External Samsung T3 SSD problem

[Chaver4u]

I have tons of data on my external Samsung T3 SSD. It worked perfectly on my MacBook Pro 2015 which is gone.
I now have a MacBook Air 2020. Great laptop!

But.....the T3 no longer opens. I get a warning that the T3 is disconnected. Attached screenshot
But it is connected according to the Disk Utility. Also attached screenshot.
Strangely enough, there are at least 150GB (very important) data on he T3 but Disk Utility only shows 31MB 'setup data'.

I am totally stuck.

Anybody any advice what to do?

Robert

 

[IWT]

Thank you for your post.

With Disk Utility (DU) open, as in your screenshot, if you click on "Unmount", wait till it comes back as "Mount" and click on that - see if that works. Don't disconnect the Samsung.

I've come across this once or twice before and the above worked. It may or not work with you; please tell us.

I also wonder if the MS-DOS (Fat 32) Format is a factor though it shouldn't be if it worked perfectly with your previous MBAir.

Ian

 

[Chaver4u]

Thanks Ian
In Disk Utility I clicked unmount and then mount again. The same info returns
Robert

 

[chscag]

How was the T3 originally formatted? The only thing that is showing is the small EFI partition which is FAT-32.

Try what Ian suggested above to see if it mounts properly but it appears that your data partition on that drive is missing.

 

[IWT]

Hi Robert. Thanks for the very quick reply.

Sorry to hear that. Before we consider anything else, I'm very aware of your comment that you have 150GB of "very important data". My worry is that the partition containing that data has gone or is not showing for some reason.

Have you any other Mac or Windows PC that you could try? It would be great if you could copy the data to another External Hard Drive (EHD).

Ian

 

[IWT]

Oh; I see our Admin beat me to it on the partition remark

Ian

PS Do click on the "Unmount": before you disconnect the Samsung even though it appears not to have mounted!

 

[Chaver4u]

I didn't change anything on the SSD.
It worked perfectly as is on my MacBook Pro. I regretfully cannot go back to the MacBook Pro because it is without data and clean installed for a family member.

This SSD problem is the only problem I have with my MacBook Air. Everything migrated from the MacBook Pro and works perfectly except mounting this external SSD.

I also trashed everything I found from Samsung SSD in my library and the app itself and reinstalled the app anew from the Samsung website. To no avail.

Robert

 

[Chaver4u]

Wow, if the data are gone would be a disaster. 15 years of digital pictures but foremost extremely important data, contracts, etc. I hope it's not true. Can a SSD autodelete just like that without touching it?
Robert

 

[IWT]

Can a SSD autodelete just like that without touching it?

No. But using the SSD on different Platforms (Windows and Apple), on different devices (old MBP and new MBP), with different Operating Systems can result in corruption of data.

As I mentioned earlier in post #5, try to find someone with a Windows PC or a Mac and see if it will mount. If you can get it to mount on another computer of any kind, there is a chance that you can retrieve the data and, if need be, save it to another EHD.

Final solution is very expensive; either using a Data Recovery app, eg Data Rescue, Disk drill - there are many. Some have free trials and with some you only pay if they can find the lost data - see here:

Prosoft Engineering, Inc.

Prosoft Engineering Inc, offers software to undelete your important files, detect malware, monitor your computer, and create backups.

www.prosofteng.com

Top 7 Best Data Recovery Software for Mac in 2025

Confused by the large number of data recovery apps for Mac? This article lists the top 7 best solutions currently available and describes their pros and cons.

www.pandorarecovery.com

Or - Send the SSD for professional recovery - big $$$$.

Ian

 

[Raz0rEdge]

The drive seems to have a separate FAT32 partition containing likely installation software to support that drive's extra functionality (things like encryption and so on). But as the others have said, it looks like you your data partition isn't being mounted for some reason.

You may want to check the Console to see if any errors are showing up when you plug the external drive in. While the other MBP is reformatted for another persons use, if you still have access to it, you might want to plug this drive into that machine to see if the data is visible, if so, you should try to move it to another drive or some cloud storage.

In my case, this is why I use the various external drive's I have in bare mode, I don't install any of the software that comes with it and will always reformat the entire drive to ExFAT or HFS (if Mac only) and I've found I can plug this into any supporting machine and read the data without any issues.

 

[Chaver4u]

No. But using the SSD on different Platforms (Windows and Apple), on different devices (old MBP and new MBP), with different Operating Systems can result in corruption of data.

As I mentioned earlier in post #5, try to find someone with a Windows PC or a Mac and see if it will mount. If you can get it to mount on another computer of any kind, there is a chance that you can retrieve the data and, if need be, save it to another EHD.

Final solution is very expensive; either using a Data Recovery app, eg Data Rescue, Disk drill - there are many. Some have free trials and with some you only pay if they can find the lost data - see here:

Prosoft Engineering, Inc.

Prosoft Engineering Inc, offers software to undelete your important files, detect malware, monitor your computer, and create backups.

www.prosofteng.com

Top 7 Best Data Recovery Software for Mac in 2025

Confused by the large number of data recovery apps for Mac? This article lists the top 7 best solutions currently available and describes their pros and cons.

www.pandorarecovery.com

Or - Send the SSD for professional recovery - big $$$$.

Ian

I used Migration Assistant to transfer everything from my 2015 MBP to my 2020 MBA. Both had the same MacOS 10.15.6. Everything worked perfectly on my MBA. I cleaned up the MBP and started using the MBA.
A week later when I needed some old data from my Samsung T3 SSD, I connected to the MBA.....and the problems started. I got a warning after connecting that it's disconnected. I checked in DiskUtility how that's possible and saw that it only setup apps were on the T3 SSD. Strange, I never touched it, let alone deleted anything.

By now I started to see one of the recovery apps could find the missing more than 150GB data on the T3.
I tried:

1. Stellar
2. iBoysoft
3. Data Rescue
4. Pandora Recovery
5. DiskDrill
6. RStudio

They all came up with the same results as what DiskUtility shows: 31.3MB with T3 setup Mac.app and Win.exe, which is the same as shown in the window of the T3 external drive on my MBA.
>> Only Stellar found in a deep scan that there are 506 files with 61 folders of onbly 105MB total, but these files are garbled txt files. So not the 150GB

I assume (and hope) that that 150GB or more data are still somewhere on that T3. I don't think it can auto-delete, can it? But how to get to that?

'Desperate' Robert

 

[chscag]

If the data on that drive is critical as you say, I strongly suggest you do not mess with it any more as that may result in a permanent loss of data. Recovering lost data on a SSD is much more difficult that doing it on an older spinner drive.

There is a discounted data recovery service which is recommended and not overly expensive. Please refer to the thread below for more information:

Discounted Data Recovery Service

We receive requests from time to time regarding recovering lost data due to hardware failure or errors. Sometimes there just isn't any other way to recover data that has been lost except to have it recovered professionally. Most professional data recovery services are expensive, sometimes...

www.mac-forums.com

Here's the direct link to the data recovery service:

https://www.300dollardatarecovery.com/

 

[Chaver4u]

The drive seems to have a separate FAT32 partition containing likely installation software to support that drive's extra functionality (things like encryption and so on). But as the others have said, it looks like you your data partition isn't being mounted for some reason.

You may want to check the Console to see if any errors are showing up when you plug the external drive in. While the other MBP is reformatted for another persons use, if you still have access to it, you might want to plug this drive into that machine to see if the data is visible, if so, you should try to move it to another drive or some cloud storage.

In my case, this is why I use the various external drive's I have in bare mode, I don't install any of the software that comes with it and will always reformat the entire drive to ExFAT or HFS (if Mac only) and I've found I can plug this into any supporting machine and read the data without any issues.

Hi Ashwin,
I just answered Ian what the situation is now.
What do I look for in Console? There is so much in there and I have no clue what it all means.
As I wrote, I changed nothing to my MacOS, apps, data, etc. between the MacBookPro and MacBookAir. They are exact clones. Also, I changed nothing nor added anything to the Samsung T3 SSD.
I am lost
Robert

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Hi Ashwin,
I just answered Ian what the situation is now.
What do I look for in Console? There is so much in there and I have no clue what it all means.
As I wrote, I changed nothing to my MacOS, apps, data, etc. between the MacBookPro and MacBookAir. They are exact clones. Also, I changed nothing nor added anything to the Samsung T3 SSD.
I am lost
Robert

Do the following. Unplug the drive, open up Console and select system.log. On the top bar, click the Clear button and then plug the drive in and take note what messages show up and if they don't make much sense, paste them here and we can see what's going on.

 

[Chaver4u]

If the data on that drive is critical as you say, I strongly suggest you do not mess with it any more as that may result in a permanent loss of data. Recovering lost data on a SSD is much more difficult that doing it on an older spinner drive.

There is a discounted data recovery service which is recommended and not overly expensive. Please refer to the thread below for more information:

Discounted Data Recovery Service

We receive requests from time to time regarding recovering lost data due to hardware failure or errors. Sometimes there just isn't any other way to recover data that has been lost except to have it recovered professionally. Most professional data recovery services are expensive, sometimes...

www.mac-forums.com

Here's the direct link to the data recovery service:

https://www.300dollardatarecovery.com/

For their service I have to deliver my SSD. I live 12,000 km away. I do love to visit California again ;-)
I will check what is possible here in Israel. There are plenty of IT gurus here, though many live in California where they can earn more
Thanks anyway.
Robert

 

[Chaver4u]

Do the following. Unplug the drive, open up Console and select system.log. On the top bar, click the Clear button and then plug the drive in and take note what messages show up and if they don't make much sense, paste them here and we can see what's going on.

Ashwin,
I did what you wrote and got the following which means absolutely nothing to me.

Aug 21 15:54:39 Roberts-Air com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.shirtpocket.backuponmount[1840]): Service exited with abnormal code: 1
Aug 21 15:54:39 Roberts-Air com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.shirtpocket.backuponmount): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 1 seconds.
Aug 21 15:54:39 Roberts-Air mdsync[1843]: objc[1843]: Class MDSPathFilter is implemented in both /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Versions/A/Metadata and /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Versions/A/Support/mdsync. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
Aug 21 15:54:39 Roberts-Air mdsync[1843]: objc[1843]: Class _MDSPathFilter is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SpotlightIndex.framework/Versions/A/SpotlightIndex and /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Versions/A/Support/mdsync. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
Aug 21 15:54:40 Roberts-Air com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.shirtpocket.backuponmount[1850]): Service exited with abnormal code: 1
Aug 21 15:54:40 Roberts-Air xpcproxy[1852]: libcoreservices: _dirhelper_userdir: 557: bootstrap_look_up returned (ipc/send) invalid destination port
Aug 21 15:54:44 Roberts-Air MusicCacheExtension[1854]: objc[1854]: Class PDFToRasterImageRef is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AMPLibrary.framework/Versions/A/AMPLibrary and /System/Applications/Music.app/Contents/PlugIns/MusicCacheExtension.appex/Contents/MacOS/MusicCacheExtension. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
Aug 21 15:54:44 Roberts-Air TVCacheExtension[1855]: objc[1855]: Class PDFToRasterImageRef is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AMPLibrary.framework/Versions/A/AMPLibrary and /System/Applications/TV.app/Contents/PlugIns/TVCacheExtension.appex/Contents/MacOS/TVCacheExtension. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
Aug 21 15:54:52 Roberts-Air AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent[391]: Entered:_AMMuxedDeviceDisconnected, mux-device:65
Aug 21 15:54:52 Roberts-Air AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent[391]: Entered:__thr_AMMuxedDeviceDisconnected, mux-device:65
Aug 21 15:54:52 Roberts-Air AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent[391]: tid:1dcf - Mux ID not found in mapping dictionary
Aug 21 15:54:52 Roberts-Air AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent[391]: tid:1dcf - Can't handle disconnect with invalid ecid
Aug 21 15:55:01 Roberts-Air com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.01000000-0500-0000-0000-000000000000[1829]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[137]
Aug 21 15:55:16 Roberts-Air com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.04000000-0600-0000-0000-000000000000[1848]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[137]
Aug 21 15:55:16 Roberts-Air com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.02000000-0100-0000-0000-000000000000[1849]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[137]
Aug 21 15:55:16 Roberts-Air com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.05000000-0200-0000-0000-000000000000[1846]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[137]
Aug 21 15:55:16 Roberts-Air com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.03000000-0100-0000-0000-000000000000[1845]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[137]
Aug 21 15:55:17 Roberts-Air com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.01000000-0400-0000-0000-000000000000[1847]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[137]
Aug 21 15:55:23 Roberts-Air AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent[391]: Entered:_AMMuxedDeviceDisconnected, mux-device:66
Aug 21 15:55:23 Roberts-Air AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent[391]: Entered:__thr_AMMuxedDeviceDisconnected, mux-device:66
Aug 21 15:55:23 Roberts-Air AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent[391]: tid:1dcf - Mux ID not found in mapping dictionary
Aug 21 15:55:23 Roberts-Air AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent[391]: tid:1dcf - Can't handle disconnect with invalid ecid

 

[chscag]

For their service I have to deliver my SSD. I live 12,000 km away. I do love to visit California again ;-)
I will check what is possible here in Israel. There are plenty of IT gurus here, though many live in California where they can earn more
Thanks anyway.

I didn't realize you lived in Israel. As you say, you have lots of IT gurus there and hopefully you can find someone who can recover the data for you and do it inexpensively. But, my recommendation above about not messing with the drive still stands. Let us know how things turn out for you.

 

[Chaver4u]

Thanks for your help. I won't touch my T3 now.
Have a great weekend.

 

[ferrarr]

Here are the steps I try, when a disk/drive is not recognized;

With the drive connected, restart the computer.
With the drive not connected, restart the computer.
Try the drive with a different user account.
Try the drive on another computer.
If you still have access to the old MBP, you should attempt to use that as well.
Try NVRAM and SMC resets, testing after each reset.



Sent from my iPad using Mac-Forums

 

[chscag]

@bob:

His T3 was protected with a password with the built in Samsung software. He migrated data from an older MacBook Pro which he no longer owns so it's very likely the data on the T3 is still there but can not be viewed. I suspect the ability to unlock the T3 was on his old MacBook Pro but was not carried over when he migrated the data to the new machine.

I'm sure he will be able to find someone in Israel who can unlock the T3 and recover his data. Hopefully it won't be expensive to do so.