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macbook unable to boot from seagate momentus 7200.4 500GB ?

B

bch mac

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 14, 2009
6
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Just got a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB to install in a white MacBook Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz. The MacBook can read, write, and format the drive (connected as a USB external) with no problem. It can't seem to boot from it or install OS X to the drive.

I've tried:

1) cloning the current drive using disk utility's restore option while booted from a 10.5 install disk--Seagate drive will not boot after clone even though the MacBook sees it as a boot device when looking at the startup disk options while booted from the 10.5 disk.

2) Time Machine restore to the Seagate drive--fails every time with a long error log.

3) Clean install to the Seagate drive with a retail 10.5 install disk--install fails every time.

The drive could just be defective but I've seen a lot of defective drives and it doesn't feel like that's the case. I haven't run any hardware tests on the drive. (Anyone know if an Intel Mac will boot Seatools?)

Anyone else have any experience with the Seagate Momentus in an older Core 2 MacBook? I seem to vaguely recall reading on Apple's store page around the time I bought the MacBook that the max HDD supported was a 320GB (a size that at the time was larger than anything available to consumers). Not sure if that is the case or not.

Any assistance/advice from the community would be appreciated.
 
Do you have the drive formatted as HFS+ Journaled with a GUID Partition Table?

The Partition Table is a biggie. The Intel Macs running 10.5 can only boot from GUID, not MBR or the older style Apple Partition Map.
 
With the hard drive in the external case boot osx and check disk utility to make sure like previously said the partition is GUID.
 
I formated the Seagate HFS+ Journaled, but didn't know about the GUID Partition Table. Thanks for the info. I'll try that when I get home today. The partition table can be modified in Disk Utility?
 
It gets more interesting:

I verified that the drive is partitioned correctly with a GUID Partition Table. I was able to install OS X on the Seagate drive and boot it with it connected as a USB external. When I connect the drive to the internal SATA in the MacBook the same problems return.

The issue appears to be with the internal SATA connection in the MacBook not likeing the Seagate. The drive is SATA 3GBs and the internal connection is SATA 1.5GBs, but it shouldn't matter.

Any ideas before I return the drive for a WD Scorpio 320? I thought possiblly disabling sudden motion sensor might be worth a try. Are there any drives known to not work with that feature?

Thanks again.
 
As soon as you hit the power button, hold down the option key and see if the internal drive is available to be selected as the boot drive. If so, select it and see if it boots. If not, you have a problem with that drive connection internally.

Again, if you tried this and it does boot fine, the next step would be to goto System Preferences/Startup Disk and select the new internal there for future startups. -GDF
 
Make sure you really have the connection firmly pressed to the drive.

There was a thread a couple weeks ago where the OP was going back and forth between drives, and it ended up just being a VERY snug SATA connector on his new drive that was the culprit.
 
Oddly enough this was the problem. I took the drive out, and reseated it pressing it in as hard as possible. I'm using the MacBook now with the Seagate drive.

Thanks to everyone that contributed. I feel a little silly that the fix was this simple. Anyway, it feels good to have a few hundred GBs of free space!
 
bch mac said:
Oddly enough this was the problem. I took the drive out, and reseated it pressing it in as hard as possible. I'm using the MacBook now with the Seagate drive.

Thanks to everyone that contributed. I feel a little silly that the fix was this simple. Anyway, it feels good to have a few hundred GBs of free space!
Click to expand...

Yup, the OP from the other thread said the same thing, just took some muscle to seat the drive.
 
quick question.

clyde2801 said:
Mine's working just great in my 2.4 uni....vibration issues aside. :(
Click to expand...

How bad are the vibrations? Is it enough to make you wish you had installed a different drive? I'm planning on putting one of these in a new macbook pro and am debating between the 500GB momentus and the 320GB WD Scorpio Black.
 
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