Hard Drive not recognised inside MacBook Pro, however works in enclosure...

And my question is... WHY?!
Basically, my Macbook Pro took a bit of a knock on the hard drive side. Coincidentally, as it was on at the time, (Whoops!), it stopped responding and the colour wheel of death was apparent. I restarted with option held pressed down, so that I can see if the Hard Disk is still being read/recognised. After doing this a couple of times, I noticed that the Hard Disk was becoming intermittent in its ability to being read. I have also used Disk Utility and Disk Warrior and have been getting the same symptoms. I diagnosed, (more of an assumption than anything), that the Hard Disk is broken and I need another one. No biggy! I have a Time Machine drive, which had just that moment finished backing-up! =) Nice!
Anyway, I got a new hard drive (Toshiba 250 GB MK2552GSX Model no.), put it in my Macbook Pro and it, again, is intermittent, therefore fully disproving my theory that it was the Hard Disk itself. (Seeing as it can be read easily in the enclosure.)
Possibly the connector/the logic board it connects to?? I don't know, there's something broken inside my laptop, but just in case somebody out there has a solution, I'd be VERY grateful as it's my laptop I use for my university studies.
Thanks!

Does your old drive work in your external enclosure?
The reason I ask is because I've had this problem, but it happened after I replaced the Hard Drive in my Early 08 MBP (MacBook Pro 4,1). Turns out, the i/o cable, where it attaches to the logic board, gets worn/brittle from heat and very easy to damage. The repair at the genius bar ran about $20 for the cable, but I had a generous genius who waived the standard labor fee after I gave him my sad story, so your milage may vary.
I should also note that the Hard Drive on that generation of MacBook Pro is not considered user upgradable, and your swap will negate your Apple Care, if you have it, until all the damaged components are replaced.
Best of luck.

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Hello,
I have a G Technology G-DRIVE External Hard Drive, that until now has worked perfectly.
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Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as I use this hard drive as a Time Machine Backup, and I'm unable to do so.

At best, it sounds like this HD is flakey so even if you were able to get it working again, I would not trust it.
PlotinusVeritas gives some great suggestions for purchasing external hard drives in this thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5602141?tstart=0

External hard drive not found on macbook pro

I have a lacie 2tb external hard drive.. It started disconnecting itself randomly. I purchased a new cable for it. The problem stopped for a short time.. then it started up, and now the hard drive won't appear on my macbook pro. Ive tried disk utility initially it was there.. but now its no where to be found. the people at lacie seem to think the drive has failed.. Any ideas?

Hard drives can fail at any time... but, as I said, it could be that the SATA controller in the enclosure has gone belly-up. You should be able to take the drive to a standard computer repair shop and see if they can remove the drive from the enclosure, put it in a dock and see if the drive is mountable. It's a 50/50 chance but it shouldn't cost much and should be the first step before taking the unit into a more expensive data recovery facility.
Good luck,
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BTW: My LaCie drives have 3 year and 5 year warranties, respectively - you may want to see if yours qualifies.

What is a great 1TB portable hard drive for a new macbook pro that works great with lightroom?

I want to keep all my photos on the portable drive while working in lightroom. Is there much speed difference between USB 3 and thunderbolt?

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Every time I try to back up my Macbook Pro with an external hard drive using Time Machine, I receive the error of "the disk does not have enough space". I have a 500GB hard drive and only 120GB Macbook. It worked fine before the latest Maverick's

Every time I try to back up my Macbook Pro with an external hard drive using Time Machine, I receive the error of "the disk does not have enough space". I have a 500GB external hard drive and only 120GB Macbook. It worked fine before the latest Maverick's update. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

My guess would be it has created an entirely new backup of your drive when you upgraded to Mavericks.
See Here: http://pondini.org/TM/1.html
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Any help would be most appreciated. Hoping to not have to make another trip to Apple. Thanks.

I imported all info from the external hard drive to the new MacBook Pro. Seems most all data transferred ok.
Exactly what did you do? With iPhoto there is no "importing" involved - you simply drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the pictures folder of the new machine and launch iPhoto letting it convert as needed
With the following exception with iPhoto application,
You would do nothing with the iPhoto application - you use the new iPhoto application installed on yoru new system - you only move the iPhoto library as noted above
You can try Back up your iPhoto library, Depress and hold the option (alt) and command keys and launch iPhoto - rebuild your iPhoto library
LN

Transferring data from external hard drive to new replacement Macbook Pro...

Hello,
Apple have arranged to give me a replacement Macbook Pro due to faults with hardware on the one I am currently using. I will be going to pick up the replacement Macbook Pro tomorrow morning.
As a complete novice I just wanted to check that I have backed up the data from my current laptop onto my Iomega external hard drive properly, as I am slightly nervous about losing all my work and not being able to transfer all my files onto my new Macbook Pro tomorrow.
I did a back up using time machine earlier today which took quite a long time and seemed to go successfully. Is this the right thing to have done to save all data from my current laptop onto the external hard drive?
Will transferring data from the external hard drive onto my new Macbook Pro be a simple task?
Will I have to reinstall all my software such as Logic and Pro Tools? Also will my preferences and settings for music software be changed?
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Deena

Well it's like this.
If your problem on the Mac didn't affect the software or the TimeMachine backup, then restoring from that using SetupAssistant (when you first set up a new Mac it will ask you to restore) should go fine.
HOWEVER, if there are software issues on the Mac that also transferred to the TimeMachine drive, that will only transfer them back onto your new computer.
You can't very easily just pick out the things you want to restore from TimeMachine with, it doesn't give that fine detail of control, and if it's really messed up, it might not restore anything at all.
The golden rule of backups is to maintain two separate and easily accessible hardware copies of your data off the machine at all times.
Since you don't know for sure if the TimeMachine restore is going to work as intended, and your only other source is going to disappear, I'd advise a additional backup of your Music, Documents, Pictures and Movie folders etc., to another regular external drive via regular drag and drop copy methods.
The operating system and programs can all be reinstalled from fresh sources on the new machine, provided you have the AppleID and password, license codes for your programs, email passwords and any other necessary information to re-establish the license on the new machine.
(In some cases licensed software HAS NOT transferred to a new machine with a TimeMachine restore and had to be reinstalled)
Some times you have to contact the developer or "uninstall" the licensed program so it sends a signal to their servers that the program has been removed, else your license code may not work on the new machine.
You might decide the new machine would be better off with a fresh install of your programs that you know are 100% compatible with Lion etc., leaving a lot of older stuff you installed over the years off the new machine, if you restore from TimeMachine, you don't have this option. You pretty much get all the crap along for the ride,
If your new machine gets all crapped up, then restoring Lion is going to going to be a tough challenge, as you need a strong reliable Internet connection to download a fresh copy of Lion from Apple servers (no more disks). Once you do that, then somehow you have to use third party software ($$) to cherry pick your files out of TimeMachines trap. More headaches than you anticpated, and likely a charge by a specialist.
So I'd advise another hard drive with a copy of just your files, just in case a crap-up occurs
You can restore Lion yourself if it craps up, install programs from fresh sources as you know how to do, use the old license codes and then return your files manually exactly back into their same Music, Pictures, Documents, and Movies (etc, not Library) folders as before.
The key to this manual method is to make sure to use the same user name as before, so all your file location data pathnames retained by program files like iTunes to where the songs are located on the drive, are matched. Once you open these programs and restablish the links in OS X, then you can move them around.
Some tricks, if you use iPhoto, you can right click "show package contents" and inside is a folder with your Originals, copy that out and you can reimport your pictures into the new iPhoto Library on the new machine.
So use TM if you dare, but prepared to do things manually is my opinion.
TM restores have not been all that reliable or dependable, the more messed up your machine is, the worst the restore seems to be.
Good Luck

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Are you sure it came with Lion?
Check out the support page for what build shipped with which OS.
PJRS

Can i restrict apple mail client from downloading all emails...and allow it to pick a start date for gmail mail to sync? i am flooded with old emails, thousands on them ...eating hard drive space of my macbook pro and un necessary overhead

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The genius bar technicians can check your MBP for possible hardware problems and specific software issues that you may have. The diagnosis will be free. Any extensive repairs will not be free.
If you have minor software problems, you essentially will have to deal with them yourself. Examine these two comprehensive documents for possible problem definition and solutions. If you encounter problems that you are unable to cope with, start a new discussion and there will be persons willing to assist you in solving them.
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3521
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3353
Ciao.

Is it possible to increase the hard drive capacity on my Macbook Pro?

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If you feel confident, you can do it yourself.
If not, Apple can do it for the small matter of money.
If you go to http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/
Find you Mac on this page it has videos that show you how to replace the disk drive.
After you view the video then you can make your mind up as to which is the correct way for you to go.
Alllan

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If you subscribed to iTunes match the songs are kept in icloud. If you didn't but you did save the actual iTunes library folder which should include the music, video, etc. you should be able to just drag this file back to your machine in the same place and when you open iTunes it will give you a chance to identify the iTunes library folder.
You can test this to find out if you saved the media files or not and don't need to attach your nano to do it.
You are correct that once you connect the nano it will clear the existing files from it and sync it with the new iTunes library.
If you don't have the media files i'm not sure if/how to get them back on a windows ipod. I have everything backed up regularly because of the horror stories I have seen & heard.

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I think how you understand the value of having backups. All you can do is:
General File Recovery
If you stop using the drive it's possible to recover deleted files that have not been overwritten by using recovery software such as MAC Data Recovery, Data Rescue II, File Salvage or TechTool Pro. Each of the preceding come on bootable CDs to enable usage without risk of writing more data to the hard drive. Two free alternatives are Disk Drill and TestDisk. Look for them and demos at MacUpdate or CNET Downloads. Recovery software usually provide trial versions that enable you to determine if the software would help before actually paying for it. Beyond this or if the drive has completely failed, then you would need to send the drive to a recovery service which is very expensive.
The longer the hard drive remains in use and data are written to it, the greater the risk your deleted files will be overwritten.
Also visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.
You will need an external enclosure for the old drive so you can connect it to the computer in order to try the recovery software before you buy it. But if they don't work then you will need to send the drive to a recovery service such as Drive Savers.

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Hard Drive not recognised inside MacBook Pro, however works in enclosure...

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