Disk Utility - Won't Repair Flash/Thumb Drive

So my Mac froze for some reason, while my Kingston thumb/flash drive was in. I tried to eject it, but I could only force eject (which it said may cause issues). After that, whenever I put the thumb drive in, it said something like the drive won't work and I had to copy the files to my desktop. When I go into disk utility and click repair disk, it says this: "Disk Utility stopped repairing “UNTITLED 1”: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files."
I can't erase the thumbdrive, because it says I need a source, which I don't know what that means.
Can anybody help? The files are useless now as I have transferred them to a CD, so I'm fine with erasing the whole thing. And yes, I know I can get a new on at any store for cheap, but I'd like to know if this can be repaired. Thanks.

You haven't mentioned how the thumb drive was formatted to begin with; is it GUID partition map and Mac OS Extended (Journalled), or is it FAT 32 with MBR partition map?
If it's the latter, DU can't repair it, but should be able to format it. However, the forced ejection may have damaged the file system to prevent that.
If it's FAT32, re-format it on a PC and try again on the Mac.
If it's Mac formatted, you could try erasing and reformatting on another Mac (or as Hackintosh says, from the DVD), but if that doesn't work, try the PC route; reformat to FAT32 on a PC (if the PC will recognise it - thay don't always), then go back to the Mac, repartition and format.
If that fails, it's recycling fodder.

Similar Messages

Encodings folder empty, Disk Utility won't repair disk

Hello, I've been having some issues with my old powerbookg4. I've done a clean reinstall already on this machine, which seemed to correct alot of problems, but there seems to be at least one significant problem remaining. the Encodings folder in system/library/coreservices/encodings is completely empty, so ichat will crash when trying to type a message, or firefox crashes when it hits a website with chinese on it. Anyways, I went to disk repair with the 10.3 install disc, but after a while the repair stops, saying that it can't repair the volume. I've also tried just copying the encodings folder from the install disc, but that encounters an error (i think its error 52 or something). thank you very much for any help you could provide.

i should also add that I've run it with the apple hardware test cd that came with the computer, and that says all the hardware is fine. But when I've booted the computer up in safe mode and had Disk Utility try to "Repair Disc," it stops after about ten-twenty minutes saying that "the volume can't be repaired." So, I'm wondering if there really is a problem with the hard drive that the hardware test isn't picking up, and so even if I reinstall the OS or try and do a clean install of a newer os like os 10.5, the problems won't go away. Is this a hardware issue, or am I just going about this the wrong way?
I've tried reinstalling several of the language packages on the os 10.3 disc, but I didn't try much because I don't know which of the language packages installs the files for the Encodings folder.
And on the first OS10.3 install cd, I found the path to the Encodings folder, and tried copying those contents over into the Encodings folder on my hard drive, working under the assumption that for about five minutes I get root access. It throws up an error message when I do that, even though it lets me tinker around in the other parts.
I'm really as in the dark as to what I'm doing here, which is why I haven't tried much else. So any advice or info you can throw my way would be very much appreciated.

Desktop or Disk Utility won't show External Hard Drives

The Desktop or Disk Utility won't show 2 of my old external hard drives and so they are currently unsusable. My computer however recognise other external drives.
320GB Western Digital MyBook Premium model number: WD3200D032-000
500 GB Western Digital MyBook Premium model number: WD5000E032
I have same issues both of these external drives.
The blue circle lights come on so power is getting to it.
Tried 2 USB cables, one I know for sure is working - Nothing.
I am using Lion 10.7.4 on a mid 2009 13" MacBook Pro
All efforts to help much appreciated

No they haven't worked on this computer before. I using them on my old MacBook Pro (a computer which is no longer working) which ran Snow Leopard.
The 500GB drive "stopped working" with that old MBP too
But the 320GB drive was always working with old MBP if I remember correctly.
Cheers

Upgraded to 10.5.6 and Disk Utility won't repair?

I upgraded to 10.5.6 and ran Disk Utility and got the report below. Should I be concerned about it?:
Warning: SUID file "System/Library/Filesystems/AppleShare/afpLoad" has been modified and will not be repaired.
Warning: SUID file "usr/bin/setregion" has been modified and will not be repaired.
Warning: SUID file "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Install.framework/Versions/A/Resources/runner " has been modified and will not be repaired.
Warning: SUID file "System/Library/Printers/IOMs/LPRIOM.plugin/Contents/MacOS/LPRIOMHelper" has been modified and will not be repaired.
Group differs on "private/etc/cups", should be 0, group is 26.
Permissions differ on "private/var/spool/cups/cache/rss", should be drwxr-xr-x , they are drwxrwxr-x .
Permissions repair complete

No. TM backups are not usable to downgrade to an earlier version of OS X. Archive and Install is the proper method.
How to Perform an Archive and Install
An Archive and Install will NOT erase your hard drive, but you must have sufficient free space for a second OS X installation which could be from 3-9 GBs depending upon the version of OS X and selected installation options. The free space requirement is over and above normal free space requirements which should be at least 6-10 GBs. Read all the linked references carefully before proceeding.
1. Be sure to use Disk Utility first to repair the disk before performing the Archive and Install.
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported, then quit DU and return to the installer.
2. Do not proceed with an Archive and Install if DU reports errors it cannot fix. In that case use Disk Warrior and/or TechTool Pro to repair the hard drive. If neither can repair the drive, then you will have to erase the drive and reinstall from scratch.
3. Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When you reach the screen to select a destination drive click once on the destination drive then click on the Option button. Select the Archive and Install option. You have an option to preserve users and network preferences. Only select this option if you are sure you have no corrupted files in your user accounts. Otherwise leave this option unchecked. Click on the OK button and continue with the OS X Installation.
4. Upon completion of the Archive and Install you will have a Previous System Folder in the root directory. You should retain the PSF until you are sure you do not need to manually transfer any items from the PSF to your newly installed system.
5. After moving any items you want to keep from the PSF you should delete it. You can back it up if you prefer, but you must delete it from the hard drive.
6. You can now download a Combo Updater directly from Apple's download site to update your new system to the desired version as well as install any security or other updates. You can also do this using Software Update.

Disk Utility won't repair the disk. Now the computer won't startup.

Had been having a few problems with my G5 iMac so I restarted with the Leopard disk and attempted a repair with disk utility. The repair came to a halt with a message indicating that the repair couldn't continue. After that, the repair buttons were no longer highlighted, only the verify buttons were highlighted. I attempted to restart the computer from the internal drive, but now it only gets to the point of the Apple logo appearing and then it shuts down. I even attempted to reinstall Leopard, but the only option that is highlighted would erase all data from the drive. I ran a hardware test and it showed no problems. I have tried Disk Warrior and Drive Genius 2. The computer will boot from the disks, but repairs cannot be made. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

I don't know if this will change the ultimate prognosis, but when I use Disk Utility in an attempt to repair the disk, I get the following message:
Invalid B-tree node size
Volume check failed.

Disk utility won't repair permissions (related to error -8003)

I have an odd, recurring problem I can't diagnose. Recently my seven-month-old MacBook Pro has begun showing an error code (-8003) when I try to do common, system-related things like empty the Trash. At the same time, Time Machine stops backing up and Disk Utility can't repair permissions. If I go into System Preferences I can't open the lock to make changes, even though my account is still clearly marked as the Admin account. All third-party applications run fine, so I can't quite figure out what's going on.
I've tried repairing the disk via TechTool to see if there was directory damage and it checks out fine. I've reformatted my TM backup disk with Disk Utiity according to Apple's instructions, used the Terminal to ensure my Trash and old TM files were properly deleted, etc. Nothing seems to have made a difference.
When I restart the problem goes away for a couple of hours and then – at some point that I haven't been able to identify – the problem starts up again. This is the case whether I'm working on the MacBook or if it's just sitting there idle.
Before I reinstall I wondered if anyone had run into a similar problem and had figured out what caused it.

error code (-8003) when I try to do common, system-related things like empty the Trash
That's a common symptom of throwing stuff from a Time Machine backup into the trash in the Finder, which is a big no-no and can irreversibly corrupt your backup. In the Terminal, type the following command:
sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*
Copy and paste that! Don't try to re-type it, I've seen people put a space in the wrong place and wipe their whole user folder. Type your password when prompted, and expect that nothing will show until you hit return.
Next, repair your Time Machine backup according to:
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/A5.html
At the same time, Time Machine stops backing up
If the above troubleshooting doesn't fix your backup, you may have damaged it beyond repair. In that case, you'll have to erase it and start your backups over from scratch.
Disk Utility can't repair permissions
Where are you trying to repair permissions? Note that repairing permissions is only meaningful on a drive with a system installed on it, and only repairs permissions on a specific subset of the stuff on the drive. Also, note that there are permissions messages you can safely ignore... if you think it is failing because you're seeing them over and over, it's not failing.
If I go into System Preferences I can't open the lock to make changes, even though my account is still clearly marked as the Admin account.
I've never seen that before, and it may indicate you have much more serious problems with your computer. First, try repairing your hard drive with Disk Utility. Then trash the System Preferences preference file, located at:
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist
...where '~' means "your home folder".

G4 Dual 1.43 Ghtz won't boot and disk utility won't repair it

I can't get the Boot Disk Disk Utility to repair the drive on my old G4 Dual 1.43 and desparately need the Documents file and home folders. Any ideas ?

This isn't going to be easy.
Does disk utility try to repair the drive? If it mounts, you could try the software I list below.
You either goint to have to get an external firewire drive & install some mac os on it. Then run some utilities from this drive or you going to have to get the drive out and mount in an external enclosure & run utilities.
There our commercial places that recover data. They will not be cheap.
I do not know what type of drive you have in the machine. So before buying an empty enclosure check.
Has everything interface:
FireWire 800/400 + USB2, + eSATA 'Quad Interface'
save a little money interface:
FireWire 400 + USB 2.0
This web page lists both external harddrive types. You may need to scroll to the right to see both.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
The latest the hard drive enclosures support the newer serial ata drives. The drive and closure that I list supports only older parallel ata.
Here is an external hd enclosure.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEFW91UAL1K/
Perhaps Disk Warrior will be of some help:
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
"Stellar Phoenix Macintosh - Mac data recovery software, recovers data from damaged, deleted, or corrupted volumes and even from initialized disks."
They have a trial version, so I guess you can see if your data can be recovered...
http://www.stellarinfo.com/mac-data-recovery.htm
"Data Rescue II is the best data recovery software on the market for recovering files from a problem hard drive. Data Rescue II works when other tools fail. Data Rescue II is also completely safe to use since it does not attempt any risky repairs to the drive while its scanning."
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
FileSalvage is an extremely powerful Macintosh application for exploring and recovering deleted files from a drive or volume. FileSalvage is designed to restore files that have:
-- been accidentally deleted.
-- become unreadable due to media faults.
-- been stored on a drive before it was re-initialized/formatted.
http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id= 1
"TestDisk is a free data recovery utility. It was primarily designed to help recover lost data storage partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software, certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally erasing a partition table)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TestDisk
"*Hard drive data recovery and warranty implications*
Hard drives that have become non-functional through normal use, and have had data recovery performed on them by DriveSavers or Ontrack Data Recovery can be returned to Apple for warranty service. This includes products covered by the AppleCare Protection Plan. The cost of any data recovery attempts is not covered by the Apple Limited Warranty."
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3974?viewlocale=en_US
Entering:
mac data recovery
into Google will list some firms who specialize in recovering data. Data recovery isn't cheap.
Examples:
1) Ontrack Data Recovery is the world leader in data recovery services and data recovery software offering the fastest, most convenient and cost-effective solutions to clients who have experienced data loss.
http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/
2) Enter the world of DriveSavers Data Recovery…
    * Data Recovery Tools
    * Data Recovery Process
    * Data Recovery Cleanroom
http://www.drivesavers.com/

Disk Utility won't initialize second Maxtor drive

My first hardware upgrade has not gone too well. I just got a Maxtor 6L250S0 drive to fill empty second bay of my dual 1.8 PowerMac G5. (Drive specs: 250 GB SATA Ultra 16, DiamondMax, 16 MB cache, 7200 RPM) Installation was a breeze, but I can't get my Mac to erase, format, partition or otherwise initialize the drive for use. When I rebooted, I got the message about needing to initialize the new hardware. I clicked "Initialize", and Disk Utility came up. Disk Utility lists "Maxtor SABRE" as a drive on the left and lists the following details at the bottom:
Disk Description : Maxtor SABRE
Total Capacity : 0 Bytes
Connection Bus : Serial ATA
Write Status : Read/Write
Connection Type : Internal
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
Connection ID : Device 0, "B (lower)"
The Capacity and SMART status lines are a bit troubling. Is that normal when a drive is first installed?
I go to the ERASE tab and can only select "Mac OS Standard" or "UNIX File System" for the volume format. I select the Mac OS Standard and press the Erase button, but I get a message "Disk erase failed with the following error: The chosen size is not valid for the chosen file system."
I go to the PARTITION tab and can't do anything there either. When it lets me edit the form and press the Partition button, it gives an error saying "Device not configured." Usually as soon as I do anything on this form (e.g., select the Format dropdown), all the choices are grayed out with the notice "the disk is too small to contain partitions".
Based upon research here and elsewhere, I know this is a compatible drive. Am I missing a step? Could the drive be bad?
PowerMac G5 dual 1.8 Mac OS X (10.4.5) 2.5 GB RAM

My first hardware upgrade has not gone too well. I
just got a Maxtor 6L250S0 drive to fill empty second
bay of my dual 1.8 PowerMac G5. (Drive specs: 250
GB SATA Ultra 16, DiamondMax, 16 MB cache, 7200 RPM)
Installation was a breeze, but I can't get my Mac
to erase, format, partition or otherwise initialize
the drive for use. When I rebooted, I got the
message about needing to initialize the new
hardware. I clicked "Initialize", and Disk Utility
came up. Disk Utility lists "Maxtor SABRE"
Hi,
I have never seen a Maxtor come up as "Maxtor SABRE" in disk utility. Your post says the Maxtor 250GB hard drive is mounted internally. If so, I would guess that the drive is damaged. I would take it back for a working drive.
Or you could call Maxtor at (800) 262-9867. I have had two Maxtor drives fail in the last 5 months and the techs at Maxtor sent me replacements and then I returned the damage drives in their shipping boxes.
The Maxtor tech guys are very helpful and give Mac users the benefit of the doubt when it comes to warranty returns. At least that was my experience.
The drive should display Maxtor 6L250S0 in the disk utility window and Smart Drive status should be active.
I hope this helps,
Michael

Flash drive somehow corrupt. Finder won't recognize it and Disk Utility won't repair it

I have a 16 GB SanDisk Cruzer flash drive. Somehow, and I haven't figured it out yet, but is got corrupted and Finder won't recognize anymore. So I opened Disk Utility and verified the disk and it said that it needed to be repaired. So I tried it and I got the message saying "Disk Erase failed with the error: File system formatter failed." And when I try to reformat it, I get the same message. I've tried it with a PC as well but it doesn't show up and Disk Manager won't reformat it either. I've given up on recovering the files, but I still would like to recover the drive. Any solutions would be appreciated.

You may need to rebuild permissions on your user account. To do this,boot to your Recovery partition (holding down the Command and R keys while booting) and open Terminal from the Utilities menu. In Terminal, type: ‘resetpassword’ (without the ’s), hit return, and select the admin user. You are not going to reset your password. Click on the icon for your Macs hard drive at the top. From the drop down below it select the user account which is having issues. At the bottom of the window, you'll see an area labeled Restore Home Directory Permissions and ACLs. Click the reset button there. The process takes a few minutes. When complete, restart.
Repair User Permissions

Fix my hard drive - Disk Utility won't repair

I have a powerbook g4 1.5 17" 1.5 gig ram
it has annnn 80gig hard drive
it's only about a year or 2 old
now recently i've been having hard drive trouble
when i play movies off the hard drive they kinda freeze up and stuff, not cos of the file but the hard drive it's like they're copied onto a bad sector or something.
i have files such as pictures and movies that i try to move or copy but they wont let me, or they get half way and cant copy the rest....
oh i was using bit-torrent to download some big files and it kept stuffing up with a hard drive read/write error
now the 1.7 gig i just downloaded wont open or copy to somewhere else to open it
and thats not good
so i've tried Disk Utility and got it to Verify the hard drive and it recognises some errors and stops scanning and says you need to fix it
i think one of them is a checksum/table error or something or.... i will have to get the exact error message off it later. but it tells me to fix it but i can't press the 'repair' button cos it's not available to be clicked! so that's a bugger
is there another program i can get off version tracker to help fix this or something else i can do? any way to try and recover that huge file too?
let me know what you think and i'll give u any more info that you need cos i definately dont wanna replace the hard drive!

is that just the 2 dvd set that came with the computer?
it's like a system restore disc or something
i dont have an actual OSX disc cos it came with OSX 10.4 loaded
i'm worried that my dvd restore discs will have 10.3 on them and it wont be compatible.. although i'm not sure, does anyone know what it originally shipped with?
apple-history doesn't seem to know
and the other thing
IF i do need a new hard drive what size can i upgrade to? it's 80gig now, i know they went up to 100gig at the time but can i put anything bigger in it or will it crack it?
and what kind of hard drive do i need, i'll probly buy one off ebay - so some kind of bits that help me identify it would help heaps
THEN should i pay for someone to repair it and put it in or open her up and do it myself? i'm not worried about the changing it over part it's more how do i then format it and get it ready to go into the computer
any help will be deemed HELPFUL
thanks heaps

Disk Utility Won't "Repair"

My powerbook has been running slow lately so I wanted to do a disk repair however Utility won't allow me to run the 'Repair' function. I can Verify and Repair disk permissions and also Verify the disk but the button for Repair disk isn't even active. My Hard Drive is archived if that information is pertinent.
Please let me know if you've had this problem before or know what I can do.

You can't repair the volume you've booted from, which is why that option is grayed out. What you'll need to do is insert the first OS X DVD that came with your system (or the first Tiger disk), and boot holding the C key down. This will boot from the DVD, and then you can choose disk utility from the menu bar, and repair the disk.
In addition, you may want to download OnyX or Yasu to run the disk maintenance routines, which can help with overall speed by cleaning up your hard drive. This also assumes there is at least 10% space free on your hard drive. OnyX can be found at http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs2/english/download.html and Yasu can be found at http://jimmitchell.org/projects/yasu/ .

Disk Utility won't repair disk....what do I do?

Hey Everyone,
So for about the last two weeks, whenever I boot into OSX, I've been geting this weird grey bar at the bottom.   Also, I run bootcamp and Macdrive (windows program that allows to write onto Mac Formatted disks) kept on telling my that partition was damaged.
Now as far as actual use goes, I never noticed a problem. I was able to get in, do work, absolutely no problem.   But, I decided to run disk utilty just in-case and that's where problems started. Disk permissions repaired fine, but when I went to verify disk, it said it had to be repaired. So I booted the computer using the install disc, but disk repair failed and said I need to re-install OSX.   And now it takes FOREVER to boot into OSX. Sometimes, it takes hours.
This actually happened before a couple of months back and it is going to be a pain in the *** to do this again. I was hoping there was some other way to repair the disk that doesn't involve me losing a whole day re-installing crap. Any ideas? Maybe a third party disk utility program?
And on a side note, What the &%#@ Apple? My windows partition is more reliable than OSX. Seriously, no problems with windows at all.
The thing that drives me crazy is that I don't understand why this keeps on happening. If this happens I again, I'm going back to windows full-time.   Everything Apple has ever said about reliability and how windows is so buggy is a TOTAL LIE. OSX is sooo soo soo much worse.

Possibly if the partition is on the part of the disk that is okay I believe it is possible. I have had partitions working fine in the past and had disk utility or other programs of the same nature tell me that the disk was corrupt. At the apple stoe where I went they replaced the HD and no problems with my old macbook since then. However I do agree that from here I can't be sure. The first step definetly needs to be erasing and reinstalling if that does not work (and that is what I meant, because I'm betting against it) then I believe that you will have to change the HD or go see a tech. Sorry you are right I was not clear the first time around.

Disk utility can't repair external hard drive

A couple months back, I had to get a whole new hard drive case for my external because the power cord broke. Anyway, It's worked fine until now...
The hard drive doesn't show up with the other volumes.
It does show up on Disk Utility. When I try to repair or verify the drive, it works up until the end, but then it automatically quits and it says this:
Verifying volume “FIREWIRE”
** /dev/disk1s1
** Phase 1 - Read FAT
** Phase 2 - Check Cluster Chains
** Phase 3 - Checking Directories
Unable to read directory (Input/output error)
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 non HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair
Anyway, I have 45GB of music as well as movies and photographs that mean a lot to me so I hope I don't have to erase the drive or anything...
Thanks to anyone who helps me out.

Hmm, I can't seem to find anything on Windows (XP) that will fix my exact problem...
Then again, I am the crappiest Windows user ever so, once again, any help would be great.
I searched "disk repair" on the help and support center, and it gave me a bunch of ways to fix the drive depending on the problem. The thing is, none of the problems seemed to match mine...
Your personal data files are missing or have been corrupted, or you want to revert to a previous version of a file.
After updating a device driver, you can log on, but the system is unstable.
After installing a new device, the system is unstable.
Changes made to your system or application settings are causing your computer to run poorly and you do not know how to restore the previous settings.
After installing an application, the system is unstable or an application is not working properly.
Operating system does not start (the logon screen does not appear)
I'm not really sure what the exact problem is, I just know that it isn't working on the Mac, but it is on the PC.

Disk Utility won't recognize new hard drive

Hello,
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
The original hard drive (80 GB) went bad, so I replaced with a new 160 GB Western Digital one. I formatted the hard drive using Disk Utility from the Mac OS X Disk. It worked the first time I booted into Leopard (I just booted up to make sure the OS loaded...didn't install any new software and/or hardware).
Then I shut it down and started it back up, and the computer didn't recognize the hard drive. I inserted the Mac OS X disk and ran Disk Utility, but the hard drive was not recognized.
So now I'm thinking the new hard drive was also bad. So, I ordered another one (Seagate 160 GB) and it to was not recognized when I ran Disk Utility from the Mac OS X disk.
When replacing all of them, I followed directions I found here and other websites. They all said to do it the same way, so I'm assuming the directions for replacing a hard drive in a laptop were correct.
I searched Google and found several posts suggesting using an application called Disk Warrior, but from my understanding, you cannot run it from a disk, it needs to be installed, which is obviously impossible since the hard drive isn't recognized.
Then I ran Open Firmware and did "devalias" from the prompt. From what I can tell in the list of hardware, the hard drive is recognized, but I am not sure. I took a picture of the screen printout but do not see an option to attached it to this post. Therefore, I'll just tell what it said for now and will create an image hosting account so I can add a URL for it later.
In the list, "hd" is in the left column and in the right column of the same line is "/pci@f4000000/ata-6@d/disk@0" (without quotes).
If anybody has any suggestions, they would be greatly appreciated.

Welcome to the Apple discussions.
I've replaced a few hard drives, and in instances where it's not recognized, it's either been a cable connection issue or I've seen others with a jumper issue. Either the hard drive to logic board cable isn't properly set, typically on the logic board side, or a jumper was left on the drive, where typically you can just remove it. I haven't personally had the cable fail, however, that's possible too.
When you pulled the large plug from the back of the original hard drive, did you do it very carefully? It's not like a desktop hard drive plug that you can just pull out ... it needs to be wiggled out, gently. I have a hard time believing two new drives would be essentially DOA, although the first one worked for a bit, which leads me to wonder about the physical connections.
Since you have your original OS X disks, you could try running the Apple hardware test to see if it gives you any error message(s).

Macbook pro won't boot and when I tried to back up the hard drive I got "disk utility can't repair this disk backup as many of your files as possible"

My macbook pro froze and initially would not even recognize the power chord. Now it charges, but will not load up. I opened in in disk utility to try and back it up so that I could take it to apple to have it fixed but I got the message that said "disk utility can't repair this disk backup as many of your files as possible". How do I back up the files???

Nichelle215,
you can try the method described on this Apple page, in the “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility” section. (You can skip step 6, since you already know that your disk is irreparable.) Note, however, that this method is not guaranteed to work. Once you get your disk straightened out, you might consider purchasing an external hard disk for use as a Time Machine backup destination, so that a similar problem in the future won’t wipe out the only copy of your files.

Disk Utility - Won't Repair Flash/Thumb Drive

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