Patriot KOI with Macbook Pro problem!!! HELP!!!

[Nicko]

I recently purchased the 128gb Patriot KOI SSD.

I installed the drive in my new 13" Macbook Pro.

I have tried a clean install of OS X, I have also tried cloning the drive with Carbon Copy and Disk Utility.

Every time I try a clean install, at the very end I get a cannot install message.

Cloning the drive seems to work but the drive will not boot after.

Drive booted once, was in OS X for all of five minutes and the system hung and i had to power off.

I have tried installing OS X with the SSD in an USB enclosure as well.

Have formatted successfully with "extended journaled"

Any suggestions???

I thought this drive was Mac compatible out of the box???

Very Anxious to get this SSD working....

[earls]

What is the exact error message?

This seems to be an Apple problem, not Patriot.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=774367

Users with a wide range of SSDs and HDDs are suffering.

Read the thread and try some of the tips.

[Nicko]

earls, Thank you for your reply

I am aware of this issue with snow leopard, however this is not my issue.

My Patriot KOI drive does appear in disk utility, and can be formatted.

Unfortunately i am at work right now and do not know the exact error message, as soon as i get off work tonight i will take a few pics of the error and post them.

I have two Snow Leopard discs and have tried both with the same result.

My 7200 rpm 500gb seagate HDD works fine.

The Patriot Koi drive is formatted properly, Patriot Customer service called me last night after work and told me to do a low level format on the drive, after research i found that formatting the drive with disk utility and zeroing out the data is the Mac equivalent, so i decided to do a 35 pass format on the drive last night, still no luck.

Disk utility has not identified any errors on the drive, and i have tried using the repair option.

The process I am using.

1.Boot from Disc
2.Format SSD with Disk Utility
3.Install OS X (The progress bar runs and then eventually quits, this is when i get the error message)

I am also aware that the apple EFI 1.7 may have troubles with SATA II connections, however if this were the case my seagate would not work properly and i would be able to at least get Snow Leopard or Leopard ( i have tried both) to install to the Patriot drive while in the external enclosure and boot.

I couldnt imagine a more perfect scenario for this drive to be installed in considering this drive is designed for macs, and specifially macbook pros as specified on the back of the box.

Apple will not support third party equipment, one of the first things they ask is, did you replace any of the Original Equipment? (i did), and does it work with the original equipment (it does)

This drive is more expensive than other SSD's on the market, The entire reason i purchased this drive over those is this statement "To ensure complete compatibility the KOI line has been rigorously tested in Apple's own lab. KOI is the perfect solution for mobile Mac platforms such as the MacBook and MacBook Pro"

Any other ideas....
I really appreciate the help....

[earls]

Just wanted to check back with you on your status...

Yes, it is very odd that a brand new MBP cannot utilize hardware designed AND TESTED by Apple.

There's more than meets the eye.

I'm sure you've already checked and/or done it, but the MBP has the latest firmware or bios or whatever? It's as fresh and new as it can be, both hardware and software wise?

Unreal.

[earls]

The guy in the thread above said this worked for his WARP drive like a charm...

Take out the internal disk.
Plug in a SATA USB adapter and plug the Patriot disk on that adapter.
Then boot up the install cd/dvd.
You usually need to partition it as GUID partition table every time....* using the disk utility.
Then continue the installation as normal.
When done take the Patriot and put it inside the mac and close it up.

[Nicko]

Earls, thanks

I have tried this as well, at the apple store right now to see if I can get some answers from them...

[Nicko]

So at the apple store we were able to install snow leopard (with the ssd in an external) by using another external drive to install snow leopard from (instead of the install disc)

the system booted and ran for all of five minutes then froze.

i restarted the computer and it will no longer boot.

back to square one i guess....

any help is appreciated, i am at my wits end here!

Patriot, Can i get a call sometime soon with some suggestions and hopefully answers???

If you have not seen this problem before could this drive be faulty?, can i arrange a replacement to ensure this?

I have a Hitatchi and a Seagate that flat out work, i have tried everything with this drive and it suggested mac compatibility far more than the others...

[aschulman]

Don't know if this will be of use but:

I was able to install Snow Leopard successfully on a 256Gb Koi SSD in a new Macbook Pro by doing the following.

1. I put the SSD into the Macbook Pro.

2. I connected it to another Mac with a firewire cabate and started the MacbookPro up in target disk mode (restart while pressing T).

3. I then used Disk Utility on the other Mac to format (erase) the SSD in MacOS Extended (Journaled) format.

4. I then shut down the Macbook Pro, disconnected the firewire cable, restarted the Macbook Pro, and installed Leopard on the SSD using a Leopard Install disk in the Macbook Pro's optical drive.

5. Then I upgraded to Snow Leopard with a Snow Leopard Install disk in the Macbook Pro's optical drive.



AS

[Nicko]

Aschulman, thanks for the tip, i dont have any firewire cables available at the moment but i will buy one on the way home from work tonight and give this a try.

good to know that someone else has one of these working...

Ill try this from my mac pro tower tonight...

thanks again...

[Nicko]

Hi, Sorry for taking so long to reply, it was a hectic work week....

I seem to have figured out the problem, and corrected it (typing from the Macbook Pro in question with the drive installed)

I was focusing way to much on the drive being the issue, however i have found that this is not the case (its Apple as usual).

The issue was indeed apple's 1.7 EFI, which comes preinstalled with new 13 and 15 inch Macbook Pros, it seems to lock out a bunch of drives including the Patriot KOI SSD. This update was meant to meet the SATA 2 Spec, however Apple being Apple decided that computing standards are meant to be toyed with.

The firmware on this machine was rolled back to the 1.6 EFI for the time being (now it is at the SATA 1.5 Spec), afterwards i was able to install Snow Leopard or Leopard without a problem and the Drive has been functioning fine since.

A note to Patriot: Please let your current and future customers know that this is an issue with the newest line of 13 and 15 inch Macbook Pros so that they dont let apple make them think that this is an issue with your product. Maybe you guys could put a little more fire under Apples butts than us consumers can to get this fixed.

Please have a look at the link below for the in depth problem:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....art=0&tstart=0

I guess I will just have to wait for Apple to issue a 1.8 EFI to send me to SATA 2.....

I appreciate the help from the patriot staff and you guys in the forums.

Ill post again if there are any updates...