Hard drive installation problem, please help

I installed a new hard drive and get a prompt:
"No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key"
I then insert the Mac OS install disk 1 and press a key and nothing happens -- it stays at the above prompt. What do I need to do?

Try holding the "c" key while booting with the Mac OSX disc already in... I believe that's the key to boot from CD. Maybe it's changed but worth a try.

Similar Messages

Hard drive detection problem - PLEASE HELP!!!!

I'm about at my wits end with this problem. One of my drives crashed over the weekend, and since then the replacement drive never gets detected. When I have the second drive installed, my computer never gets past the "Verifying DMI Pool Data", then says disk boot failure. When I take out the second drive, my computer boots fine. I've tried different jumper settings, thinking maybe i looked at the diagram backwards, disconnecting my DVD drive and putting the hard disk on the secondary IDE, and installing the new drive as the master and installing Windows on it, with the old drive as the slave. Nothing has worked. As soon as I connect a second hard drive, I get a disk boot failure. I've checked the boot priority a hundred times, and it's correct. In case it was a power supply problem, I removed everything except the two hard drives and some RAM, and that didn't fix anything. I'm lost as to where to go from here. My computer works fine without the second drive, but I need the second drive for gaming.
I'm now thinking it may be the motherboard, because a couple things have happened over the last month. First, all of a sudden I got a CMOS checksum error, then about a week and a half ago the onboard NIC died. And when I installed the updated drivers and flashed the BIOS, on restart I received an error message saying something was wrong with the overclocking settings and had been reset to the default values. The problem with that is I never overclock anything.
I'm not even sure the old drive actually crashed anymore. I heard clicking coming from the computer, and when I all of a sudden lost access to the drive, I assumed it crashed. But now that I am unable to get the brand new drive to work, I'm thinking I need to get a new motherboard. I'm trying to avoid that as long as I can though because this one is only 5 months old.
Would a possible solution be to just leave the master on IDE, and buy a SATA drive to use as a second disk? Or does mixing IDE and SATA cause issues?
Thanks for any help anybody may be able to offer.
Anyway, here are my system specs:
K8N Neo4 motherboard
Athlon64 3200+
2.5 GB RAM - 3x 512 and 1x 1GB stick
Boot disk - Western Digital 120GB ATA 100 IDE
Old Slave - Seagate 60GB ATA 100 IDE
New Slave - Western Digital 120GB ATA 100 IDE
NIC - Linksys 10/100
DVD-RW - Mad Dog Multimedia
DVD-ROM - Sony
Graphics - GeForce 7800GTX
Sound - Mad Dog Entertainer 7.1
Power Supply - 420W

Quote
putting the hard disk on the secondary IDE, and installing the new drive as the master and installing Windows on it, with the old drive as the slave.
Does the 2nd HD work then, were you able to boot up and install Windows?
Does BIOS detect it?
Have you tried a new IDE cable?
Make sure that all the pins are properly in and not loose in the molex connector to the HD.
Have you tried using the new drive alone on IDE-1 or 2?
Have you tried clearing CMOS? remove P/S AC cord, press case power button a few times to drain remaining power then clearing CMOS buy way of the jumper.
Quote
I'm trying to avoid that as long as I can though because this one is only 5 months old
Did you buy this MB new?
If so you could RMA it.

My MacBook won't boot into recovery mode after new hard drive installation. Please help!

I just installed a new hard drive. On boot it keeps on going to the flashing folder with a question mark inside.
I was able to format the new hard drive but am unable to boot into recovery mode to install the operating system over the air.
When I hold down Command -R it keeps on taking me to the flashing folder.
Please help!

A new hard drive doesn't have a recovery partition. It's totally blank.You're going to need either your original install discs or a Snow Leopard retail disc from which partition, format and install OS X.

Hard Drive/Space Problem, please help!

My laptop has been acting strangely since the start of this year. I've had it for five years now & it started popping up "Start up disk is full" message. But I really don't keep a lot of stuff, few pictures, one movie, few family videos & old essays/powerpoints.
But anyways I started cleaning up stuff, but the Available data went from 1.62 GB to 1.4 GB & then slightly higher & now stopped 1.33 GB.
Is this a virus? What should I do?
Any suggestions would help so much. Thank you in advance.

Do yourself a huge favour. Get an external drive and make a back up. Do this immediately because you are in danger of losing everything on your laptop. Your hard drive is already in distress.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1553

Failing Hard Drive...PLEASE HELP FAST!!!!

I noticed today under the Disk Utility that the S.M.A.R.T. status of my internal hard drive is "failing." I have done as much research as possible and come to the sad truth that I am going to have to replace it. This is my only computer and I am a poor college kid. I have a 160gb Lacie FireWire drive that has a partition big enough to hold my current entire system. The partition will need to be erased though and set up to do the backup. What I need to know is how exactly I can move all my data over to the Lacie and be able to boot from there and not lose anything (if possible). I know that soon my drive will probably fail and I need to be able to just start booting from the Lacie and run everything as I do now. And remember, I am a poor college kid so if there is any way to do this without having to shell out any dough for software, that would be greatly appreciated. Also, I tried to use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup my current system to the partition but whenever I rebooted to that as the startup disk, it wouldn't accept my login password, rendering the whole process basically useless to me. Please help out a fellow Mac lover. I don't want to have to go back to Windows Land, even for a minute!
Mikal

Ok...You are correct...It is only when I boot from the Lacie that it is saying that. When I booted back to the internal drive it said it was failing still.
I used Carbon Copy Cloner (free) to make the bootable copy and it did a marvelous job. If you have FileVault turned on you may run into a few odd little things. Go to the website and download it and make sure to peek into the forums before you try and do the copy. They have great explanations of everything you need to do to make it work. The only problem I had was that after I got it all copied over it wouldnt let me sign into my account and I had to do some undercover Darwinning to get it to work. But I have been running off my Lacie for about 5ish days now and haven't missed a beat. (Besides the fact that my laptop is chained to my desk now...No late night surfing in bed!) It really is like absolutely nothing has changed, because nothing has! In fact, my PB is actually running a little faster because the Lacie is 7200 rpm and my internal was 5400! Makes me really glad I got the 7200rpm Hitachi to replace the failing Toshiba.
(Also, I own no stock in Carbon Copy Cloner, it is just a great product! And free!)

How do I find how large my Hard Drive is? Please help!

Recently been getting messages saying that my startup disk is full. And I'm thinking about getting a Time Capsule. But the thing is, I can't find out how big my hard drive is. I clicked the apple, then About this mac, and I could only find "Memory", which was only 1 GB. I know that can't be it, because my iTunes is over 90 GB. But I can't find the hard drive. Either I'm blind, or it's not there.
Please help
Thanks

Click more info in the about this mac pop up. Then under Serial-ATA. This will give you the size.
You can also click on your drive in finder and choose Get Info. This will also let you see the size.

External Hard Drive not readable - please help!

Dear All
I use an intel imac, running snow leopard, backed up to a 2TB Time Capsule.
In order to create more space on my imac, I decided to use a seagate hard drive (that has faithfully served me for backups over a couple of years, pre time capsule) for storing my ever expanding home movie selection.
To avoid problems (and to make a clean start with this disk), I deleted everything on the drive via disk utility. I then ran a single partition on the drive using the settings of GUID partition with Mac OS Extended Journaled (i.e. so I selected partition so there is only 1 volume) . Everything went smoothly. I then copied my film collection to my hard drive. I then tested it - the films were on there and I could play them.
Now when I reboot, I get the message "the disk you inserted was not readable by the computer. Initialize / ignore / eject"?
What have I done wrong? Have I erased / formatted my backup drive incorrectly? How can I fix this?
I have another backup drive (that I keep offsite) that still is readable by the computer, so I do not think it is a hard ware problem.
I'm not in diaster zone yet. My movies are still on the imac, on time machine and backed up on the offiste external drive. However, in the need to create more space, I just need to be able to store files on external drives and then use them!!
Any help much appreciated
cheers
Paul

Most likely the drive is partitioned in NTFS format. Macs can read that format, but not if the disk is corrupt. You should do two things. First, immediately make a backup of the data on that disk. Obviously you'll need a PC to do this. Then, also using the PC, run the Windows chkdsk program to repair the disk. If it can be repaired, it should then be readable on your Mac.

My hard drive crashed. Please help!!!

My hard drive crashed on my PC. I Lost everything. Unfortunately i never got round to backing up my i Tunes music folder. I still have all my music on my i Pod. when i reinstall i Tunes on my new computer will i be able to plug in my i pod and transfer all my music back accross to new computer? or will the computer automatically update my i pod and effectively blank it? Please help!!!
I Have a 4 g ipod and using windows xp on PC
Windows XP

Just a little additional information to supplement the good advice you have received from Mitch.
You may already be using the iPod in manual update mode in which case you can ignore the rest of this post. In manual mode, your iPod is safe from being accidentally erased. However, if your iPod is set for automatic update, when you connect you will get a message that your iPod is linked to a different library and asking if you want to link to this one and replace all your songs etc, click *No*. Your iPod should appear in the iTunes source list. Change the update setting in Preferences>iPod to "manually manage songs and playlists" Managing Your Songs Manually
You can also use a keyboard command to prevent your iPod auto-syncing with iTunes. While connecting the iPod to the computer hold down the Shift + Ctrl keys (on a Mac hold down the Option and Command (⌥ and ⌘) keys). This will stop the iPod from auto-syncing with iTunes and the iPod will appear in the source list. Wait until you are sure the iPod has mounted, and that it will not auto sync and then you can let the keys go. This may take between 3 and 30 seconds depending on your computer. Then go to Preferences>iPod and check the "Manually manage songs and playlists" box.
Keep your iPod in manual mode until you have reloaded your iTunes and you are happy with your playlists etc then it will be safe to return it auto-sync again.

Think hard drive is dying- please help!

Started the G5 today and heard clicking/ cludding sounds. I believe they came from the top of the tower, which is where the hard drives are (I have an extra one for video storage). The OS would not start up but instead I got a “?” flashing on and off and I believe it was inside a small folder. I had been noticing sounds that sound like shifting to me from a hard drive (impossible to tell which one) for a while now. Last time I heard sounds like this was on my PC and the drive was dying.
Told all this to the AppleCare rep who went through some stuff then concluded that it was a software issue and I should try removing one of the 2 programs she was unfamiliar with: Little Snitch and the software for my Contour Shuttle (like another mouse for video work). I told her this was unlikely as these were very common aps and everything had been fine for quite a while. She said I was welcome to take the G5 to a service center where they could test if it was in fact a hardware issue.
What I’m wondering is 1- does this sound like a hardware issue & 2- is there a way to backup the whole drive?
I may have another SATA drive I could use to back it up and have a TrayDock external FW800 case that allows you to use internal SATA drives. I’ve taken drives from the TrayDock and used them on the G5s other internal slot w/o issue. So it seems to me all I would need to do is get all the info on to the backup, and set the jumper setting correctly. Am I right? If so, how do I get all the info onto the backup and how would the jumper need to be set when it becomes the main Macintosh HD?

I read a report Google did on hard drive failures. It is available in pdf format and quite interesting.
I use Applejack religiously along with Disk Warrior 4 and Carbon Copy Cloner 3. I also use Intech Speedtools to handle bad blocks, defrag, zonebench/quickbench. And I regularly zero my drive before using and again on yearly basis or as needed.
I am not sure why having 4.5 GB RAM would be a factor unless running Memtest or Rember or the Apple Hardware TEst in Extended/Loop Mode.
The best way to "defrag" is quite simple, old-fashioned. It is called *backup and restore* with an erase/zero drive in the middle (dump simultaneously to two tape sets would be very old school!).
DW4 - hold down option and the Rebuild button changes and lets you do a deeper 'scavenger" run which is helpful. I would run the test files first too, but it always opens to the directory rebuild.
When dealing with a problem drive, I start by throwing away stuff I don't need, have backed up, and can replace. From newest to older. Peeling an onion to unravel any cross-linked files in the process.
If it is a boot drive and early on, consider using Single User Mode and fsck along with Applejack. You want to delete all the cache and swap files along with any temp files or logs. It works. And restart into Safe Mode.
SMART is not very smart and does not "predict" failures. That was just one of the conclusions of the Google study where they use thousands of drives and need to know about reliability.

Impossible 300-1020 Hard Drive Issue! Please Help!

Being a systems administrator for 6 years and having over 15 years experience in computers...this has to be the most frustrating issue I've ever encountered!
I'll start off by saying that this is my friends touchsmart 300 and it appears to have suffered from the seagate HD firmware issue. He went out and bought a WD 1TB Caviar Black SATA HD to replace it but the BIOS will NOT detect it and the diagnostic always comes up with the: BIOHD-2 error!
I thought maybe it was bad out the box but when I hook it up to my HD adapter, it comes up fine on other pc's. I even partitioned it in disk management and it still does not show up. I ran WD's diagnostic utility on the drive and it passes all tests.
What's strange is that when I hook up other hard drives to it, it recognizes it right away in the BIOS and during W7 install! For some reason it does NOT like WD hard drives. I tried a 120GB Seagate HD, a 120GB Fujitsu HD and they both work and show up. But when I put in a 80GB WD hard drive, I get the same results as mentioned above with the same error. BTW - the 120GB HD's are 2.5" and the WD 80GB is 3.5". Not that it should matter except the speed.
- I have tried all the jumper settings on the WD 1TB HD just to be sure.
- I have tried all the different BIOS settings. (IDE & AHCI)
- I have pulled out the CMOS battery and reset all the BIOS settings back to default.
- I have reseated the SATA cables.
I have even setup Windows 7 on the 120GB HD that worked just to install the latest firmware, SATA controller updates, and BIOS updates from HP thinking it would fix the issue but it did NOT help. I even tried running the seagate firmware updates\utilities that were stickied in this forum.
As you can see, I've put in a lot of time and effort into this **bleep** thing! The HD size or name brand shouldn't matter! **bleep**?! I'm about to give up and just buy another HD for it.
If anyone has any other ideas or needs to know any more info, please let me know! I beg of you! lol

Hi,
I would contact Western Digital technical support and ask about a firmware patch.
You did try strapping the hard drive to 3.0 Gb/s, right?
BTW, I tried two WD sata III 64mb cache hard drives in my DYI system (see signature) and couldn't get them to run. One wasn't recognized and the other had lots of issues when I tried to install Windows. I returned both hard drives and switched to Samsung.
HP DV9700, t9300, Nvidia 8600, 4GB, Crucial C300 128GB SSD
HP Photosmart Premium C309G, HP Photosmart 6520
HP Touchpad, HP Chromebook 11
Custom i7-4770k,Z-87, 8GB, Vertex 3 SSD, Samsung EVO SSD, Corsair HX650,GTX 760
Custom i7-4790k,Z-97, 16GB, Vertex 3 SSD, Plextor M.2 SSD, Samsung EVO SSD, Corsair HX650, GTX 660TI
Windows 7/8 UEFI/Legacy mode, MBR/GPT

I cannot desactivate a previous computer. Hard drive changed. Please help

Hi.
Recently my hard drive crashed. I changed it but i forget to desactivate my creative cloud.
Please help.
Thanks

Contact activation support by web chat.
Mylenium

New hard drive spinning wheel-please help

I have a 2008 mackbook. I went to upgrade the harderive today to a segate hard drive. I had not problem installing the hardware. Once it was installed I plugged the power cord back in and rebooted the computer. I then installed the disk utility so that I could reinstall the software and all i got was a spinning wheel. I know the computer still works because when I reinstalled my orginal hard drive my computer turned back on. any ideas on what to do? I tried holding the "c" key but that didn't help.

You're doing things right but maybe not with the right timing. Insert your install DVD and restart, press the C key immediately when you hear the startup chime, the MacBook should start successfully from the DVD then and you can run Disk Utility to partition and format your new drive. Make sure when you partition to select GUID partition scheme or your Mac won't boot.

Looks as though i have a bad hard drive... please help with a replacement

I was having some problems with loading windows...problems partitioning... slow opening of drives... slow copying to drives... I currently cannot load windows.. cannot reinstall as everything seems to be very slow or freeze.. Got stuck on a disk check with 0 % checked.
I got a boot disk (seatools for dos)... hard drive is failing the tests...
I have a 500GB sata II....
Can someone recommend a good replacement from say best buy?
I would like at least 500GB but I see hard drives are pretty inexpensive now adays.
Are most hard drives compatible with my lenovo 3000 H210 desktop?
THANKS for any help.
you can email me at xxxxxxxxxx
Moderator note; e-mail address removed to stop the spambots getting it

Here's a 500GB for only $54.99 w/ free shipping and no tax for most states. $15 off with promo code EMCYXNR27, ends 9/30
grab it within 3 days for just $40.
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Itunes to external hard drive?? PLEASE Help.

Hi Guys.
I like my iTunes library to be clean and neat. I have about 2,800 MP3's and it took me over a week to "edit" all of them and "clean them up" (properly spelled Artist, Genre, Album title, etc).
Now that everything is clean and neat, is there anyway I can copy my iTunes on to my external hard drive?
Should my computer crash, or I get a new one (this thing is OLD), I don't want to have to re-organize my entire iTunes library.
Any help/info is much appreciated.
Thanks,
Vic

StubChain - Thats interesting. Will try that. Thank you.
StarDeb - Thanks again. Sorry to sound illiterate here, but how do i "drag" the iTunes folder to the EHD?
I know how to drag things, but I'd have to minimize the C Drive window, and then open the G drive (EHD) and not sure how to DRAG when i has to relase the mouse to open and close folders.
Assume Copy and paste would work??
what about what your article said yesterday about clicking on "keep itunes organized". still need to do that?
Guys, thanks for the help, and dealing with me. I'm iTunes illiterate.
I still don't know how to get a downloaded song from "My Documents" (where they DL to) over to iTunes. lol
one struggle at a time.
*I've also tried to reward with the "helpful" tabs to you both, and an error happened. Will try again...promise...I'll just hit SOLVED.*

Hard drive recommendation? Please help.

I want to replace the 100 GB factory hard drive in my dv9005us Notebook PC. Will any of the following hard drives work?
Western Digital - Scorpio 320GB Internal SATA Hard Drive for Laptops Model: WD3200KTRTL | SKU: 8909586
SATA interface; 16MB cache; 7200 rpm; data transfer rates up to 3 Gbps
Western Digital - 320GB Internal Hard Drive for Laptops Model: WD3200BEVT | SKU: 8679762
Serial ATA interface; WhisperDrive technology; ShockGuard technology; data transfer rates up to 3 Gbps; 8MB buffer
Western Digital - Scorpio Blue 500GB Internal Serial ATA Hard Drive for Laptops Model: WD5000BEVTRTL | SKU: 9172799
Serial ATA interface; 5400 rpm; 3 Gbps data transfer rate
A few days ago, I purchased a
Seagate - Momentus 500GB Internal Serial ATA Hard Drive for Laptops Model: ST905003N3A1AS-RK | SKU: 9326428
Serial ATA interface; quiet operation; 3 Gbps; 16MB buffer
from Best Buy, but I am going to return it because there have been firmware problems with some Seagate drives and the box it came in says that it contains a 5 year warranty but the only thing inside was the drive.
Can I use a 7200 rpm 16MB buffer drive in my computer?
Thanks in advance for any advice/suggestions.

The dv9005us does not have the hard drive protection system. I believe that is confined to the HP/Compaq Business Models. So no worries there.

Hard drive installation problem, please help

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