Phoenix Pro not listed in disk utility when formatting

[mathieuplante]

Hi,

I recently bought a G.SKILL Phoenix Pro Series FM-25S2S-120GBP2 2.5" 120GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) from Newegg.

My MacBook Pro mid-2010 does not recognize the drive when I plug it in and try to install Mac OS X on it. Disk utility only sees my DVD drive. I tried plugging the SSD drive in my PC's SATA port and flash the firmware. It seemed to work, but the drive already had 3.1
installed so the actual installation failed. I don't know what I should do next, should I RMA it? I've spent about 10 hours trying to troubleshoot the problem last night and today.

I tried plugging it into a USB external case and formatting it inside another computer with OS X and everything is fine. The drive exists and works great as an external drive.

Can you help me find a solution before I return it? This is getting really tough to figure out.

Thanks for your help.

[Sumie]

Seems like we're getting a lot of these kinds of cases with the Phoenix Pro SSDs.

From what I've seen, the problem seems to be mostly in laptops in very tight spaces. I'm under the suspicion that it's a connection problem due to some of the hard drives being slightly misaligned from the standard measurement.

Ultimately we need a response from a GSkill rep to look into this, or there is going to be tons of RMAs.

EDIT: I have been working with this issue since I bought it 3 weeks ago. I've upgraded and changed every setting known in the bios with no resolution, upgraded firmware, reinstalled the OS three times, and now I'm testing out my theory above by trying to keep it as shoved in the HDD slot as possible (which seems to be working out well so far...).

And yes, I have the same model you do. (120gb Phoenix Pro, FM-25S2S-120GBP2 From Newegg sale)

[G.SKILL]

Hi guys

could you try to downgrade to FW_2.1.
maybe it can solve this problem.

please let me know the result.

[mathieuplante]

@GSKILL: I would be happy to try downgrading if it was as easy as plugging it in and doing it, but both of my home computers are "too old" to have the AHCI setting required to burn the firmware on the drive. I would need to find a computer that has it and that's not easy to do for me. Don't you have like an intern with a Mac at GSKILL who could do that?

@Sumie: I did notice that part of the drive's SATA connectors are visible between the end of the cable and the body of the drive when it's plugged in as far as it can go. I'd say there's about 1/4 of a millimeter of connectors showing Maybe it's the Mac's fault. When I plug it in my PC with a SATA cable or in my Mac through a SATA-USB converter, it works fine. Anyway, now we know why it was on sale at NewEgg, there were too many returns and they needed to free some space in the warehouse

[iRik]

Hi there!

I Have the exactly same problem on my mac mini (late 2009) with the same SSD FM-25S2S-120GBP2.

I don't have any PC to downgrade or upgrade with AHCI setting required.

What can I do to solve that?

[mathieuplante]

@iRik: It really sucks, doesn't it? It shouldn't take days to install a new hard drive and get it to work. And no I don't think the solution is to downgrade the firmware. That way we would lose the things that were upgraded in 3.1. Anyway, for those lucky enough to have a PC that can burn the firmware, I'm sure it's fantastic, but for the rest of us...

Since the drive is not refundable, my only option now is to sell the drive, at a loss, to a local computer store or through classifieds. I'm not the first to do that with this drive. It's kind of a pathetic thing to do, but I don't have that much money, I can't just put the drive in a drawer and forget about it. I have to get rid of it.

If anyone else has the same problem that we do, please share it in this thread, something needs to happen...

[iRik]

yes it really sucks.

It's the 4th SSD I have and the worst.

First I installed a Kingston 128GB V series on my macbook, OS X installed with no problems but after a coupe of days it was dead.

Second Kingston the same story.

The store exchange it to an Intel X25M 160GB finally I had an SSD that works very well.

Yesterday I received this GsKill to upgrade the Mac Mini and I can't even install the Mac OS X.

[mathieuplante]

Great to hear that you bought a drive from another brand. That's pretty much what I did I also bought an Intel X25M from NewEgg and I should have it by the middle of next week. I'm still trying to sell my Gskill right now, I'm sure I'll find someone because it sounds like an excellent drive for a PC user. Too bad for Gskill, but the reviews for the Intel are so incredibly good and they work on a Mac... for about 25 dollars more. Just saying.

[iRik]

So GsKill what I have to do?

Return de SSD?

[G.SKILL]

Hi apple fans

I know this storage is quite inconvenient for MAC.
I always inform Sandforce to care about apple and others OS.
what can I say......

we apologize for all of you.

[iRik]

Thank you GsKill for the anwser.

So there no new firmware in progress to solve those problems?

[G.SKILL]

The deepest of apologies.

Actually, I don't have any precise info about this problem.
I know it is irresponsible.
I argued and complained with Sandforce many times.

Sorry guys

[02bluesuperroo]

Downgrade to 2.1

I am trying to get my drive to work with my Mac Mini. I dont have a USB sata external enclosure but I do have a PC with a hot swap sata bay.

I have tried to down grade to the 2.1 firmware but all packages (A,B) created an error that stated something like "This package if not for this device" or something like that. I was able to update to 3.2 but this did nothing to solve my problem.

I have created a fresh install of OSX on a sata 2.5 drive which i could clone onto the SSD using my PC. Will this work?

Please direct me of the best route to take.

[02bluesuperroo]

Working

Ok, I got my drive working. I used a similar method to what was posted on this site in the sticky thread.

I installed a clean install of OSX onto my regular 2.5" HDD

I connected the drive to my PC and used Clonezilla to create an image of the disk

I connected the SSD drive to my PC and used Clonezilla to restore the image I made onto the SSD

I connected the SSD to the Mini

Voila! Previous to this the Mini didn't even recognize that the Phoenix drive was connected but it booted right up.... in 13 seconds no less.

This is with the 3.2 Firmware which I also updated using my PC

[Bec]

MACs are known to have trouble adapting to anything. I think it was the way it was partitioned.

Either way now that it's not FAT/NTFS you won't be able to update the firmware.
Also MAC doesn't support trim hence your SSD will run slower and slower.

IMHO it's useless to waste advanced technology on an outdated OS.