MacBook Air Hard drive Replacement

[kart]

My MacBook Air 2008 (A1304) hard drive had given up, so I purchased the exact same hard drive they come with standard - Samsung HS12UHE/A.

I believe that I had put the new HD in as how I took the existing out, but I am having some problems with the boot. When started, the MBA comes up with a flashing folder with a ? in the middle. I then turned it off, and started again holding down 'option' and all that comes up is the WiFi section (I believe that hard drives are suppose to come up that the MBA recognises).

I am thinking that I have not connected the HD correctly - I have included some photos. If anyone has any clues as to what I am doing incorrectly, or have had similar problems, please help me out!

I have included some photos of how I have connected it up.

Thanks.

 

[Dadioh]

Sounds like you haven't installed OS X on the hard drive yet. The flashing folder means it can't find anything to boot from but that just means there is no OS on the drive. Did that version of Air come with OS X on a USB thumb drive? If so, use that to reinstall OS X.

Otherwise, hopefully your model supports internet recovery.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201314

 

[redheeler]

I have the same model of MacBook Air as you (late 2008) and recently replaced the HDD with an SSD. I’m surprised you didn’t go for an SSD, as they’re only around $20 more on eBay and make a huge performance difference compared to a 6 year old 4200 RPM HDD (especially when running Mavericks/Yosemite, which from my experience are almost unusable on the stock HDD).


As the previous poster mentioned, if the HDD is empty you’ll need to reinstall OS X. You can do this several ways:

-Get or burn a Snow Leopard installation disk, and install using a USB disk drive or use Remote Install Mac OS X on another Mac on the same network.
-Create a bootable USB Yosemite/Mavericks installer on another compatible Mac. Just be warned, if you do install Yosemite or Mavericks on it, expect slow performance with constant beachballs on the HDD.

If you still have the original Leopard restore disks, you can install using those and the first method above (or simply check if the HDD is recognized in Disk Utility), but afterward it would still be advisable to upgrade to Snow Leopard.

Otherwise, hopefully your model supports internet recovery.

The late 2008 shipped with Leopard, therefore it does not.

 

[kart]

I have the same model of MacBook Air as you (late 2008) and recently replaced the HDD with an SSD. I’m surprised you didn’t go for an SSD, as they’re only around $20 more on eBay and make a huge performance difference compared to a 6 year old 4200 RPM HDD (especially when running Mavericks/Yosemite, which from my experience are almost unusable on the stock HDD).


As the previous poster mentioned, if the HDD is empty you’ll need to reinstall OS X. You can do this several ways:

-Get or burn a Snow Leopard installation disk, and install using a USB disk drive or use Remote Install Mac OS X on another Mac on the same network.
-Create a bootable USB Yosemite/Mavericks installer on another compatible Mac. Just be warned, if you do install Yosemite or Mavericks on it, expect slow performance with constant beachballs on the HDD.

If you still have the original Leopard restore disks, you can install using those and the first method above (or simply check if the HDD is recognized in Disk Utility), but afterward it would still be advisable to upgrade to Snow Leopard.



The late 2008 shipped with Leopard, therefore it does not.

It is purely a back up machine, in which I hardly use to be honest. I do have a 256gb Crucial SSD laying around, am I able to use this in this MBA? I would not have thought I would have been able to use an SSD as the area is too small for an SSD. Is there adapters available?

I will install OSX on a USB drive, as I dont have a disk drive in the MBA and will give that a go

If I could get the SSD in however, that would be great!

 

[redheeler]

It is purely a back up machine, in which I hardly use to be honest. I do have a 256gb Crucial SSD laying around, am I able to use this in this MBA? I would not have thought I would have been able to use an SSD as the area is too small for an SSD. Is there adapters available?

I will install OSX on a USB drive, as I dont have a disk drive in the MBA and will give that a go

If I could get the SSD in however, that would be great!

You are right, normal 2.5" SATA SSDs won't fit. The 1.8" SSD I got is here, and it also uses the special LIF connector.

 

[flowrider]

Where are you located? Perhaps there is a member near you with a USB installer stick. I'm in Arizona and have installer sticks for ML, Mavericks and Yosemite.

Lou

 

[kart]

Thanks for everyones response. I have created the OS X boot USB, MBA starts up all fine, but when I try to install the OS X from the USB it will only recognise the USB to install the OS X to, so it is not recognising the hd.

I have pushed the ZIF all the way in multiple times, and still no luck..

Any other ideas?
Cheers

 

[MagicBoy]

OS X will only install to a known partition. Have you initialised/partitioned the new hard drive in Disk Utility?

 

[flowrider]

^^^^Correct, we are sharing basic stuff here! However, if booting from a disk, DVD, or UBB stick and there's another uninitialized drive, the OS should give a message saying that drive is unreadable and asking if you want to initialize it. If the new HDD is installed correctly, it is odd that the message did not appear.

Lou

 

[redheeler]

Thanks for everyones response. I have created the OS X boot USB, MBA starts up all fine, but when I try to install the OS X from the USB it will only recognise the USB to install the OS X to, so it is not recognising the hd.

I have pushed the ZIF all the way in multiple times, and still no luck..

Any other ideas?
Cheers

Check if the drive shows in Disk Utility. If it does, erase it and format it as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". You should then be able to install OS X.

 

[kart]

Still no luck. Drive doesnt come up in disk utilities, I am out of ideas.