Hard drive not identified during Installation. Disk Utility showing nothing in left side bar

Some day before my Macbook pro shown the flashing question mark. I have tried to install thr OS Snow leopard using disc.
When I started to install the OS, my start up disc ( Hard drive) is not showing for installation.
I have gone through the Disk Utility to repair it, but in that Hard drive is not showing in left side bar.
Kindly suggest how can I recover my Hard drive to install the OS?

That suggests that the drive is dead; if so, it needs to be replaced, and any data on it can only be recovered by a professional service, which can charge hundreds or thousands of dollars.
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Hard Drive not detected during installation

Hello everyone,
I am brand new to this Mac Forum, and I am hoping you can assist a colleague of mine who has a Hardware issue with his Mac.
It is a Power Mac G4 and one day he started having issues booting into the MacOS, but after several re-boots it would be okay, and then it didn't want to know at all, so he asked me to take a look at it.
My knowledge of Mac's is fairly basic, but I am familiarish with the Hardware, so I tried installing the Drive on another I.D.E. Cable and channel, re-seated the Memory, but it made no difference. So I assumed it was a dead Hard Drive?
However, he purchased a 120Gb WD (previous one being an 80Gb I.B.M.Deskstar), and I went around to his office to install it - same problem?!
Basically the installation gets as far as agreeing to the Licence Agreement, then we get the dialogue box where you select the destination for the Hard Drive, but there's nothing in there.
My guess is a faulty Motherboard, yet the CD Drive is still detected, obviously, for the boot to take place from the installation disk!?
Is there any BIOS I can access to make sure the Mac is detecting the Hard Drive properly?
Please help if you can, it would be much appreciated.
Cheers,
Nathan.

Hello again,
Thanks very much for your replies.
My colleague would be very reluctant to purchase a Controller Card for his Mac, particularly whilst I still have strong suspicious about the Motherboard.
I did follow the link in Rodney Cullings reply, but that isn't quite the issue.
It is a brand new Hard Drive, purchased from Jigsaw, and therefore I would assume unformattted; however we cannot use the Disk Utility to format it because there is no Hard Drive detected in the "Select a destination drive" in the first place!
Hence my question about the B.I.O.S., because in a situation like this on a P.C., the first thing I'd do (if Windows hadn't detected the Hard Drive) is check the B.I.O.S., because if it isn't in there, it's either Jumpers - which I've already tried - or a dead Hard Drive.
I have installed the newer drive in a P.C., and the B.I.O.S. did actually detect it.
So, any other ideas please people?
Many thanks for those supplied so far.
Nathan.
P.S. Am I posting this to the correct Forum?

External hard drive not recognised after using disk utility to format

i formatted two external hard drives using disk utility on my mac mini, now they do not show in finder. they can be seen in disk utility but the repair options etc are greyed out?

Try http://pondini.org/OSX/DU1.html
Allan

External Hard Drive not working thanks to disk utility format MS Dos?

hello everyone, i have a problem and i have no idea what to do, heres the deal.
a friend of mine bought a toshiba external 320gb hard drive, i have 100gb of video footage he needed, i opened the hard drive, used it without a problem, he took it home and he couldnt use it on his PC so i did some research and found out that to use it on a PC and MAC i had to format it using disk utility to MS dos, so i did that, after that both my macs dont recognize the HD and if i try a PC, it appears but you cant do anything with it, if i try to format it it says to insert a disk in that drive....
is there anyway i can fix this? or do i owe my friend a 320gb external HD?
thanks

Mac format is different than windows format. Fat32 is recognized by both systems, but has its limitations. You just need to reformat the drive to NTFS on a PC. I believe HFS+ was probably what your original drive was. If it was Fat32, it would have been recognized on the PC.
For future reference, just install the NTFS driver on your mac. You can find it here http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24481/ntfs-3g. Reformat the drive on a PC, install the driver and you can read and write to Windows NTFS drives and never have to worry about it again. Just right click on it in Windows and format it to NTFS.
Hope that helps.

External Hard Drive not mounting. In Disk Utility, the partition in the drive is greyed out.

So my Seagate 500GB drive, didn't mount the other day, and I investigated a bit and tried repairing the disk and this happened... please someone give me hope! Ihad so many important and irreplaceable videos and documents on this drive!!!

Anyone? Please?

Hard drive not recognized during windows server 2008 setup

hard drive not recognized during windows server 2008 setup

Hi,
Whether the hard disk is recognized in BIOS?
Connect it to another computer to see if it could be recognzied incase the cause is the disk itself. Also please check if it is really a RAID instead of a single hard disk - a single disk should be recognized directly while RAID cannot be recognized until
a suitable driver is installed.
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and un-mark them if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact [email protected]

Internal hard drive fails to mount in Disk Utility.

My internal hard drive fails to mount in Disk Utility for the past year, so I cannot verify it. However, it does mount in Disk Warrior. (1) I am concerned that it will not mount within the Apple software, and what that bodes for my computer. (2) I also have MANY spinning beach balls daily and have to use the power button to reboot. I just bought extra Crucial RAM and have yet to install it. Somehow, I don't think it wil help my issue # 1 though. Please advise, anyone out there! Thank you.

No, there are never any errors like that. Also, I have upgraded the Mac OS from 10.5 to 10.6.8. That did nothing. I backed up my Users = Christina folders to a good, 15 year old Firewire 800 La Cie 1 TB external hard drive. I also tested using the Apple Hardware test, which showed no problems, and Alsoft's Disk Warrior and defragged, and fixed a very minor issure re directory count, probably resulting from many improper shutdowns lately due to frozen spinning beach balls. None of these procedures alleviated the issues, and I still have the same issues: mainly that super-frequent spinning beach ball. Do you think I ought to install that new RAM sitting here finally? Perhaps it is a lack of RAM??I only have 2 lousy GB's of RAM after all! Thank you so very much for a reply.
Message was edited by: Flamingcreatures

I have received an error message from an attached USB hard drive (not Time Capsule) stating "Disk Name" cannot be repaired. Back up your data and reformat. I opened the Disk Utility in an attempt to repair the disk but am advised that the disk "could not

I have received an error message relating to an attached USB hard drive (not a back up and not Time Capsule) advising that "disk name" cannot be repaired. Back up your data and reformat. When I attempted to verify the disk with Disk Utility, I was advised that the disk could not be unmounted. What can I do to repair the disk?
Write Status is Read/Write
SMART Status is Not Supported
Partition Map Scheme is Master Boot Record
HELP!
timothy7712

You need something stronger, such as DiskWarrior, TechTools Pro, or Data Rescue.

Prosoft Data Rescue for Hard Drive "No Valid Packages" in Disk Utility

I have a Macbook and I believe the hard drive has crashed. When I turn it on, I get the circle with line through it and the folder with question mark inside blinking.
I got the Install Disk 1 to boot up but can not verify the hard drive. I get the following message "No Valid Packages" and disk verification fails. I also checked the SMART status of the hard drive and it says "Not Supported".
I also can not re-install the operating system, as there is no hard drive that shows up to install it to when I try to run the installer disk.
I know I need a new hard drive, much bigger one. I'm purchasing this today, a 320gb Samsung M6 Series internal drive and a Western digital external 500gb WDE1U5000N.
I also want to purchase the Prosoft Data Rescue but have several questions:
1)I read the this can work if disk utility sees the hard drive. The hard drive is seen in disk utility, but like i said before the drive has failed and it can not mount. I've read other reviews that said Prosoft can still be used in this case, but I want to make sure..please define what is meant by "disk utility being unable to see the hard drive"...Does this mean "dead hard drive or the hard drive not physically being VISIBLE in disk utility (because mine is, I just can't mount or verify it)
2)If I can use Prosoft, when I put it in my damaged Macbook to recover the files, can I then put these files onto my new external drive? Or do I have to have another internal drive to do this? (I'm just buying 1 right now)...How do you get the recovered data off if I can not move it onto an external drive? Do I put it on a disk and then take the damaged hard drive out, put the new one in and then put it on the external?
Sorry for the questions but I want to buy today by 5pm so it ships by Friday to me to fix this ASAP, thanks!

I read the this can work if disk utility sees the hard drive.
Prosoft Data Rescue can help recover files after a software failure. (Usually related file directory problems.) It sounds, however, that you've experienced a hardware failure of your original hard drive. No amount of software can ever recover a hard drive from a hardware failure. If you really need to recover the data, a data recovery service may be able to help. The cost will depend on the steps needed to recover the data and how much data is recovered.
-Doug

External hard drive won't unmount for disk utility.

Im not sure if this is the right topic area but I have a white macbook and my external hard drive won't unmount. I want to erase it via disk utility but it keeps telling me other programs are using it.

Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

Internal hard drives won't appear in Disk Util

I have a bizarre problem with my hard drives now. I'm on a 2.4GHz Core2Duo Macbook Pro 15" with 10.5.4. I've switched the hard drive a couple of times before with no issues whatsoever. Now, with the exception of the brand new one that won't hold an install, my internal hard drives don't show up in the install disk's Disk Utility.
I got a new hard drive to try the other day, installed it, booted to my OSX install disk to use Disk Utility. I switched the new disk to GUID and formatted it as journaled like usual. It took 4 hours to do the install, then after the restart it tanked. It booted back to the install disk where I checked it out. It could not repair the file system, and the drive was not "mounted". I mounted it, repartitioned and formatted it, and installed again. This time it stopped halfway through the installation and said the drive might be corrupt.
I unplugged the cable and battery, held the power button for over 5 secs, then just let it sit for about 10minutes with no power source while I thought about this. I put the original drive back in, booted into OSX, and put the new hard drive in an external USB enclosure. I formatted it while in OSX, then rebooted into the install disk and installed OSX on it while it was in the USB case. It took the installation more quickly (about an hour and a half...still not 20min like my old 7200rpm Hitachi 200g), then I booted into its OSX while in the USB drive. It booted ok, so I downloaded the updates and clicked to install them. It then went into a revolving restart. Eventually I decided it was not doing this because it was happy so I shut it off.
I swapped the hard drive out with another new one, and this one would not complete an installation while inside the computer either. It acted similarly while in the USB case. HOWEVER it would always show up as unmounted after a restart and would not recognize the drive inside the computer as a bootable disk.
I put my original drive in there to give up, and it gave me the ? folder. I booted to the install disk and it did not show up in the disk utility. I put my old hard drive in the USB case, booted to the install disk, and it showed that it was there, but unmounted and it could not repair the file system.
I repartitioned my hard drive (i have time machine working..not a huge setback) in the USB case and put it back in the computer. It still would not show up in disk utility. I put it back in the USB case, installed OSX onto it (in about 20min), restarted a couple times, saw that it was working, put it into my computer, and got the ? folder again.
I went out and bought a stardard 160GB SATA 5400rpm Seagate drive to try in there, and this fresh drive is not recognized inside the computer either when I boot into disk utility.
The brand new hard drive WILL show up in Disk Utility when I boot to it from the install disk, but it will not survive a complete installation.
So now I'm running OSX from my original hard drive in a USB case until I can figure out why the old disk recognized inside my laptop is the new hard drive upgrade, but it cannot complete an installation on it.
I'm originally a Windows slave, so I can only think in terms of AHCI or SATA-card drivers, or screwed up bios. But this is all pre-os-boot, and the apple firmware seems to be pretty automatic in picking the right settings to see stuff.

I kind of feel like drawing a flowchart to show all that I've tried. Its difficult to keep everything intelligible while listing the entire last week's efforts at 2:45am. :-/
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41951
I also explained it here, perhaps a bit differently. Maybe some reply there might spark someone's memory of a possible problem. I understand the nature of computers (been 100% geek for 20 years), but I'm hoping there's someone out there with the specific Apple expertise to help me out. Eventually the processes I've taken and my specific situation will become clearer as the questions widdle away at this.
My original 7200rpm SATA drive that works fine won't show up when connected to the SATA cable. I've repartitioned it with HFS, and repartitioned it as free space in the USB enclosure. It simply won't show up in Disk Util. Same with the brand new test SATA drive.
The new SSD SATAII does show up, but after a 4hr install the partition is unmounted and won't show up as a boot option. I can boot to the install disk and repartition it, reinstall, or remount it. But it will never be mounted to be booted from while connected to the computer. I've had 2 of the SSD's to try, one survived one restart, then went into a never-ending restart cycle after I installed the updates. The 2nd has never successfully been mounted after the install to boot from. Now nothing can be mounted to boot from within the computer. I have to boot off of any of these drives from the USB enclosure.
If I install OSX on them while in the USB enclosure, that works, but they will not mount when connected to the SATA cable inside the lappy. The platter style SATA drives won't even be recognized...
Thanks for the instant reply, this is driving me nuts 'cuz it makes almost no sense. Thanks so much to everyone that contributes. I appreciate everything.

External hard drives UNMOUNT when verifying with disk utility

I have two external Lacie hard drives attached to my iMac. One is just for general backup purposes. The other is for Time Machine.
Today when I got home, for some reason the Time Machine drive was not appearing on my desktop. I rebooted the computer, the Time Machine drive reappeared, I ran a back up, everything seemed to be working fine.
To make sure the disk was ok - I ran disk utility. When I selected "verify drive" from disk utility - the disk suddenly UNMOUNTED itself, at the point of cataloging the hard drive, and the verification process stalled. What was originally a 1 minute verification suddenly changed to a 17 minute, then a 33 minute, etc.
I tried booting up in recovery mode (Command -R at startup) and the same thing happened. Are the drives going bad?

Actually - I think when disk utility verifies the disk - disk utility itself actually "unmounts" the disk during the verification process. Probably so the disk cannot be accessed by anything else but disk utility.
I feel sort of silly, because what I thought was "stalling" was really just the disk utility going through its proper verification of the catalog file, multi-linked file, directories, etc.

My internal hard drives don't appear in disk utility. Can't install os X

Hi,
I have a macpro. In this computer are 4 1TB hard drives. They were set up as a raid set. I booted my comp with a snow leopard install disk and opened raid utility to delete the raid set so I can install os X on one hard drive and use the other hard drives to store files. After deleting the raid set, I opened disk utility to find no disks in which I can reformat or even install snow leopard. What steps do I take now to ensure all disks are useable and that I can install my operating system on one of them?

Drive Preparation
1. 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 Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
Now if you wish you can repeat Steps 2 and 3 on the other three drives. Or you can do it after installing OS X.
Once you have one drive reformatted you can quit DU and install OS X.

Can't access/mount hard drive, Permission denied message in Disk Utility.

Hello,
Need some help here. I was upgrading from 10.4 to 10.5. I got an error message when I tried to upgrade from the DVD. My hard drive had an exclamation mark by it and I was told I would need to erase it in order to install. When I tried quitting the installer, I had to go through startup disk to pick my Hard drive, which showed it had 10.4 installed. When I tried restarting, it would only boot off of the DVD. I checked startup disk again, but my hard drive was now not visible. I have a tower with a back-up system on it. When I picked it, it started up fine. I went under disk utility and the hard drive is listed, but is ghosted/grayed out. Repair & Verify Disk permissions are ghosted back as well.When I try to repair or verify disk, it says it can't it gives me the disk number and sector number and Permission Denied. I poked around on disk utility for info, and it looks like it doesn't have a mount point anymore and under permissions, it says that they are not enabled. So, apparently the access privileges have been erased & I don't know how to mount my disk again. I'm assuming I need some sort of commmand line in Terminal to restore my priveleges or get it to auto-mount. I do not want to erase my drive to upgrade. All my applications are on that drive. Please help!
Message was edited by: koobiak

See if Niel's User Tip can help you: I accidentally set a disk's permissions to No Access .

Hard Drive not identified

My hard drive crashed so I replaced it with the exact model. I attemp to install XP from the HP reinstallation disk. It installs drivers but eventually gives an error message that the hard drive is not recognized. The hard drive self test says that the IDE drive is not recognized and I might need to run a manufacturers setup program. The hard drive has been reseated several times with no improvement. My laptop was purchased in 2002. I have read that a new bios upgrade came out in 2003 that improved the hard drive self test. Can anyone help?

Please provide the model of the laptop. But I assume this is not a SATA hard drive, so there is no issue of a missing SATA drive during XP installation. Do you have the correct caddy and connector for the hard drive? Is it jumpered the same way as the old one?

Hard drive not identified during Installation. Disk Utility showing nothing in left side bar

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