Chosen Solution
I bought this drive: 1 TB SSD Hybrid 2.5" Hard Drive and attached it to this adaptor: [linked product missing or disabled: IF107-131-1] It shows up in Disk Utility as Mass Storage Device Media (uninitialized) Simple question: how to initialize it. The Problem: The Partition button is blanked out. When I try “restore” I get the message “Restore process has failed…” with the following details: “Validating target… Validating source… The volume on device “/dev/disk0” is not of type Apple_HFS or Apple_UFS Could not validate source - Device not configured The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error 6.) Operation failed…” Do I need to return this hard drive as incompatible with my computer? MacBook Pro Retina, 13”, early 2015, OS 10.13.4 Or is there a solution?
A virgin drive needs to be prepped by formatting it to GUID and then Journaled file system. Once you’ve created the first partition you can resize it if need be and create a second partition. But before you do any of this are you planning on using this drive as a boot drive or merely a data drive? If you are planning on using it as a boot drive you should let the OS installer prep the drive as that way the hidden recovery partition is created and the OS is installed in the first active partition. Most people don’t need to create multiple partitions on their boot drive (other than the hidden one). Update (06/22/2018) Here’s how to post a screen shot here: Adding images to an existing question But before you do that how about reviewing this guide: How to Replace Your MacBook Pro’s Hard Drive with an SSD. Disregard the type of drive here as all drives are the same at this level. I think you’ll need a different enclosure here as this SATA to USB adapter I don’t think supports SATA III drives as well as the systems USB 3.0. port I would recommend making it a bootable OS drive so you have a means to fix your internal drive if it needs fixing. Most of the time you’ll use this drive for either backup and/or additional storage space. Here is a better case for your drive: 2.5in USB 3.0 SSD SATA Hard Drive Enclosure this is a more durable case. The IFIXT one is more for someone who is only going to use it a few times.
