Macbook 13" White HD replacement problems

[Crux]

Hey im new to the forum and im in great need of some help.

ill start from the beginning so you all know the score,

My hard drive in my macbook started to click a good wile ago and i noticed a rapid decent in performance when loading and booting my macbook, i believed the problem to be the Hard drive, so i stopped using it full stop till i had a replacement.

i now have a 160 gb HD which i belive runs at 5400 but may be 7200 rpm. I removed the old HD and inserted the new drive.

i then connected the power and turned on the macbook. the screen flashed for a second then stayed black.

i then turned the computer off and inserted my Leopard disks from my imac to attempt to gain access to at least disk utility so i could preform a format on the new HD, but the mac just flashed like before and stayed with a black screen. i also tried powering on with alt pushed down with no avail.

i then proceeded to replace the HD with the old HD knowing it would boot as it had before, but just so i could make sure i could access the disk utility on the leopard disk and to no avail i get a flash and blank screen.

am i looking at a dead macbook or have a simply missed something simple, at the moment the only idea i have is the mac needs more juice before it will do anything.

Thanks for any help you guys can provide

Mark Evans

 

[MrCheeto]

Can you post the Model number?

 

[Crux]

ooo sorry model number is A1181

 

[MrCheeto]

There is type on the bottom surface close to the hinge. It will say something like "Model: A1801"

 

[Crux]

A1181 you were to quick for me

 

[MrCheeto]

1. When you try to power it on, are you using the AC Power? Try first with only battery then ONLY AC.

2. Did you put the access door (to the ram and hard drive slots) back on?

 

[Crux]

1. i will try that know. the battery was dead im pretty sure i left i sat about for a good few months before i got a new HD so ive been trying with the AC in but ive left it for a good 30 mins now so ill try without.

2. everything is reconnected all the ram plate is secured in place and the battery locked in

 

[Crux]

ok, i removed the Ac cable with power just from the battery i just got the same responce and flash then just the white front light.

with just the AC cable with no battery at all i also had the same result a flash of the screen and the white front light

 

[Crux]

just to clarify at the moment the OLD broken HD is in with tiger osc installed on it, and im still not getting any response, not looking good

 

[NewMacbookPlz]

As for booting from the optical drive, I don't think you can boot from an iMac's discs. You'll need either your factory discs or a set of Tiger/Leopard/Snow Leopard retail discs.

To boot to the optical drive, hold the c key while booting.

 

[Crux]

Progress the mac will now boot and load tiger from my broken HD, now how can i format the new disk i have without a boot disk? can i make a backup of my system using disk utilitys then use that to format and reinstall my back up onto the new HD?

 

[DewGuy1999]

Progress the mac will now boot and load tiger from my broken HD, now how can i format the new disk i have without a boot disk? can i make a backup of my system using disk utilitys then use that to format and reinstall my back up onto the new HD?

If you got an external enclosure you could put the new drive in it, use Disk Utility from the MacBook to format, then use CarbonCopyCloner (CCC) to make a bootable clone of your MacBook hard drive to the external, then swap out the hard drives and you should be good to go.

 

[Crux]

is there no way i could say, make a disk image of my mac hd on to my external drive, then insert the new drive using my leopard disks to gain access to the disk utilitys then format the new drive and restore the disk image of the external to achive the same effect? this is the method im trying now for the hell of it, i have nothing to lose atm so what the hell

 

[MrCheeto]

Easy.

Go to the Disk Utility and create a New Image of your currently booted partition. Then Restore that image to your new Hard Drive via an external enclosure because you will have to be booted with your old drive to Restore onto your new one in your situation.

After this, when you boot into your new drive, you'll never notice a file out of place!

 

[Crux]

but my leopard disks from my imac allow me to boot a small form of leopard which gives me access to the disk utility in leopard so im going to try doing that to achieve the same effect

 

[DewGuy1999]

Easy.

Go to the Disk Utility and create a New Image of your currently booted partition. Then Restore that image to your new Hard Drive via an external enclosure because you will have to be booted with your old drive to Restore onto your new one in your situation.

After this, when you boot into your new drive, you'll never notice a file out of place!

You can't boot off of a disk image, can you?

 

[DewGuy1999]

is there no way i could say, make a disk image of my mac hd on to my external drive, then insert the new drive using my leopard disks to gain access to the disk utilitys then format the new drive and restore the disk image of the external to achive the same effect? this is the method im trying now for the hell of it, i have nothing to lose atm so what the hell

If the Leopard disc you're writing about is the restore disc that came with your iMac (mentioned earlier in the thread) then I don't believe that disc will be able to boot your MacBook. Restore discs are specific to the Mac they come with. If the Leopard disc is a retail Leopard disc then that should be able to boot the MacBook.

 

[Crux]

no it does work for sure, it in it now it doesent litrally boot leopard ofc but it says blablabla carnt install blabla then open a stripped down version of osc which lets me open disk utilitys inside this mini operating system type thing, i carnt explain it better than that sadly, but if it works i guess i just found summet cool