Chosen Solution
I have a 13” MacBook Pro with TouchBar (A1706 with T1) purchased back in 2016. It’s a great computer. A few weeks ago I made the mistake of knocking a glass of water over it. At the time, I powered it off, removed the bottom case and dried it out. One of the water detection stickers (on the left hand side when looking from underneath and screen on top) turned pink. Later that day and for the next few days the computer worked flawlessly. Over the course of the next week it would occasionally freeze and seemed to no longer be able to find the SSD (after it had booted). This happened intermittently, but more frequently when powered by USB-C port. At this time I did a SMC reset and NVRAM reset and it did not make any real difference. It was still able to boot and would still lose access to the SSD intermittently. After about a week I decided to try doing another SMC reset and NVRAM reset to see if this would make things more reliable. It did not, and now it will not detect the internal SSD at all. I have entered Mac OS recovery mode, and it cannot find the SSD using Disk Utility, and downloads the recovery software over the internet. Q1: Is there a way to get the internal SSD operating again? Feels like the MTBF was becoming more frequent over the first week and now it may be completely stuffed, but I am curious to know if there is a different set of settings I can try to get it up again. I have purchased an external USB SSD, and it would be great to be able to run the Mac from this. Afterall the RAM and CPU still appear fully operational. On the SSD I have installed Big Sur, and I am able to boot into safe mode from this drive. However I run into the same issue many others experience where new firmware is required for the TouchBar and T1 chip. Q2: Is there a way to use a MacBookPro with a non-operational internal SSD, but with an external SSD and boot from it? How do I install the correct firmware onto the Mac? The Big Sur installer does not have obvious firmware drivers. The Catalina installer does, but appears to not be able to install these drivers (do they have to be installed on internal SSD)? It would be great to continue to use the Mac for something! Any assistance appreciated.
Side stepping your systems failure due to a liquid spill would not be wise! Clearly your flash storage got the worse of it right now over time other parts of your system will likely fail. I would strongly recommend you get your system to someone who has the needed skills to fix your system. Time is your enemy! The longer you wait the more corrosion damage you’ll face. If we look at what your logic board the two Yellow marked chips are your flash chips (SSD)
They are very close to your right side Thunderbolt ports which puts the whole logic board at risk! Review the MacBook Pro 13" Touch Bar Teardown for more.
