You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Samsung Portable SSD T7 partition greyed out so cant set as boot drive with Monterey

I have just purchased a Samsung T7 and tried to set it up as a boot drive as in tutorials on the net. My Imac [retina 4k 21.5 in late 2015] sees it fine. As with many other posts I cant get the Disk partition utility to work. I can erase; first aid works; When I go to erase as the forums show I dont get the scheme box appear. Same as lots of other posts.

Tried all as in the post as in "Samsung Portable SSD T7 not working with Catalina" spent hours on this.

iMac 21.5″, macOS 12.2

Posted on Feb 4, 2022 12:53 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 4, 2022 2:25 PM

i have a T7 SSD that i use to run catalina when i need to. i was able to erase it without issue. in disk utility, are you sure that you trying to erase the drive at the top level of the drive?


i still have the option to erase / reformat when the top level of the drive is selected.


also, erasing the drive at the top level of the drive also erases any preloaded software that is supposedly installed to make the drive "mac ready". samsung software has a known history of not working well with macOS. and if you manage to get that software working, any subsequent macOS upgrades / updates can cause that software to fail, leaving you scrambling for a solution.

Similar questions

10 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 4, 2022 2:25 PM in response to andrewjohn63

i have a T7 SSD that i use to run catalina when i need to. i was able to erase it without issue. in disk utility, are you sure that you trying to erase the drive at the top level of the drive?


i still have the option to erase / reformat when the top level of the drive is selected.


also, erasing the drive at the top level of the drive also erases any preloaded software that is supposedly installed to make the drive "mac ready". samsung software has a known history of not working well with macOS. and if you manage to get that software working, any subsequent macOS upgrades / updates can cause that software to fail, leaving you scrambling for a solution.

Feb 6, 2022 6:35 AM in response to andrewjohn63

andrewjohn63 wrote:

I just cant get the "SCHEME"option to come up.

it was so long ago that i forgot this. your reply reminded me. when i first went to erase the T7 drive, the "scheme" option didn't appear for me either. but i went ahead and erased the drive anyways. after that, i went to erase the drive again. once i went to erase the drive the second time, the "scheme" option was available. so i then formatted it as APFS with GUID partition map.

Feb 18, 2022 1:01 AM in response to jeffreythefrog

Here's MY query: I have a late-2015 iMac 27" (17,1), that's currently running High Sierra on an external startup drive (Samsung 870 2Tb SSD), connected via USB - DIRECTLY - to one of the four iMac's internal USB ports.


Also have a Sabrent USB 3.0 4 Bay 2.5” Hard Drive/SSD Docking Station with Fan (DS-4SSD) with four internal Samsung 870 2Tb SSD's, each of which I've formatted with various Mac OS iterations (Catalina, Mojave, Monterey, Big Sur) in order to run a plethora of legacy software programs which I've invested heavily in over the years, as well as current subscriptions and software that required the latest OS... but I cannot get my iMac to restart on any of them as the "startup drive"!


Do each of these drives need to be directly plugged into an iMac internal USB port directly in order to be recognized as a startup drive?


Is the fact that they're installed in an external, powered device - that itself is plugged into an iMac internal USB port - the problem that's preventing them being recognized/used as startup drives?


Thanks for all suggestions: I've been at this for days, now...


Samsung Portable SSD T7 partition greyed out so cant set as boot drive with Monterey

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.