New Hard drive doesn't show up (MBP late 2009)

I have a 2009 Macbook Pro that was running Lion. The HDD failed so I installed a new one. This blank HD had no OS on it so I get the blinking question mark (the problem that started it all). I found my old snow leopard disk and tried booting from the disk. Each time I tried this I got hung up on the screen that just shows an apple and a little swirly time thing. I also tried booting holding option so that I could select exactly what I wanted to do. When I tried this, I noticed that there is no HDD showing up next to the picture of the disk. I know this is not normal because on my (working) iMac, it shows both my hard drives and the snow leopard disk. I recently went to the "Genius" bar where they performed a diagnostic. The test showed that the SATA cable, logic board, and HDD were all in place and properly functioning. I have already reformatetd the new hard drive through target disk mode on my iMac. I have no idea what else to try. I've let it run for several hours and all I get is an apple with the swirly time thing and a very hot laptop.

Hold down Option while you start up. Only the DVD will be shown, because the new drive is not yet bootable.
Choose the DVD and click the proceed arrow. It should proceed within one minute.
"A Mac that cannot boot from an appropriate System/Utilities DVD has a Hardware problem."
You should soon get the "What Language ?" screen and be able to proceed to Install.
If you cannot Install because of the Drive, answer only the What language question, and WAIT a quarter minute for the MenuBar to be drawn, then choose Disk Utility from the Utilities Menu.
Make sure the new drive is present, and has GUID Partition Map and a Mac OS X Volume in Mac OS X Extended, Journaled.

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New Hard Drive doesn't show on MBP - faulty drive?

Hi
I've tried to replace the hard-drive on my mbp 13" after having problems with the old drive. Basically, although the old hard-drive was visible I couldn't unmount it and guy at Apple genius bar said I'd need a new one.
Bought a Samsung M7 500GB 2.5 inch SATA II 8MB Cache, 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive, installed it and tried to set up new install of OSX. However, the prompt for where i want to install the software was a blank box (I believe it should have shown the hard-drive here). It was also not visible in disk utility.
I put the old drive back in and that was still visible in disk utility. My question is whether there is something I need to do to identify the new HD or if it would appear to be faulty.
All suggestions greatly appreciated.
Thanks

Get yourself a IDE/SATA to USB adapter for about $20 online.
Put the old drive back into the machine and connect the new drive to the adapter.
If Disk Utility still doesn't see the drive, then follow these directions:
This is going to sound unusual, but works in cases like this.
1: Download and burn to cd a ISO of PartedMagic, first download choice is what you need
http://partedmagic.com/doku.php?id=downloads
2: Open Disk Utility and open the ISO and click burn, stick in a cd-r
3: Once that's finished, connect ONLY the external to the computer (no other drives) and reboot with the PartedMagic disk in holding the c key down
4: Your going to see a screen to "Load into RAM" it's the default choice, press return (PartedMagic doens't install anything onto your harddrive, just into RAM which gets flushed upon reboot)
5: When the cd ejects, remove it.
6: After about what seems to be a lot of technical mobo jumbo appearing on your screen your going to arrive at a desktop like environment.
7: On the left is a icon called Partition Editor, double click that.
8: Now be careful, a window will appear with your boot drive, don't select or delete anything here
9: select the /dev/sdb (size of your external hard drive) from the top right corner, confirm that it's the external sized drive or you'll be sorry if you selected the wrong device.
(note the name may be different on your machine perhaps /dev/sda or /dev/sdc, just make sure to choose the external sized drive and if unsure don't do anything and quit)
If PartedMagic doesn't see your drive, then it's really not working. Use the Log out>restart from the lower left hand corner to boot back into OS X.
10: If you see the drive, you will see the drive as unformatted, that's confirmation you picked the right one.
11: Format the drive MBR with FAT32. (Apple's disk utility calls it MSDOS) click Apply
12: Close the window with the tiny X box in the top corner, then select the disk icon in the bottom right corner and "log out" with restart. You'll boot into OS X again like normal.
13: Open Disk Utility, click the external drive "media" on the left, click the Partition tab, 1 partition, option GUID, OS X Extended (Journaled) and click Apply.
14: Then click Erase> give the drive a name >Security Option> Zero All Data> click Erase
You may have to perform #14 before you do #13 if the drive is not formatting
I don't know why OS X is refusing to see drives as of late, or not unmounting them and so forth, but using PartedMagic which is based upon Linux seems to work exceeding well at jumpstarting or erasing the drive.
What you do now depends if you want to reinstall OS X fresh or start anew.
For OS X Lion your going to need to copy the Lion Recovery Partition from the old drive to a 1GB USB thumb drive, formatted GUID and OS X Extended in Disk Utility just like you did the drive above.
Then run this software from Apple to copy your Lion Recovery Partition to the USB key.
https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1433
You can use a blank external drive to Carbon Copy Cloner your old boot drive partition (either Snow Leopard or Lion) to the external drive. It will then become hold the option key bootable. So do that and check it out as your going to be needing it. CCC cloning doesn't work for Filevaulted drives or Bootcamp partitions naturally, only OS X cloning.
Cloning only clones the Lion OS X partition for now, a beta version supposedly is out that will clone both Lion and the Recovery Partition at the same time.
Once you got the new drive into the machine, hold option and boot off the Lion USB to format (GUID OS X Extended) the internal drive ad install the Lion Recovery Partition/Lion.
Then you can option boot off the external clone or the old drive attached with the adapter and use CCC to clone the Lion Partition onto the internal Lion Partition.
For Snow Leopard the steps are the same, just you don't need to mess with the Lion Recovery Partition, just clone right off.
Or with Snow, just hold c boot off the grey or white installer disks and go from there.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16276201#16276201

URGENT Trying to wipe and reinstall Leopard 10.5 on my 2008 imac8,1 from the disk but my hard drive doesn't show up

So to give a little big of a background on my computer. I got it January 2009 as a graduation gift, because I was going to get a degree in Graphic Design and Animation. I only worked on it [mostly brousing the web, and itunes] for about 6 months because I was taking all of my general courses for college. I then met my boyfriend [late 2009] and moved in with him, my boyfriend has a macbook so I left my mac at my parents house. I was only Using it every now and then and it would be idle/ or shut off the rest of the time.
Fast forward to fall 2011. Me and my boyfriend live in a condo so I brought my computer over because I am now taking graphic design courses and need my computer. I installed a free 30 day trial of adobe cs5.5. It made my computer kind of slow and it froze alot even though I still have over 250gb's of memory in it. After the trial ended I kind of stoped using my computer again, rather installing the free trials of cs5.5 on my mom and my boyfriends macs until I had enought money saved up to buy it.
Here's where it gets tricky.
So now its March 2012 and I tried uninstalling the trial of cs5.5 on my computer since it was just taking up un needed space. I had to uninstall all of the programs one at a time other wise it would freeze up. I have had to hold the power button down to get it to turn off because i couldn't even move the mouse even after waiting a while. Anyhow I get to the last program and it keeps freezing, I tried shutting down my computer via<apple< shut down. But when I start it up again I got a file with a question mark flashing on my screen. So I looked up how to fix that and had to locate where to start up [I selected my hard drive] then I was able to get on to my computer.
So then I go to disk utilitys and do a repair on my internal hard drive to fix if there were any messed up files. After the files are repaired I figure I'll restart it and let everything get up to date. When I do I get the gray screen with the apple and the spinning wheel. This happens OVER and OVER. I tried soft reseting it, manually turning off the computer, you name it. But it still keeps happening. So I figure I'll just wipe it clean and reinstall the whole thing. [I have it backed up on an external drive]
I try to reinstall leopard 10.5 from the disk that came with my computer, all goes well until I gets to the 3rd screen where you select where to save it to, my hard drive doesn't show up. But if I connect my external hard drive it shows up right away. I try seeing if it pops up on disk utility, and it doesn't show up there either.
Is it possible that my hard drive is shot? I haven't really used my computer that much. Its pretty much sat at my parents house for 2 of the 3 years I've had it. So its not like I used it a whole lot.
Help! I'm a college student who needs her mac now more than ever for my design classes!

The battery alone is a $5 to $15 part. Hard drives vary in cost, and depending on the iMac, they may or may not be able to install a third party hard drive, or one resold through Apple.    The resold through Apple drives tend to cost more. This article discusses the varying successes of third party drives on iMacs:
http://blog.macsales.com/10146-apple-further-restricts-upgrade-options-on-new-im acs
The labor costs depend on the store as well as the time to get the parts in stock.    Call around.

My external hard drive doesn't show up in finder, is it dead?

My external hard drive doesn't show up in finder.Time machine can't find it. Does this mean my external hard drive is dead?
I borrowed a friends and switched mine with hers. My acted the same way in her macbook. I switched the cords on the external drives, no change.
Also, Is there a way to retrieve the information from my sick external hard drive? Thanks for your help.

If the Disk Utility sees it, you might be able to repair it or recover the data on it with a product such as DiskWarrior or Data Rescue.
If the Disk Utility doesn't see it, contact professional support.
(64290)

Moved library to new hard drive, now nothing shows in iTunes

I moved my library to a new internal hard drive, but the music does not show when I start up iTunes. I followed the instructions from the Apple website, so I don't know what to do. I can see the files on the new hard drive, so I know they are still around. I'm afraid to sync as I may lose everything. What do I do?
VAIO PCV-RZ24G Windows XP

First - re-read all the instructions and figure out where you might have dropped a step. Below are three similar sites that explain the same process. One may help you diagnose what went wrong.
My guess is that you moved or corrupted your Library database file in the process. But without more information, I am just taking a shot in the dark.
See these links for some step-by-step info:
iLounge: Moving your iTunes Library to a New Hard Drive
MacMuse: iTfW: Move iTunes music/Library to new drive
iTunes: Moving your iTunes Music folder

Western digital hard drive doesn't show up anymore

I bought a Macbook Pro a few months ago and I've been using my Western Digital external USB hard drive with up until now with no problems. Then today for some reason, I turn my computer on and the drive doesn't show up anymore. It doesn't show up in disk utility either. I've rebooted a few times but no luck. I inserted a flash drive and it mounts ok so it's not the USB port. I even switched usb cables just in case the cable was bad. Any suggestions?

Hi there
Sorry to hear you are having trouble with your Mac.
Is the ext HD a powered drive (needs AC power to run) or portable? (smaller, doesn't need to be plugged in to AC)
If its AC powered, check that all the usual lights are lit up on it (flashing activity light, power light etc), if not, then you would need to contact WD.
You can also try resetting the SMC & PRAM, as I have seen this cause a HD to not mount before.
Cheers

External hard drive doesn't show up on Mac Mini

Working with pre-installed Snow Leopard on a Mac Mini.
External firewire hard drive does not show up on desktop or in sidebar. Also tried the same hard drive connected with USB. Tried another USB drive -- nothing.
What can I try?

If those have a pre-existing format that works with those earlier machines, they may not show as bootable drives....they need to be set up with a GUID map as mentioned. But they should still show up in Disk Utility at least...
If they worked on those other computers, then you should try the Apple article listed above to see if all that is needed is to get the FW ports to cooperate.
If no joy there, try resetting some of the basic hardware involved (PRAM~NVRAM). See this Apple KB for details, etc.:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
If still no joy, walk it in to the nearest Apple Store for a quick hands on.
Good luck in any case.

What are the steps to follow after you install a new Hard Drive on a 17in Macbook Pro mid 2009

I plan on installing a larger Hard Drive..the physical part is simple..but what are the steps after you close it up and hit the power button? Is there softwre on the mother board that will start the unit running??

A new Hard drive will not be Mac-formatted, so you will have to do that first. A copy of Disk Utility to do the job is also on the 10.6 Installer/Utilities DVD.
Boot to the installer DVD, but do not Install. Answer only the "what language" question, and wait a quarter minute for the menuBar to be drawn. Choose Disk Utility from the Utilities menu that appears.
Select the Hardware_name of the new Drive. Partition, one partition, ( Options ), GUID partition table. Name the partition: MacIntosh HD and choose Format: Mac OS X Extended (journaled). It will complete in a minute or two, as it only rewrite the Directory area.
If you wish to shake out your drive, you can erase it and Security Erase, Zero all data, one pass. But this takes HOURS.

My external hard drive doesn't show anymore

Hello Everyone,
I hope you can help me. Today I wanted to put new data on my WD hard drive, I have it for almost a year and always worked fine (it's just USB, no power necessary). But my External HD was almost full so I deleted the "time machine" back-ups. Now, my Macbook Pro or iMac doesn't show my WD in Finder. I can find it in Disk Utility but only for a few seconds. Can someone please help me by giving some tips or own experiences? Thanks!

If you want LR to show the full path of a directory tree as it is on an actual drive, you are going to have to fool it into showing it to you.
a) Place a COPY of a photo, ANY photo, in the directory/folder that you want to show as the root of your folder tree in LR.
b) Using "Import Photos from disk" import ONLY the photo that you placed in the 'root' folder, by DOUBLE-CLICKING on it so that only it is imported.
c) After the import, your folder structure should now look the way that you want it to in LR, matching the actual drive structure from the root upwards.
d) Using LR, delete the photo that you used as a placeholder. The LR Folder structure should remain intact.

External hard drive doesn't show up in /dev. [SOLVED]

After a long period of not taking backups, I plugged in my external hard drive today, but I can't mount it because I can't find it in dev (it used to show up as /dev/sdb, but now my only /dev/sd* is /dev/sda, which is my internal drive). The drive still shows up in dmesg and in lsusb. I've attached the dmesg lines and the lsusb -v entry, in which you can see that the drive is indeed recognized as a mass storage device.
I'm not sure if it's relevant, but lsusb -v pauses for a couple of seconds before outputting the final line.
Any ideas?
Dmesg output:
[160782.137424] usb 1-5.3: new high speed USB device number 7 using ehci_hcd
lsusb -v output:
Bus 001 Device 008: ID 059b:0370 Iomega Corp.
Device Descriptor:
bLength 18
bDescriptorType 1
bcdUSB 2.00
bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level)
bDeviceSubClass 0
bDeviceProtocol 0
bMaxPacketSize0 64
idVendor 0x059b Iomega Corp.
idProduct 0x0370
bcdDevice 0.00
iManufacturer 10 lomega
iProduct 11 exernal hd
iSerial 5 1590925965FF
bNumConfigurations 1
Configuration Descriptor:
bLength 9
bDescriptorType 2
wTotalLength 32
bNumInterfaces 1
bConfigurationValue 1
iConfiguration 4 USB Mass Storage
bmAttributes 0xc0
Self Powered
MaxPower 2mA
Interface Descriptor:
bLength 9
bDescriptorType 4
bInterfaceNumber 0
bAlternateSetting 0
bNumEndpoints 2
bInterfaceClass 8 Mass Storage
bInterfaceSubClass 6 SCSI
bInterfaceProtocol 80 Bulk (Zip)
iInterface 6 MSC Bulk-Only Transfer
Endpoint Descriptor:
bLength 7
bDescriptorType 5
bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN
bmAttributes 2
Transfer Type Bulk
Synch Type None
Usage Type Data
wMaxPacketSize 0x0200 1x 512 bytes
bInterval 0
Endpoint Descriptor:
bLength 7
bDescriptorType 5
bEndpointAddress 0x02 EP 2 OUT
bmAttributes 2
Transfer Type Bulk
Synch Type None
Usage Type Data
wMaxPacketSize 0x0200 1x 512 bytes
bInterval 0
Device Qualifier (for other device speed):
bLength 10
bDescriptorType 6
bcdUSB 2.00
bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level)
bDeviceSubClass 0
bDeviceProtocol 0
bMaxPacketSize0 64
bNumConfigurations 1
Device Status: 0x0001
Self Powered
Edit: fixed code tags
Last edited by jneem (2011-11-19 23:36:18)

So, you're talking about a specific drive.
then try testdisk. it's available in extra.
also you may try to use another cable.
Unfortunatly my system doesn't see any usb drives. But when I boot in stock kernel, everything is OK
PS a few months ago I have bricked my external hdd by inserting it in win7 by mistake. Billy's OS didnt recognised my ext3 partition, and destroed it without any prompt. B****! I still cant forgive it

Internal Hard Drive doesn't show up on Time Machine menu. Why???

So I recently bought a brand new MacBook G5 2.1 Ghz 1G RAM, and when I first set it up I had my external hard drive from my old PC laptop hooked up to and it instantly asked if I wanted to use it for my Time Machine disk. I said yes, but it then prompted me to reformat (delete) everything on the external drive.
I tried later to use the internal hard drive as the Time Machine disk, but now it doesn't even show up when I look for it in system preferences as an option. Only the external hard drive (Maxtor OneTouch4 500G).
Does anyone know how to make the internal drive appear again so I don't have to reformat my external drive?

RyanRay wrote:
yeah, I read in a pdf manual that you couldn't use the startup disk to backup, but I could almost swear I saw either Macintosh HD or something like that on the disk options menu when I first started up. Maybe I saw something else.
So then there's no way to backup without an external drive of some sort? Do you know if it's possible to format a drive so that half of it is Mac compatible?
that's possible but you'll have to reformat it first which will wipe it out. when you reformat it set the partition scheme to GUID and set the number of partitions to two. format one as FAT so that it works with windows and the other as mac Os extended journaled so that it can be used with Time machine.

My external hard drive doesn't show up on my desktop screen

I have a 1TB external drive that connects by USB. I use it as a Time Machine and for other storage. It worked fine until a few weeks ago. Now, when I connect it, the drive starts spinning, but it doesn't show up on the desktop screen or in Disk Utility.
Other USB drives and devices work fine when plugged into either of my USB ports. Also, this particular 1TB drive works fine with my older MacBook. It's just that this particular external drive and this particular MacBook Pro don't seem to be working together.
Thoughts?

Does it show up in disk utility
remove and reconnect the USB connector on the drive end., check Finder > prefences > general ....is hard disks checked?
Have you used this HD on that Mac before?
Does this HD show in another machine/ Mac?
Work the process of elmination. Report back.

External hard drive doesn't show up in finder or migration assistant

Hello all,
I'm new to this forum and pardon me if this question isn't posted in the right category.
I recently broke my old macbook pro to the point it was inoperable. I extracted the hard drive which appeared to be in good shape, put it in an external enclosure & plugged it into my new macbook pro via usb and it's not showing up in finder, disc utility or migration assistant. I'd like to import my old music, pictures & documents if possible. I'm curious why it isn't showing up and how I can make migration assistant work?
Hope everyone had a good Christmas and a happy new year!
Thanks,
Andrew

Disk Utility – Force Mount Disk
See mount section.
Disk Unmount Using Terminal

External Hard Drive doesn't show up

hi.
i'm having an issue with my external hard drive. this morning i went to plug it in since that's where i store all of my music, and for some odd reason it didn't work. i have a feeling it's because the night before i unplugged it without ejecting it. my mistake, i know, but now the drive is all messed up. earlier i was able to view the volumes on it in disk utility, and before deciding to erased anything i plugged it into my sister's dell where i transfered everything on the drive. now, when i plug it in my macbook it only shows up in disk utility without the volumes, it doesn't show up on the dell anymore, and when i go to erase everything it tells me "operation timed out".
i'm at a loss of what to do. i tried restarting the macbook, unplugged the cables... nothing seems to work. i would really like to get the thing back to factory settings if that's possible. so if anyone can offer help, it would be most appreciated. the external drive is a 500GB Maxtor OneTouch

Try this:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must 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 or Leopard.)
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. Set the number of partitions from the drop down menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
If you plan to use this drive on both your Mac and a PC, then format the drive MS-DOS rather than Mac OS Extended.

WD Hard Drive, doesn't show up on MacBook 2.0ghz

The new Macbooks do not have firewire, only usb, which is odd for $12000 comp. But when I plug my harddrive into the macbook it doesn't show up. Why is this? Help!

mgh2 wrote:
The new Macbooks do not have firewire, only usb, which is odd for $12000 comp. But when I plug my harddrive into the macbook it doesn't show up. Why is this? Help!
I think you mean $1200, not $12,000. If you needed an FW port, you'd need to upgrade to the MacBook Pro or downgrade to the previous MacBook. Does the external HDD work on another computer? Can you try another USB port? Does the HDD need an AC adapter?
On second thought, this is the Time Machine forum. Are you saying it doesn't show up as a TM backup destination? If that is the case, perhaps the drive is not properly formatted. It needs to be formatted HFS+ (Mac OS- Extended Journaled).
Message was edited by: VA2020

New Hard drive doesn't show up (MBP late 2009)

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