New Seagate 500GB HD won't mount via USB

[slockemd]

I purchased a Seagate Momentus 2.5" Internal SATA 500 GB 7200 RPM hard drive. I put it into an external USB enclosure to clone my existing MacbookPro 160GB hard drive and then planned to swap them and install the new 500 GB HD. But when I plug in the external drive case, I do not see the Seagate drive mounted and cannot see it in Disk Utility either.
The external enclosure comes with a USB cable with two USB connectors to provide data transfer and power.
Any suggestions how I can mount this drive so I can clone the internal drive?

Steve

 

[cward11]

Try to run disk utility through the installer DVD (not in OS X). I would also suggest switching USB connections around and make sure the drive is powering up. Is the drive spinning when it's plugged in? If it's spinning but not mounting, it's a drive issue or enclosure issue. If it's not spinning, it's a power issue.

As a last resort, you could remove your old drive and put the 160 in the enclosure. Put the 500 in the MBP and boot from the external 160 (holding down option when you boot up). The cloning will take much longer this way, but if the new drive won't mount in the external enclosure, that might be your only option.