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New Hard Drive in MacBook Issue

apunkrockmonk

apunkrockmonk

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 20, 2005
772
20
Rochester, NY
I just received my new Seagate Momentus 5400.6 (500GB) drive in the mail today, I went to install it in my machine, once I installed it the MacBook doesn't recognize it in system profiler or disk utility.

I removed it, but my old 5400rpm 250GB WD back in and put the new 500GB seagate into an external enclosure and there was no problems.

The MacBook recognizes both drives simultaneously this way.

Is there any reason why when I boot the machine with the 500GB internally and the 250GB in the enclosure it only sees the 250GB but when I attach the 500GB externally and the 250GB internally the machine sees both?

I do realize that the 500GB drive is sata 3.0 and my MacBook is sata 1.5 (I have the Late 2006 MacBook) so I also tried setting the jumper on the 500GB drive to perform only at sata 1.5... it made no difference.

If anyone has any idea why this is happening please let me know, it'd be greatly appreciated.
 
When the Seagate drive is installed, does it show up at all in Disk Utility? You sound as though you know what you're doing, but I just wanted to make sure you weren't overlooking the obvious (need to partition the drive before it will mount on the desktop and can be written to).

Otherwise, perhaps the drive isn't making a good connection? Is this a unibody or polycarbonate MacBook? If it's the unibody it should be easy to verify since the connector is right there. If it's the polycarbonate, you'll have to take off the top case to check.

SATA 3.0 should work fine on a controller meant for SATA 1.5, it should just downclock to the appropriate speed. I might try playing with the jumpers as well.

Also, it wouldn't hurt to reset the machine's PRAM to force it to rebuild the device tree.
 
Either way I'm booting from the 250GB cause I haven't cloned it to the 500, however I did format the 500 from the external enclosure.

And I did try using the jumper to slow it down to sata 1.5, didn't make a difference so I removed the jumper because it shouldn't be necessary.

I'm cloning my 250 over to the 500 now.

I don't see why it'd make a difference but I'm hoping it does.
 
Suggestion: While the original 250 is in the MacBook and the 500 is in the enclosure, open Disk Utility and format the 500 to Mac Extended (Journaled), name it something like MacBook HD or Macintosh HD, and create a partition making sure it's a GUID partition table. Next clone your 250 to the 500 using SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner and then test to make sure that you can boot to the external and all of your stuff is in place. You can boot to the external by restarting your MacBook and holding down the alt (option) key and select that drive. Now switch the 2 drives.... done.
 
The drive just finished cloning, I removed my 250GB from the machine all together.

It boots fine from the 500GB connected through usb but.... no surprise here, it will not boot from the 500GB when it is inserted inside the machine, I tried it with and without the jumper once again.

I put my ear to the machine with the drive attached and with it not attached and I can hear the disk spin up as I turn on the machine so it has power but for some reason it will not read the disk.

I'm really stumped and starting to get annoyed.

I don't see why it would matter but the 250GB drive that works inside the machine is a WD and the 500GB that only works in the enclosure is a Seagate.

Any one else have any ideas?

I don't understand why it works fine in an enclosure and will not work inside the machine.

I also tried holding alt with the 500GB inside the machine and nothing else attached and the startup disk selection screen comes up but it's blank.

Ugh....
 
Did you make sure to setup the 500GB drive with GUID partition table and HFS+Journaled as the format type?

Edit: GfulDedFan beat me to it.
 
Its hfs+ journaled, I know that for sure.

I'm on call right now and I just got a call so I'm not at the computer right now.

This same exact thing happened to me a long time ago with the stock 80GB drive the machine came with.

It worked fine for a year then once when the machine was asleep I dropped it no more than a foot onto a carpeted floor accidentally.....

The drive no longer worked in the machine but it worked in the enclosure.... I bought the wd 250GB drive and used that fine for the past year and a half.

I eventually needed a logic board repair before the warranty ran out on the machine, I threw the old 80gb back in.... they replaced the drive and the logic board.... but as soon as I got the machine back I put the 250GB back in.

For what its worth the stock 80GB drive is also a seagate...

When I get home in 30 minutes I'll check on the GUID thing.
 
Yeah the drive is HFS+ Journaled with the GUID table.

Just for kicks I tried disabling the MacBook's SMS, reseting the PRAM and the SMC... still isn't detected when installed internally but is detected and bootable when in the USB enclosure.
 
I don't know if this will work but maybe you could try...
-reformatting the 500 in the external enclosure
-reinsert it into the computer
-put your OS X cd in the drive
-restart your computer while holding Alt/option
-boot from CD and use disk utility

Don't connect the 250 HDD and see if Disk Utility via CD boot detects your new HDD.
 
My optical drive in my MacBook is dead unfortunately and I have no access to an external optical drive.

But since disk utility doesn't even recognize it when booting from another external hard drive I don't think that would make a difference.

My friend is bringing over his early 2006 MacBook in a few minutes and I'm going to see if the drive works in his machine.

If not it's time to send it back... I guess saving the $10 on the Seagate over the 500GB Western Digital wasn't worth it.
 
Well I tried the 500GB in my friend's early 2006 MacBook, internally, booted right up.

I have no idea why my computer will work with some drives internally and not others....

Any ideas?
 
apunkrockmonk said:
I guess I'm going to RMA my hard drive and hope to have better luck with the next.
Click to expand...

weird issue, but if it works in your friends MB then it sounds like a problem with your computer. do you have the same macbook as your friend?
 
apunkrockmonk said:
I guess I'm going to RMA my hard drive and hope to have better luck with the next.
Click to expand...

Did you ever resolve this? I am going through the exact same issue with my Macbook. I have tried 500GB drives from WD and Hitachi and have the same problem. It is making me crazy! Any insight you have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
 
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