
Commissario
Joined
16 Oct 2002
Posts
2,662
Location
In the radio shack
The reason I ask is because I’ve heard of a number of situations where a converted drive is less reliable than one natively formatted to APFS.

If I were you, I’d use SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner to make a backup to an external drive, boot into recovery mode and do a fresh format direct to APFS and then restore the backup. That will rule out any possible issues with the drive format and is pretty painless to do.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
15 Oct 2010
Posts
1,461
The reason I ask is because I’ve heard of a number of situations where a converted drive is less reliable than one natively formatted to APFS.

If I were you, I’d use SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner to make a backup to an external drive, boot into recovery mode and do a fresh format direct to APFS and then restore the backup. That will rule out any possible issues with the drive format and is pretty painless to do.

I will do that, thank you for the kind response.

Just to rule out any other issues this sort of situation wouldn't be related to malware or anything? As I wouldn't want to make a copy of the drive and then restore that backup for it to happen again.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
15 Oct 2010
Posts
1,461
Very, very unlikely. If you want to be sure, grab the free version of Malwarebytes and check.

Thanks, just wanted to make sure it wasn't related.

I'll back up everything now and get it sorted.

Thank you for the help :)
 
Commissario
Joined
16 Oct 2002
Posts
2,662
Location
In the radio shack
Actually, reading back through your post, I think I'd try something different.

Still do the backup and install a fresh OS and then run Migration Assistant - See if that will suck everything back from the backup.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
15 Oct 2010
Posts
1,461
Managed to resolve the issue by purchasing a new SATA cable. I should have probably done this first and I wouldn't have had to re-install everything, but alas it's working now. Thank you all for the comments and feedback (apologies for the late replies)
 
Back
Top Bottom