Boot with new hard drive

I just installed a new hard drive. I have a new 2012 MBP 13". How do I get the computer to boot up after installing the new HDD?

See OS X (Lion/Mountain Lion)- About OS X Recovery and Using Lion Recovery when no DHCP service is available.

Similar Messages

MacBook Pro won't boot with new hard drive, but a different MacBook Pro will

So here are the details. My friend and I both have 13-inch Mid 2010 MacBook Pro's. Same processor and specs since they were purchased at the same time, but originally had 250 GB hard drives. His hard drive failed and needed a new one. Put a 500 GB Seagate Momentus 5400.6 in his computer, and tried using a flash drive with "Install OS X Mavericks" on it to install Mavericks on his new hard drive. No matter what, it wouldn't install. I finally was able to install OS X 10.9.4 on it by connecting the new hard drive to my computer with a USB hard drive enclosure. I put the hard drive back inside his computer and it wouldn't boot (stuck on the gray screen with apple logo and a spinning wheel). I then attached to the hard drive to his computer externally with the USB enclosure, and then it booted and worked perfectly.
So, it seemed like the problem was with something inside his computer, but then I switched our drives, and that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. I put my original hard drive into his computer, and his new hard drive into my computer, and they both booted and worked perfectly, so I have no idea why his computer will not boot with the new hard drive internally.
To summarize, his computer boots with: 1) new hard drive connected externally (won't work if it's internal), and 2) my hard drive internally
but my computer boots with: 1) new hard drive connected externally AND internally, and 2) my hard drive internally.
Both hard drives have OS X 10.9.4 installed
If anyone has any idea what's causing this and how to make his computer work with the new hard drive internally that would be greatly appreciated.

So after switching the internal SATA cables from each computer, now we have
His computer, with my SATA cable:
1) Worked with every hard drive!
My computer, with his SATA cable:
1) Works with 1 TB Toshiba hard drive
2) Works with 500 GB Seagate hard drive
3) Works with my original hard drive
4) Flashing folder with question mark with his old hard drive
So it turns out you were right! Definitely had something to do with the SATA cables. But it's still strange that mine was able to boot with all the hard drives except the one that was originally in his. So it seems like it was some combination of his SATA cable and something else, since when his SATA cable was in his computer only 1 hard drive (my original) worked, and when it was in my computer, 3 hard drives worked. But at least its working, and I'm just gonna keep our SATA cables switched since that seems to work out fine

Will not boot with new hard drive

I used a SATA drive with adaptor as a boot drive in an MDD for most of the past year. I just got a MacPro 5,1 and wanted to use this SATA drive as a data drive in the new computer. I pulled it out of the MDD and put it in the MacPro. On start up I get the message You need to hold the power button or press restart. Since it has a boot volume I thought this might be a problem. I held down the Option key during start up to select a boot drive. Here it shows both the this drive and the OEM MacPro drive. Which ever I select I still get the error message. I can put this back in the MDD and get the same error even though it shows up as a boot volume when holding the Option Key. This drive does not seem to be totally dead since it can be seen during start up but it wont let the computer finish booting. It gets to the Apple logo but no farther. Can I salvage this drive? Data on it is unimportant.

You really need to use FW case; reformat the drive to use GPT partition table.
When booting the system's EFI polls all drives to look for valid system paths and to see which is blessed. A corrupt directory can even prevent booting from any drive or DVD.
I tell G5 owners to reformat as soon as possible once data is recovered, even though if they were running 10.5.8 their SATA drive may be okay.
Nuke the drive one way or another, I'd assume you have a spare FW case. And try booting from OS X DVD - you can install a fresh OS as backup/emergency system drive.
Any new SATA II or III drive are fine, WD Black are popular and 640 $69 or 1TB $89.
Have fun, I went from G4 MDD to Mac Pro over 4 yrs ago and it is still running strong -- and quiet!

Imac won't boot with new hard drive installed

So I installed a new 1Tb caviar black in my PPC G5 Imac, but when I turn the computer on, I get no video, no startup chime, nothing. The power light does come on, and fans start running after a minute or so, but thats it. I can't boot from the install disc.
The computer boots up as expected when I remove the drive(startup chime, grey screen, missing folder icon).
Any suggestions to what the problem is? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
-D

wierd i have similar problem. I removed HDD after crash to backup in an enclosure before reinstalling os again, put the hdd back and connected the hdd sensor backup (although i thought it was a knock sensor..doh!) . Mac wouldnt start, no screen, no chime, nada, but sleep light stays on. With PCs this usually mean CPU fault so i removed RAM to see if could get a BEEP meaning CPU is ok as it spots ram. No beep. So after checking everything i stripped out ram, hdd, airport and battery and reset PMU, tried again and now i get beep!! so cpu works. slowly adding everything back in and trying power up, last thing to go in was hdd sensor and sure enough when this is connected i reproduce the symptoms. So i disconnected the sensor and tried and i get chimes etc... Ive inspected the cable and made sure is connected right way up and still cant get to work. So it seems sensor is goosed! Debating wether to replace just yet

Will Time Machine with Leopard Sync With New Hard Drive and Snow Leopard?

My computer is a 20" iMac that I bought in late 2008. The hard drive had trouble so Apple repaired with disk utility. Week later, more trouble so they did full hard drive erase. Data was backed up on Time Machine, 500GB also bought in 2008. After full hard drive erase, and reinstall of basic software, upon reboot, computer would power on then immediately off. It doesn't get past white screen. They advised a new hard drive install is needed.
A computer friend can install a hard drive just fine for me. However, I do not have the Leopard install disc. He could do it with Snow Leopard but I am scared. I'm afraid because my Time Machine last backup was with Leopard, not snow Leopard. I do not have my application discs with me, they are in storage in another state. Thus, if upon adding replacing hard drive and installing Snow Leopard my computer won't be able to sync FILES and APPLICATIONS from Time Machine because its on Leopard I will have a problem.
How can I either 1)Get a Leopard install disc and do that with the new hard drive install OR 2)make sure that a Snow Leopard install with new hard drive won't prevent my Time Machine from being able to install the saved FILES and APPLICATIONS if I don't have original APPLICATION (ie Aperture, Photoshop) with me? Thanks for any help you can provide.

thetrudz wrote:
A computer friend can install a hard drive just fine for me. However, I do not have the Leopard install disc.
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
That Mac should have come with Leopard. If so, call AppleCare. They'll send you replacement discs for a nominal fee.
Once this is sorted out, make a 8-10 GB partition on an external HD or your internal HD, and use the Restore tab of Disk Utility to copy the Install disc to that partition. Then you can boot and run from it instead of the physical disc. It will boot and run much faster, too.
He could do it with Snow Leopard but I am scared.
If he does, and doesn't provide a retail Snow Leopard disc, you must buy one ($29). It's a violation of the license to share software, and you'll need a SL disc to do things like restore a Snow Leopard backup, or the Snow Leopard Apple apps, or repair the internal HD.
Your best bet is to stay with Leopard, at least until you have access to your 3rd-party software discs.
What you can do, however, is borrow his Snow Leopard Install disc (assuming it's a white Retail disc, not a gray one that came with his Mac), and use it to do a full system restore from your backups. That's not a violation of the license, since you don't install or use OSX from that disc; you just use the Installer utility on it to restore the Leopard OSX and all your data from your backups.
See #14 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum), for details.

Recovery discs do not work with new hard drive

Hi I have come here desperately seeking help as I am not too knowledgeable with the workings of computers and I have spent an incredible amount of time just trying to get my laptop to some level of functionality. I purchased a HP Envy and it had a corrupt hard drive which would not work from day one, laptop was new. After a year of constant pressure on HP they finally decided to replace it and let me choose any laptop so I went with the Beats Envy 14 as it was the best one offered from the selection. Low and behold the thing would not work properly from day one, again my brother who is much more of an expert said that there was definitely a hard drive issue so for the past 3 years I have put up with a computer that constantly crashes with BSOD, where I have lost data on numerous occasions (only so often I can back up), that I have had to constantly reset the thing using HP recovery discs, and that generally cannot cope when performing multiple tasks. HP are most certainly shocking builds from my experience. Then just last week the hard drive just craps itself and the laptop no longer will boot up. I took it to a guy to get it at leYst working again so he has installed a new hard drive but with an old version of Windows 7. I want to go back to the Windows version I was akin to on the HP recovery disk , and essentially have it all set up as before except for now having a workable hard drive however I get the message: "This computer is not supported by the System Recovery Discs.You will not be able to continue to recover this system with these discs.Error: 0100 - 3385 - 3078" I also tried out of interest to load my old Windows 7 disc I had and XP but had no success. Tried booting from startup etc and various things suggested on help forums. Please tell me I am not stuck with this version of windows. Whilst the discs included Windows 7 it was a totally different version, this home premium one is terrible. Any help/advice would be gratefully received. Thanks

no they were both 500gb. I read about that already, I heard about creating a partition for recovery etc but this is all a bit above me , as I said I am not very technical when it comes to the working of a computer. These discs worked perfectly before but now with the new hard drive will not load at all. I essentially hate the Windows Home Premium verions the guy who fixed it put on, whilst the discs had Windows 7 on them the icons were way smaller, the desktop neater, the buttons different, everything was a lot more modern and I was used to it. This version looks like something from the 90s, have to constantly adjust size of Mozilla when browsing as it is huge. I have my own version of Windows 7 on another disc but the hard drive will not let it load either........considering waiting for Windows 10 but again unsure if this new hard drive will even let that update Thanks

Permission issues with new hard drive

Apple installed a new hard drive on my fairly new (june2012) MBP. The only backup I had was the time machine backup from the old MBP that I originally migrated from. Apple said no worries - I can restore from that so I did.
Today I bought an iphone. (I was a hold out, I'm all things mac since the 80s except the phone). I went in to clean up my Contacts before syncing the new phone to my MBP and I couldn't delete and contacts or groups. So I did a "get info" on my contacts ap and it didn't even have (user/me) on the list as a user. I added myself, gave me the read and write" capability and still can't make the needed changes, deletions or anything in Contacts, so I decided to check permissions using Disk Utility. I repaired permissions, and just to be sure verified permissions again. What a lllloooonnnggg list of issues and nothing has changed. Hit "repair permisions again and it is taking f o r e v e r. Now I am Verifying Disk to see what it says. No problem. Verify Permissions again - did it faster, but still a bunch of problems found. Repaired permissions again - same old thing - says its repairing, but I seriously doubt it. Am I supposed to do this over and over again?
Suggestions???

Back up all data. Don't continue unless you're sure you can restore from a backup, even if you're unable to log in.
This procedure will unlock all your user files (not system files) and reset their ownership and access-control lists to the default. If you've set special values for those attributes on any of your files, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. Do so only after verifying that those settings didn't cause the problem. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it.
Step 1
If you have more than one user account, and the one in question is not an administrator account, then temporarily promote it to administrator status in the Users & Groups preference pane. To do that, unlock the preference pane using the credentials of an administrator, check the box marked Allow user to administer this computer, then reboot. You can demote the problem account back to standard status when this step has been completed.
Triple-click the following line to select it. Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):
{ sudo chflags -R nouchg,nouappnd ~ $TMPDIR.. ; sudo chown -R $UID:staff ~ $_ ; sudo chmod -R u+rwX ~ $_ ; chmod -R -N ~ $_ ; } 2> /dev/null
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The command will take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear, then quit Terminal.
Step 2 (optional)
Take this step only if you have trouble with Step 1 or if it doesn't solve the problem.
Boot into Recovery. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select
Utilities ▹ Terminal
from the menu bar. A Terminal window will open.
In the Terminal window, type this:
res
Press the tab key. The partial command you typed will automatically be completed to this:
resetpassword
Press return. A Reset Password window will open. You’re not going to reset a password.
Select your boot volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.
Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.
Select
 ▹ Restart
from the menu bar.

Replaced Hp with new hard drive but now i cannot install windows 7 recovery disks

Ok, so my laptop is a hp pavilion dv4-2165dx that has a broken screen and sometime after best buy tried to fix it the hard disk blew. I bought a new hard disk and put it in the computer and i got the official recovery and installation disks for windows 7. The hard drive is recognized by the computer and does start the recovery manager but it gets to 1% and does not go further. I let it run all night and the next morning it said that the cd failed. Did it fail because i have to connect an hdmi cord to my lg tv to see anything? Or was it because of something else?
I researched and found that with a new hard drive i will have to partition it and then format it to work with windows 7.
My question is, if the computer doesnt boot or let me use windows how can i partition and format the new hard disk? I have an older hp laptop as well that works efficiently in regard to its age (7) yrs. i wonder if i can buy a usb to sata/ide cord and attach the new disk to my old laptop and partition/format it there? Idk

Hello CaptianNike, welcome to the HP Forums.
I see that you're trying to install Windows 7 on a replacement hard drive. I will try to assist you with this.
You definitely could use another computer to format and partition the drive. I'm not certain about the cables you've mentioned though (looked with goolgle and you can get usb to sata cables). If the computer is a desktop you should be able to connect it internally to just do the format/partition.
If the recovery disks worked correctly, then you should have the option to do the format and partition via Windows. This could be an indication as well that there's an issue with the disks.
Which leaves you with the option of obtaining another set of disks to try, or trying to partition first then installing. The easier would be the latter.
I hope this helps.
Thank you for posting on the HP Forums.
I worked on behalf of HP.

Wanting to upgrade Sawtooth 400 with new hard drive and more memory

Have been reading a lot of posts today on the above upgrades. Am quickly getting confused on all of the info, especially on the hard drive upgrades...
Purchased my Sawtooth back in Dec. 2006 on eBay. Should have been using it all of this time, but my budget wouldn't allow me to put more memory (it's got 256MB now) and a new hard drive in it. Tired of seeing it in the way just sitting there!
The G4 has OS X 10.3 on it. Would like to upgrade to Tiger. Is there a firmware update that needs to be done before upgrading to Tiger? I know that 256MB of memory really isn't enough for Tiger. I thought about getting at least a 512MB stick to make the total memory 768MB (wish I could afford to max the memory). Others have said that OWC and Crucial have good quality memory.
The System Profile shows that it has 10 GB and 60GB hard drives. Imagine the 10GB one is the original. The 60GB was probably added on later. Don't know how old the 60GB is. That's one reason I'd like to replace it to at least a 120GB drive, so I can start fresh without worrying about the 60GB dying. (Do understand that any drive can die; new or old...) Have read about the 128GB size limit on my G4. Don't think I'd use most of the 120GB, so I'd like to stay with that size. Budget won't allow to install a PCI card to allow larger drives anyway. Should I remove the 10GB one as I don't think I'd be using it at all?
I installed a Seagate 120GB Barracuda Ultra ATA/100, 7200RPM, 8MB Cache, 3.5" drive (new, got it on eBay for $40!) in my iMac G3 400. Would like to find the same kind of drive for the G4, if it would work. If the same drive would work in the G4, does anyone know where I could purchase one? Will look on eBay etc. in the meantime.
Thanks for any advice and/or suggestions.

Got the Seagate HD installed, PRAM battery replaced and missing PCI cover replaced. Sure wished that I had the extra memory to install now, but I haven't had the chance to order it yet. I know it's easy to do, but I'm going to have to move the Mac to the table and it's heavy for me to lift (bad back).
Anyway, I started to install OS 9 on the Seagate and have hit a stumbling block! Didn't have this problem when I replaced the HD in my iMac, but it was only a 120GB drive (it needed the firmware updated).
I've looked at other posts on installing OS 9 and even on Apple's support documents and can't find what I exactly need to do! Am getting more confused about it the more I try to find the right answers... Hope one of you can help me some more.
I was able to boot the Mac up from the CD (it's the white one with the orange "9" on it). I clicked on the "Mac OS Install" icon, click on "Continue" (on the "Install Mac OS 9) dialog box, and then it says: A valid destination volume can't be found. To continue the installation process, mount a valid volume for software installation." The destination disk options is grayed out. I then clicked on the "Utilities" icon, and then the "Drive Setup" icon. It shows a list of drives and I clicked on the <not initialized> Type ATA, Bus 2, ID 0, LUN 0 and clicked on the "Initialize" button. Then it says: New Partitioning: 1 Mac OS, Initialization Options: None. If you click on Custome Setup, it says that the Partioning Scheme is "Current Volume," 131072MB (131GB?), under Volume Info Type it says Mac OS Standard. The "OK" button is grayed out. If you click on "1 Partition" on "Partitioning Scheme," then the Volume Info Type says "Mac OS Extended, with Size showing 131071MB. The "OK" button is not grayed out. I didn't go any farther with the OS 9 installation, as I don't know what the heck I'm doing! Don't want to mess something up. Do you or anyone who has helped me with this posting, know the steps I should take next? The Seagate Owner's Manual says if you have a system that can't read the entire 160GB, to just partition the drive for 137GB for now if you don't want to add a PCI controller card etc. For now, all I want to do is use the 128 or 131GB (according to what it says) of the 160GB drive without using a different card or software to recognize all of the 160GB. Do I just do one partition or two... and what else? I'm completely lost...
Sorry for the long post, but had to write down the steps I took, so someone could tell me what to do next.
I don't think you have to worry about PRAM settings; they pretty much take care of themselves - and regenerate when they have to. The time to think about PRAM is when you introduce new hardware and catch your Mac expecting same old, same old, and it isn't.
It was kind of hard to get the old PRAM battery out of its holder. I pryed the right side retainer tab just a bit with a screwdriver to get it out. Noticed that one part of the retainer at the base was cracked! Hope I didn't do that! Put some super glue on the crack (was on the outside only from what I could see). Cleaned off the battery contacts with a pencil eraser and dry Q-tip before installing the new battery. It seems to stay in place even though with the side retainer cracked. If the side retainer would break off the next time the battery would need replacing, would the battery contacts hold it ok? Or would the whole logic board have to be replaced? I put a SAFT 3.6v LS14250 battery in it. The old one was a SAFT LS14250C. Hope the "C" at the end doesn't mean anything.

How to Replace existing Hard Drive with new Hard Drive, while keeping old files

Hi All,
I have recently replaced my hard drive on my Macbook Pro, with a new hard drive. The old Hard Drive was 160 GB, while the new one is 320 GB.
What I did before replacing it was clone my hard drive using "SuperDuper". I cloned it to the new hard drive and then simply removed my old hard drive and installed the new one with the clone on it. Then I booted it up and began running it. In fact I am using it right now.
My questions are:
Is this a good practice?
Will this work, without problems, indefinitely?
Is this the prescribed way to upgrade ones laptop hard drive?
The reason I did it this way was because I upgraded to Mountain Lion via the apple store download and I do not have the CD for the OS. So I figured if I could make a bootable copy, that might work. So far everything seems fine, but I really just want to know if this will last for a long time. I plan on also making a partition with Windows on it also, so I was wondering if anyone can comment on that too.
If anyone can comment or give any advice on this topic I would really appreciate it.
Thank you very much!
Cheers.

Every thing is fine except Super Duper does not clone the recovery partition. If you start your MBP holding the OPTION key, you should see the internal HDD and the ML recovery partition.
You can reinstall ML or reclone using Disk Utility>restore.
Ciao,.

IMac taking long time to boot after new hard drive installed. Help?

I recently had a new hard drive installed on my iMac (running Snow Leopard). After the intall all was well, but I couldn't get my screensaver to work. Erroneously thinking it was missing, I reinstalled it and ended up with two screen saver folders in the system files. Now when I turn on the Mac, I get a white screen for several seconds (close to a minute) before the system shows me the Apple logo and then boots. I'm concerned about this. Did my copying the screen saver cause the problem? Should I reinstall my system software? I was planning to upgrade to Mountain Lion anyway. Will that fix the problem? Any suggestions appreciated.

Restart in Safe Boot Mode (hold the left Shift key as soon as you restart your computer and hold it until the Apple logo appears). Once it gets to the desktop you can restart normally. Safe Mode serves a number of purposes and one of them is to delete/trim temporary files that might be causing boot problems. There's no guarantee this will improve your startup time but it will do no harm and I have seen computers restart more quickly after a Safe Boot.

Macbook wont boot from new hard drive.

I installed a new Western Digital 500GB hard drive into my Macbook Pro (2006 edition). The computer boots up, but it just stays at the screen with the apple and the thing circling underneath it. It won't go any further than that. I have to boot from my external hard drive to get to the Operating System.
Also it won't shut down nor restart unless I hold down the power button.
I installed Snow Leopard 10.6 on the new hard drive. The longest I waited was like 10 minutes. Should also note that there is a CD stuck in my CD/DVD optical drive (I used an external drive to install snow leopard)...I don't know if that's interfering. It didn't interfere with my old hard drive.
I've also used Disk Utility. It says the disk needs repairing, so I repair it, and it says successfully repaired, but I can't shut down or restart the computer, so I have to shut it down by holding the power button. When I turn it back on, it says it needs repairing again. Maybe it's not saving because of the improper shut down?
Please help

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Did you format the new drive before trying to install the OS?
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1885474&tstart=60
Try that, and if still no joy, you might have a defective drive. If so, WD will replace it under warranty.
Good luck!

MacBook won't boot from new hard drive.

I'm trying to upgrade my hard drive, but my macbook will not boot to the new hard drive. I have erased and cloned the hard drive about three times now, using both Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper. It won't boot while it is in the macbook and it won't boot from an external hard drive case. All I get to is the screen with the mac logo and the spinning wheel. I have made sure the drive is GUID formatted, but it still doesn't work. When I put the new drive in an external case and plug it into the USB port of my macbook I can see and access everything on the drive. Can somebody please tell what I am doing wrong?
By the way the new hard drive is a 500gb western digital Scorpio blue drive.

I got a new hard drive recently 500gb seagate. I followed the directions on this page http://www.ehow.com/how2063795format-hard-drive-mac-os.html , Mine was a little more complicated since i had 2 partitions windows and mac on mine. Initially the process took a day and it started getting to the same thing as yours where it would get to the mac logo and not find the hard drive. I reformatted several times before i got to the point where i could boot up.Eventually I just figured out all the info was there the drive was formatted i could boot into windows 7 but not mac. So i put old hard drive back in the computer booted up with that. Attached new hard drive via usb in external case i was trying to put in the mac. I was able not to boot up but it would show the drives that have been formatted into the new drive and i simply copied my existing Disk by dragging it onto the new hard drive. Than turn off your mac keep your hard drive plugged in. Press and hold the option key in start up and you should see the 2 seperate hard drives and be able to boot into the new one. Was a long process for me took several complete deletes of the new hard drive and reformatting before it would work. once you get to the mac logo and spinning wheel its just saying mac cant find your boot up disk though. Sorry its confusing a bit any questions email me.

Help with new hard drive

Only a select few of us have found ourselves in this position. I am a student who takes his laptop to school for learning purposes however after doing a long night as the sound technician at a school show I put my MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 13" 4GB RAM Intel Core i5) into my bag put it over my shoulder and started to walk when I felt like a sudden weight had been lifted off my back and I heard the most colossal bang as then I find that the bag has snapped and my MacBook Pro is on the floor. When I get home I hastily go and check it and I find that there is a sizable dent in the side of my laptop where the hard drive is, so I open it up the hard drive and the SATA connection are fine and my mac still works so I continue to take it to school when a couple of days ago it completely freezes up and refuses to do anything so I turn it off and wait till I get home and then boot it up and all I get is a white screen so I press command and R. I then get I dialogue saying "INTERNET RECOVERY PLEASE WAIT", I read up on internet recovery and find it means something has gone completely wrong with my system. My hard drive has broke. So I go to school and they give me a small 60 GB hard drive spinning at 3,200 RPM which gave me some time to look for anew hard drive online whilst I could still do work on my laptop. I then find a Seagate 1 TB SSHD for £70 on Amazon so I go for it. Now I have followed all the instructions on how to install the drive which is supposedly Mac compatible I then boot my MacBook Pro up holding command and r it then boots into internet recovery I then go to restore the system through Time Machine Back-Up to then find that the SSHD isn't recognized. So I take it out and put it in my now 12 Year Old Power Mac G5 and in registers fine I then formatted it to Mac OS X Extended Journaled and partition it as GUID Partition Map for Intel Macs. I re-insert it into my MacBook Pro and go through the process again however it is still not showing up.
My Question is...
Am I doing something wrong?
Or
Is it the Solid State Hybrid Drive?
I can't Plug the new hard drive in via a SATA to USB and install Mac OS X Yosemite and my files because the only medium that has all my files on is my External Hard drive for time machine back-up.
Any help would be greatly appreciated

"It also seems a bit backwards since you have to erase a hard drive with nothing on it to format it"
At least you are not erasing anything important!! Always worth reformatting a new HD in my opinion, Apple does not make the HDs so you never know what they may have been formatted as/with/on/by etc... Also if you take time to ZERO out any data (see security options button) you would identify/isolate any bad blocks before you start using (highly recommended). This would lead to far few problems later, as you know for sure you have a sound and working disk! Definitely NOT backwards! Just good sense.

Mac Mini won't book with new hard drives???

I have a late 2009 mac mini server running snow leopard server. I recently purchased 2 new hard drives as the I believe one of the hard drives was failing. I formatted the 2 drives and installed Mavericks OS X server on one.
When I put the 2 drives into the mac mini, the system won't boot. I just get the flashing folder. If I keep the old (snow leopard) drive in the system and connect the mavericks server disk as an external (USB connected) drive, it will boot and runs just fine.
Am I missing something??
Here are somethings additional facts:
When I have the snow leopard server drive in and it boots from that, it doesn't recognize either of the 2 new drives. Wants to either eject or initialize.
I realize that it can read the newer system.
I have to boot with the option key so that I can pick which drive to boot from.
Any thoughts would be helpful. I'm not sure why it works one way and not the other.
Thank you.

Did you set the Partition Map Scheme to GUID Partition Table before Formatting the Drives Mac OS Extended (Journaled)...?
You can check in a couple of places:
Apple > About This Mac > More Info > Hardware > Serial-ATA
Or in Disk Utility by highlighting the Drive and looking at the Drive info

Boot with new hard drive

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