MacBook won't recognize my hard drive

Do you know someone else with a macbook HDD. If so, put their HDD inyour macbook and see if your macbook will boot.
If your macbook will boot with the other drive in it, then you will need a new 2.5" SATA HDD. Get one from Ebay and make sure it is a 2.5 inch SATA hard drive. The HDD swap is easy and only takes a few minutes.

Did you open Disk Utility from the install disk?

I finally found out how to get my new hard drive to work in my macbook!!!

Hello, I have just began my love for macs. Ive been a PC guy for my whole life, but recently traded a computer I had for a Mac Mini, I was gonna sell it but realized how much fun it was. I ended up buying a 2.1 C2D, 2GB RAM, 13.3 macbook. It came with no hard drive, after countless hours I got it to work.

ANSWER:
As soon as the apple appears on the screen, plug your internal hard drive in. That is what I did to get my 250GB HD Western Digital, I swapped it for a Seagate which was recognized easily

so i have a similar problem
my hard drive crashed and i took it to apple and they said it was dead. i got myself a new WD 500Gb hard drive and tried to install it myself but my computer could not see the hard drive in disc utility etc. so i plugged it in externally using a SATA enclosure. i was able to successfully install mac osx onto my new hard drive and boot up my computer using the hard drive externally but as soon as i put the hard drive back into my computer, it is un able to boot up. I can see the hard drive when i turn on the computer and hold option but when i click on the hard drive it fails to boot up.

any suggestions on how i could fix this problem?

How to get your hard drive working

Ok guys first wen you put your new hard drive and want to install your cd
It's not Gonna show up then go to utilities and you can fix it there and it's gonna come readable thanks.

Hey guys i seem to be having the same problem as (CSapprentice) and i also tried going into the utilities to fix it but theres nothing there its like its unreadable what do you think it might be?

i've heard this happen to vertex 2 ssds but not normal hds, hmmm

Yorkx27 go to utilities and select the hard drive image is like the 4th one and then there it's gonna appears your hard drive and the box on your left whit the cd and then on the right just add it in the 3rd option and your good to go if you can't I I'm gonna put a comment step by step exactly so you can fix it good luck.

Hard drive may not be the problem

I'm having almost the same problem with the internal hdd not being found after a hard reboot (pressing the power button when everything else failed -- everything was frozen, except by the mouse cursor). It's a Macbook early 2009 version from my company. The disk doesn't get detected at all, using disk utilities or pressing the Option key, or by using partitioning software. As we have two of these, I swapped the hard disks and found that it works normally on the other machine, so in my case it must be a motherboard/sata problem. Unfortunately, not under warranty anymore. I wonder if it's common for a Mac to get these kinds of hardware problems because of a hard reboot...

Im having the same issue

golts said:

I've had my 1st Gen MacBook for 1,5 years now and I've never had any problems with it. After it had been very slow for some minutes with only two apps open - iTunes and Safari, I restarted the MacBook. When after 15 minutes, it hadn't booted (it stopped at the grey screen), i put in the installation disc. It told me to choose a volume, but didn't show my hard disk as an option. I suppose there's something wrong with the harddisk. How do I fix it?

Click to expand...

Golts,

I am having the same problem with my macbook pro - have you been able to resolve this issue?

I had my hard drive crash, bought a new WD Scropio Black 320 GB SATA and installed it. I get to the point where it asks me where I want to install the OS and there is no options. I open disk utility and the snow leopard disk is the only drive it finds.

I plugged the old drive back in to see if the MBP could find it, and it does, and that the drive is damaged.

Then I tried plugging the new drive back in and go through the same procedure and it still can't find the new drive.



Please help

Thanks

reparation or buy new

rgj said:

I'm having almost the same problem with the internal hdd not being found after a hard reboot (pressing the power button when everything else failed -- everything was frozen, except by the mouse cursor). It's a Macbook early 2009 version from my company. The disk doesn't get detected at all, using disk utilities or pressing the Option key, or by using partitioning software. As we have two of these, I swapped the hard disks and found that it works normally on the other machine, so in my case it must be a motherboard/sata problem. Unfortunately, not under warranty anymore. I wonder if it's common for a Mac to get these kinds of hardware problems because of a hard reboot...

Click to expand...

I'm having the same problem. My macbook pro (bought in early 2009) doesn't recognize any hard disks anymore. Unfortunately out of warranty as well..
Did you ask Apple to repair your macbook? Or is buying a new one a better option? (since the reparation prices are high..)

Anglionin said:

I'm having the same problem. My macbook pro (bought in early 2009) doesn't recognize any hard disks anymore. Unfortunately out of warranty as well..
Did you ask Apple to repair your macbook? Or is buying a new one a better option? (since the reparation prices are high..)

Click to expand...

I'm having the same issue...

Hard Drive May Not Be The Problem

Help!

I think I'm having a similar problem as rgj - I have inserted a new HD into the MacBook, because I was told at the Apple store that I needed to get a new one. However, It doesn't recognize the drive.

I put the Snow Leopard disc in, and try to use the Disc Util and it can't find it either. I'm assuming a connection is bad, or the mother board is bad? Any idea where to go from here?

Thanks,

The same problem here, but this is my long story short:

MacBook Pro 13" late 2009 with Snow Leopard.
Crashed like with others stories and didn't want to find disk, didn't want to boot from Hard Drive.
From some time I noticed it is slower, and on some point everything was taking forever.
I bought new hard drive (WD Scorpio 750GB SATAII 7200rpm or so) because many people fix it with replacing hard drive.
I checked my old WD Scorpio 500GB 5400rpm thgough USB and it was working, files are there, seems to be fine.
New WD 750GB is still unrecognizable.
My brother told me it can be motherboard/logic board.

I spent too much time with playing and I put too much nerves into that macbook pro, so I decided I will buy new one.
I think this is fail of the producer because so many people has problem with this same model.

However, if anybody has any tip, link, clue please share.


Thank you,
Freezorro

It's the internal hard drive cable. They drop out on you after 1.5 to 2 years. Just type "2009 macbook internal hard drive cable" into google and you'll find multiple sites that supply them.

I suspected the cable as well, but if my old drive is recognized, but the new one is not (unless plugged in USB), then it can't be the cable.... so ... what's the next step for a solution then?
(2006 MBP Alum/2.33ghz/3GB ram/10.5.8)