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Help with new Macbook hard drive.

S

ScoobyDoofus

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 31, 2006
53
0
Galway, Ireland
I received my very first Mac today! Yay!

I ordered the standard 512mb and 60gb version, and bought 2gb ram and a 120gb hard drive separately.

I booted it up to make sure it worked, turned it off, swapped the ram, booted it up again. I was more than pleased with the performance!!

So then I turned it off, and swapped the hard drive. I turned it back on, put the Tiger disk in, rebooted and held down "C".

I started going through the install process, until I got to "Select destination". There was nothing there to select from! Eventually I discovered the "Disk Utility" and realised I needed to format the drive first. I went to "Erase" and there was a list of different options to choose from. I chose the default one and let it do it's business.

When I went back to the installation screen, the drive was there, and I went through the installation process. I then got a message to say the installation had failed and needed to try again. I clicked retry, and after ages, it restarted. When it got to the "Select destination" screen, it was blank again. I tried to go back to Disk Utility but it seems to have crashed...

What do I do?!
 
Ok, I rebooted by holding the power button and went back in. I went to disk utility, and it's been saying "gathering disk information" for ages now...

It didn't take this long last time...
 
Ok, bizarre. It's currently installing. I rebooted again, and just thought I'd try it once more, and there was the disk drive in the "Select destination" section.

Fingers crossed!
 
:(

It did the same thing again, but I was watching properly. I don't remember the exact wording but basically it said "checking your installation DVD" and spent about 15mins going from 0-100%, and then it said preparing installation and checking destiniation drive, and now it says "There were errors installing the software" as a title, and then in the main window it says "please try installing again".

This is exactly what happened before.

Please somebody help!
 
I can't really solve the problem for you since I've not tried adding a new hard drive to a Mac before (still running the original) but can you confirm that the disk has been formatted as HFS+? If the default option was selected from Disk Utility then that should be sufficient as it should have been HFS+ but it's still good to check.

Probably not much help but at least you know someone is reading your request for help.
 
Thanks kelmon. I can't remember exactly which option it was, unfortunately, and I can't get back in to check. I know it said something about "journaling"...
 
Hmm, Apple's own documentation for this procedure seems to indicate that you shouldn't even need to format the disk explicitly but rather you just need to insert the installation DVD that came with the MacBook and that this will do everything for you.

Reinstalling the Software That Came with Your Computer

Use the software install discs that came with your computer to install Mac OS X and the applications that came with your computer.

Installing Mac OS X and Applications

To install Mac OS X and the applications that came with your computer, follow these steps:

1. Back up your essential files, if possible.
2. Insert the Mac OS X Install Disc 1 that came with your computer.
3. Double-click “Install Mac OS X and Bundled Software.”
4. Follow the onscreen instructions.
5. After selecting the destination disk for installation, continue following the onscreen instructions. Your computer may restart and ask you to insert the next Mac OS X Install disc 2.

Note: If you want to restore Mac OS X on your computer to the original factory settings, click Options in the “Select a Destination” pane of the Installer, and then select “Erase and Install”.
Click to expand...

Based on this I'd try just rebooting the MacBook and inserting the install disks as soon as possible and see what happens rather than holding down "C" to explicitly boot from the CD.
 
OK, so I just re-read your post and I realise that you said I shouldn't need to format, it should do it for me. Well, it didn't. I don't get a button that says “Install Mac OS X and Bundled Software". It is just an installation menu. At the top, one of the menus is "utilities" which is where I got to Disk Utility.

I have a feeling it might be to do with the temperature... I unplugged the power (the battery was full) and let it cool down and it let me back into Disk Utility.
 
I'm wondering if the new disk itself is duff. The only other thing that I can think of is booting from your install disks, cancelling the install so that you can get access to the Disk Utility and then try running a Repair operation on your disk. If the Repair is claimed to be successful and if you then still can't install the OS then I'd declare a shagged disk and see if you can get it replaced (either that or test it in another computer, if possible).
 
Everything is running smoothly now, I am convinced it was something to do with the temperature of the macbook. I went back after the laptop had cooled down and it was fine, everything worked as it should.

Thanks for your input, Kelmon.
 
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