Trouble Replacing Hard Drive

[hoffmant]

The HDD in my wife's black MacBook (2007, I think) won't boot up. I've run Disk Utility and have decided it's pretty much dead. I have a Carbon Copy backup, so the data is fine.

I've tried replacing the drive twice now, and the MacBook simply won't "see" the new drives. When I install the drive, nothing shows up in Disk Utility (run either from the install disc or the Carbon Copy backup drive in a USB enclosure).

The new drives are formatted (I even copied the bootable backup to one of them), and the computer sees them just fine if I install them in a USB enclosure and hook them up that way. When I put them in the computer, though, no dice. Her old, corrupted HDD still showed up in Disk Utility when I reinstalled it, but the new drives don't...

What am I doing wrong?!? What else can I try?

 

[spinnerlys]

Does the new HDD sit correctly?
Have you really pushed it into the bay? I remember it took some pressure, I was anxious I would break something, but I didn't.

 

[hoffmant]

I'm pretty sure they've been seated correctly. I tried to push them in as hard as I thought necessary. And I was able to put the original drive back in a number of times, and it showed up in Disk Utility just fine. Would a newer drive require more force than the original?

 

[hoffmant]

Anyone else?

Don't know if it makes any difference, but the only thing about these new drives that looks different from the original one is a plastic piece surrounding the leads on the new drives. The Toshiba drive on the right is the original. You can see all of the leads easily--the drive on the right has a plastic piece partially covering some (they're completely hidden from the bottom). The other drive I tried was the same.

Do I have to remove this plastic piece? It doesn't seem like it'll come off too easily...

 

[alust2013]

Those are only for if the power doesn't come through the SATA connector, which in your model, I'm not sure if it does or not. I'd try pulling that off, if you can without damaging the drive

 

[ThirteenXIII]

No, that is just the way the drive is made, dont attempt to break off that plastic piece unless you want to cause damage to the drive.

 

[hoffmant]

No, that is just the way the drive is made, dont attempt to break off that plastic piece unless you want to cause damage to the drive.

It doesn't look like it wants to budge anyway. I didn't try forcing anything.


I've tried four different drives in this computer, including the HD from my MBP (so I know it works), and the MacBook won't recognize any of them. The only drive that "works" in it is the original, which won't boot up since it's damaged.