Got blinking question mark, got new HD but it isn't recognized

[Mac1509]

Last night, my Safari froze my 2007 MacBook. So I manually shut it down by pressing the ON button.

Upon turning it back on, I received the blinking question mark. I tried various things, like reinstalling, to try to save my information from my hard drive. No dice. The hard drive wasn't even recognized when I tried to reinstall.

I took it to an Apple expert at a local store today and he said the hard drive was likely dead. So I bought a new one. The same problem- I can't install OS X because the hard drive is simply not showing up.

In fact, under "Disk Utilities," it doesn't even show up on the left.

Since the same things are happening to both hard drives, it leads me to believe that it isn't a hard drive problem.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm at my wit's end.

 

[fehhkk]

Sounds like a drive controller failure or power is not reaching the drive by some reason. Can you hear the hard drive spinning up as you power on the machine?

 

[iBookG4user]

Do you have a spare portable external hard drive case that you could put it in? I'd try putting the hard drive in that and then seeing if it will show up on another Mac. That would tell you if it is the computer or the hard drive which is at fault.

 

[Mac1509]

Well, I realized I didn't have the proper case on the new HD, so I put the case on it and I'm installing OS X right now.

Now for finding out if any of the data on my old HD is salvageable. Any ideas regarding how I could find out?

 

[miiles]

Now for finding out if any of the data on my old HD is salvageable. Any ideas regarding how I could find out?

If you already reinstalled OS X then you reformatted the drive, nothing should be one it.

EDIT: Sorry, misread it. The install wasn't successful because it didn't even show up in Disk Utility, disregard my comment.

 

[-tWv-]

Well, I realized I didn't have the proper case on the new HD, so I put the case on it and I'm installing OS X right now.

Now for finding out if any of the data on my old HD is salvageable. Any ideas regarding how I could find out?

I would buy an external case and use Disk Warrior on your mac to attempt to recover the data from the old drive. You could also use Data Rescue II. Just take your pick

 

[dukebound85]

had that happen to me and it was a dead hdd