Chosen Solution

After installing the Samsung 840 EVO SSD exactly as per the instructions, I booted up the MAC MINI and the drive was visible, but needed formatting to OSX extended (journaled) in order for me to then install OSX on it and then migrate the old HD system and apps to it. However, when I try formatting the 840, I keep getting a formatting error: Disk Erase failed with the error: File system formatter failed.

  1. I can see the EVO drive in the MAC’s Disk utility app with a sub partition named disk1s2 greyed out.
  2. I click on the main drive image - 500.11GB Samsung SSD EVO 500GB Media, I have the option to erase or partition.
  3. I try partitioning it into a single partition with the options set to GUID partition table format, I get the above error.
  4. The option of re-partitioning the disk1s2 partition is greyed out and not available, only erase for which I get the same error above.
  5. The Samsung MAGICIAN utility is’’ Windows only’‘bold text (How dumb!)
  6. I do have a PC/windows laptop available, so do I need to go through all the hassle of pulling out the SSD from the MAC MINI and using the Windows only MAGICIAN utility to reformat the drive or is there an easier way? And even if I do, won’t I be just back where I started?

While I haven’t tried this it should work: Setup your system in Target Mode and then connect it to your Windows PC system running Samsung’s Magician software. Or down load their image file for Mac onto a USB drive (Linux) and run it that way. I suspect you got a returned drive. Where did you get it? Did you know it was an open box unit? We have quite a few 840 EVO drives and have not needed to do this (we just upgraded 20 systems). Don’t forget to enable TRIM under the latest version of Yosemite, it makes a big difference!

So do I connect the Mac Mini to the PC via ethernet / wifi? Should the Magician software already be running before trying to network / connect them? Forgive me, but I always thought that networking macs and PC’s together is a bit of a mind bender…or is that now a thing of the past? Also I saw an article saying that there are reported firmware issues on the 840 EVO (Mine is brand new in an un-opened box but I bought it about a year ago and didn’t get around to installing it until now): http://blog.conradchavez.com/2014/10/30/… The article recommended updating to the latest SSD drive firmware by downloading an iso archive from Samsung and then changing the file name to have a .dmg extension, burning a disc image of it, then rebooting the Mac Mini using the the resulting DVD-R, to install the firmware update, which I tried and it seemed to go through all the steps, albeit in a DOS/Linux window, but when I looked at the firmware version it hadn’t updated. I have also tried every possible combination of Mac recommended drive formatting / partitioning in Disk utility - Mac OS extended, FAT and EXFAT as well but still no joy (is that what you mean by “Wreaking” Rany?) It sees the drive but mostly throws up an error message when trying to format. A couple of times, it even seemed to format successfully, but when I tried testing the mounted drive by copying a file any bigger than around 10Mb, it would just go into an endless file copying progress bar. What and unfriendly and primitive service that Samsung are offering for Mac users! I’m thinking I might just pull the drive back out and ditch it, then buy another from a more Mac friendly manufacturer. Any suggestions?

David, did you get your problem resolved in the end ? Thanks