formatting old HD for external storage use

[beedoola]

I have my stock 5400 500GB Toshiba drive from my 2011 MBP. I want to format it to use as an external HD but when I plug it into my MBP via an external HD enclosure, it won't show up in Disk Utility. Is there a reason why?

I'm using the enclosure or guts rather, from my Western Digital My Book.

When I got my Samsung 830 SSD - I used the WD enclosure to hook up and copy the original HD's data so it worked with the SSD but its not showing up for the old HD, any thoughts?

 

[Macman45]

It could be the enclosure....When I used externals that way I bought a third party powered caddy, not expensive and worked with every HDD I tried:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/SHARKOON-Qu...D4/ref=sr_1_41?ie=UTF8&qid=1352712998&sr=8-41


Not the same make, but same design as the one I used.

 

[beedoola]

I don't get why it worked with the Samsung 830 and not with this one. Is it that this hard drive is already formatted/still has the OSX on it? Shouldn't it pop up in disk utility when I hook it up?

Is there a way to force detect for devices?

 

[beedoola]

bump

 

[marvin4653]

What drive originally came with the WD My Book?

 

[beedoola]

I'm not sure. Does it matter?

The point was that I used the hardware/dock of the external drive for my new Samsung 830 and the hardware read the 830 just fine.

When I tried hooking up my old HD - the one that originally came in my Macbook (the one the Samsung replace), my computer would not detect the drive when it was hooked up to the external hardware.

The original HD that came in the My book works fine and is picked up by the computer.

The HD in question - that came from my MBP, was working fine when I replaced it with the Samsung so it should be working fine. When I powered it via the external hardware, it was spinning but just not getting picked up by the computer.

Its still has OSX on it; would that be a problem? That its trying to boot or something? And why Disk Utility won't recognize it?

 

[beedoola]

anyone?