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Yes the internal SSD always appears in the boot menu when I hold the option key and it does not go away. I waited about 10 minutes and the internal SSD was still visible and I was able to select it to boot from but it kernel panics. When I try to boot from my USB macOS, it kernel panics most of the time but some times it will make it to the critical software update screen, but fail to download it.
Follow the steps recommended by dulefawks for critical update error.
Try to to discard any relation with your case.
Disconnect internal LCD assembly and test with HDMI monitor.
Ok. I followed his instructions and disconnected the touchbar, LCD and touchID button but still cannot boot to USB macOS. It boots to critical software update each time. I tried to install the update using the internal Wifi and also by plugging in my phone and using my LTE connection but it fails both ways. Seems to be because it cannot save the update to the internal drive.
I just remembered one dukefawks post:
"Boot from wifi, hold shift+command+alt+R and turn on machine.
It should boot to the installer from the original OS that was shipped with the machine.
Can it still not see the SSD?
If not open up terminal and at the prompt type:
diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ SSD disk0"
See if applies in your case...
I was running some tests on the SSD in Linux but I realized that after a few minutes, the drive also disappears from the list of available disks. Most of the tests I ran failed to complete, but one did complete and said basically the entire drive was all bad sectors. Drive does not show up when booting into internet recovery and that command you gave me gives me an error “failed to unmount disk”. The drive is probably dead so this is probably a waste of time. Thanks for the help.
I have the exact same issue on same board model. There was a bit of corrosion on the edge but the components impacted have no interaction with the SSD.
Same thing I can sometimes boot to internal drive and after a few minutes, the MacBook will restart. Then, at boot menu, internal won't show up.
At this point, if I try to boot up from an external drive, I will be getting the "critical software error" which is normal since the internal drive is not detected and is needed for BridgeOS (as Dukefawks mentionned in another post).
Sorry for silly question as obviously different air stations different temperatures however what would be good T to re-heat internal of the chip without messing up solder balls under the chip(specifically under filled chips)? From experience too hot pushed solder balls out and messed up the whole thing...