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New HDD Installation Issue on MacBook Aluminum 13"

D

dodolom

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 18, 2009
25
0
Hi guys,

I have the 13" MacBook Unibody with the 250 GB HDD. I wanted to replace that with my Seagate Freeagent Go 500 GB external HDD.

I took off the enclosure and replaced the 250 gb with the 500 gb but the computer won't recognize the new 500gb HDD. All I get is a blinking question mark during start up which I know stands for HDD issues.

The 500 gb HDD is working fine btw, i tested it after i took it out of the enclosure.It is a Serial ATA 2,5" and works just fine.

Any ideas why this is happening? Is the Macbook 13" Unibody not supporting 500 gb HDDs maybe? I checked the specs for the MacBook Pro 13" which is supposed to be the same as the one I have and it does say that it supports 500gb HDD.

Anyways, I'd appreciate if someone can give me any info on the matter.

Thanks in advance,

Dogan
 
NewMacbookPlz

NewMacbookPlz

macrumors 68040
Sep 28, 2008
3,266
0
Is the 500GB drive formated HFS+ Journals GUID Partition table?

You can set that up with your OS X DVD firstly. Also, make sure the drive is really seated properly. Recently, it seems >4/5 threads are solved by re-seating the drive, with a firm push.
 
-tWv-

-tWv-

macrumors 68000
May 11, 2009
1,583
2
Ohio
It needs to be formatted as Mac OSX Extended (journaled) and GUID partition table. You do this with disk utility on the OSX restore disk (hold option/alt at startup, select the cd). If you don't have it formatted that way, then you will have to reformat and then re-install OSX.

If you can put your 250gb HD in the enclosure and it has OSX installed (with all previous settings and such that you would want to transfer to the new drive) then do that boot from it. You should see your internal drive show up in finder (this will indicate if it is connected properly) as well as the external HD you are booting from. If the internal drive is not formatted correctly, reformat it with disk utility now. Then download Carbon Copy Cloner and clone the 250gb to the 500gb inside. After the cloning process is done, you can try to restart and boot from the internal HD.
 
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