New hard drive still won't be recognized!

Hello, recently I've been having several problems with my mid-2009 MacBook Pro; 2 minute beachballs and failure to startup. So I've purchased a new new WD Scorpio Black thinking it was a HD issue, but after replacing my old HD with the WD, Disk Utility wouldn't recognize the new drive. So I searched around and found out that Hard Drive Cable failure is an issue on this certain MacBook. So I ordered a new Hard Drive cable and just replaced that today, thinking that my new HD would be recognized. However after going into Disk Utility via the OS X Install DVD, my new Hard Drive was still not recognized. So I put back my old stock HD and it was recognized instantly and seems to not have any issues anymore. Could it be that the drive is DoA? Or should I purchase an external enclosure and format my new hard drive that way? I'd appreciate any other suggestions, thanks!

Try system preferences, utilities and open disk utilites, click on HD your disc (what ever you named it, or if you did not ,the 2nd disc id down is your disc) click disc repairs, if the reponse is this disc has problems click disc repair. If this doesn't work re-post and some one will walk you thru this .

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New Hard Drive still have Question Mark Folder

So I first got the 'Question Mark Folder' and had to keep running Safe Boot Mode to use computer. Finally got around to replacing the Hard Drive, but this Question Mark Folder still comes up trying to turn the computer on and now trying to setup the new hard drive. Won't let me do anything. I've tried all of the button combos/recovery mode/etc. Tried inserting both a backup disk of Mavericks and Snow Leopard, nothing. Is there any other problems that could cause this? Maybe a dead SATA cable? or something else small hopefully?

My newest Mac just did the same "folder of death" dance. It's too late for you now, but you might consider a passport backup drive.You can get 2&3 T-bytes now fairly reasonably priced. A given with computers is they will crash, just a question of how bad and when, so you can be prepared for the next time.

I had to get my hard drive replaced from Apple, I lost all of my music obviously. My question is, how can I get all my music off of my iPhone onto iTunes? Since it's a new hard drive, the iPhone isn't recognizing this as it's home computer.

I had to get my hard drive replaced from Apple, I lost all of my music obviously. My question is, how can I get all my music off of my iPhone onto iTunes? Since it's a new hard drive, the iPhone isn't recognizing this as it's home computer.

You will need to use third-party software to transfer music from your phone to the iTunes Library. I recommend Phone to Mac - Pod to Mac | Macroplant.com.

HT1338 my 5th generation ipod won't sync anymore to my PowerMac G4. It worked fine, but when I installed a new hard drive it won't work anymore.

my 5th generation ipod won't sync anymore to my PowerMac G4. It worked fine, but when I installed a new hard drive it won't work anymore. I've re-installed iTunes, the latest version for Tiger, I've reset and restored my iPod. The ipod shows up fine in the source banner and I can transfer files to it, however when I unplug the iPod the files are not there.

Maybe try to repair the iPod's HD using Disk Utility located in the Applications -> Utilities folder. If that doesn't help, try a low level reformat of the drive using the same application. Make sure you choose Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) as the file system format.
B-rock

Added New Hard Drive, LR4 Won't Write to it, even though selected in Import Dialog

I've just filled up my old hard drive so I have connected a new one and pointed the import, file handling preferences at it, the arrow is highlighting it there and it looks all good to go. But when I try and import LR says that I have no space on my old drive and I should free some space, it doesn't seem to register that I have a new drive and configured LR4 to point at it.
Any ideas?
Cheers for your help.
- First you can see the new drive selected
- Then below it pops up a dialog saying my old drive is out of space when I click Import (you can also here the new drive fire up just before the dialog pops up)

Great news!
I installed Partition Magic (which I already own), and noticed two things.
1. My Seagate 200GB is set as Active and
2. My WD Raptor is not set as Active
Sounds easy, so let's set my Raptor as active and my Seagate as not active. But hold on, let's do one at a time and since I want to make my Raptor work, let's turn that on first. So I made my Raptor Active and rebooted (btw, I didn't change anything in bios). Upon reboot into XP partion magic popped up and did some DOS stuff and rebooted me. This time when I rebooted I jumped into bios and changed 2nd boot device to SCSI instead of HDD-0 (1st boot is cd-rom) and rebooted. Now I get this message:
NTLDR is missing
What a kick in the sack! Previously, before I made the partition magic changes, booting from SCSI would give the error:
INVALID SYSTEM DISK
INSERT VALID SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER
or something like that. This drives me to the conclusion that you guys are on a role. Indeed setting my Raptor to Active was probably all it needed in the first place. Thank you very much already for that little piece of information.
So now the new question becomes, can I copy NTLDR from my xp cd into my WINDOWS directory and assume it will boot on SCSI? (or perhaps if I would remove my Seagate). I've tried to re-copy an NTLDR file for someone a year ago but there were many different versions of the file. I can still boot to XP if I set boot device to HDD-0, don't forget. And I did a windows search for NTLDR and it doesn't come up anywhere. Now what?
-Bob

How can I reinstall Mountain Lion on new hard drive?

I've had to install a new hard drive as old one was failing.
Have loaded Snow Leopard from disc onto the new drive but can't install Mountain Lion which I was running prior to drive failure; very frustrated.
Have tried several options.
1. Tried to reboot from OS X Utilities but whenever I restart, holding the cmd + R keys, I can only ever get the standard screen. I've tried pressing keys early in restart, later in restart, keys on either side of the keyboard, cmd + alt/option + R but still can't get to the OS X Utilities.
2. Having given up on 1 I've tried to download ML from my purchase history in iTunes. I can see the purchase recorded but there appears to be no way to get to a reload option - at least not in the iTunes loaded from Snow Leopard
3. I tried downloading ML updates, hoping that might allow me to bypass 1 and 2. The download wasn't recognised by my machine.
4. I've be willing to just buy the **** OS again from scratch but iTunes won't allow me to do that either, at least not using my current Apple ID.
Does anyone have any bright ideas? I hate bloody computers.
Mike

enigmatix wrote:
Csound,
Do you have any suggestions why I can't open OS X Utilities.
Thanks,
Mike
How old is your Mac, if it came with 10.6 installed it is too old to have Internet Recovery (command-option-R) And as it has a new hard drive you won't be able to use Recovery (command-R) either until a new copy of Mountain Lion is installed and ceates a recovery partition on the drive.

Process for new hard drive

Hi everyone,
I was hoping somebody could point me to some tutorials for upgrading the hard drive in my PowerBook G4 (1Ghz).
I own an external drive (usb only) that is the same size as the drive in my PB (80gb), this is what I'd use to back up my hard drive (I could borrow a larger drive from work if necessary).
What is the best process for backing up? Should I use Carbon Copy? I already have Retrospect Express.
How can I make sure that I won't need to reinstall all my 3rd party apps (ex; iLife, Photoshop)? Would all of this be ported over when I copy my old hard drive over to the new hard drive?
What is the best process for copying the backed up/copied hard drive to the new hard drive? Won't I need to reinstall Tiger first? Then run updates?
Thanks for the help!

"What is the best process for backing up? Should I use Carbon Copy? I already have Retrospect Express."
I just replaced my drive, I used SuperDuper, it worked flawlessly, a major first for me since using OS X. I swear I'm not from that company, but it made a perfect bootable disk, important since I was swapping drives directly after copying data via USB to external enclosure. Had drive duplication problems prior, carbon copy was a no-go for me, to complicated, something not right w/ the updates, i forget what, it has been a while, just remember I was forced to reinstall apps.
Should have gotten a firewire enclosure, could have tested it first w/ target mode, oh well.

New Hard Drive, best way Copy system and files

Hello All,
I have a brand new harddrive that I want to put in my PB. I put the harddrive in a FW enclosure and installed OSX 10.4 from an install DVD. Looking on this forum for an idea as to how to transfer my system over to the new drive BEFORE putting it in my PB I discovered the existence of SuperDuper.
The problem is that even after searching the forums for much too long, I have yet to find a nuanced answer as to How I should proceed in getting my system copied to the new drive. Should I:
1) Forget about the bright and shiny new clean install waiting on the new drive and just reformat it and then create a clone using superduper (and the "backup all files" command) on the new drive.
1a) if I do this can I just then take the new drive out of the enclosure and put it in my PB and have it look just like my old drive except with a gajillion more bytes of space that I can put all my new music, photos and podcast on?
2) Should I use the OS I just installed on the new drive and just copy a standard set of system/preferences/data folders onto the new drive and then take it out of the enclosure and put it in my PB?
Thanks a million in advance

A follow up
1) I downloaded SuperDuper for free.
2) I put my brand new drive in a FW enclosure, with the Oxford 911 chip set.
3) I plugged I plugged in the new drive via Firewire. Then used Disk Utility to Erase and Format the new drive using OS extended Journaled.
4) I then used SuperDuper and the "Backup-All Files" option to Clone my current (old) drive onto the new drive over the FW connection.
5) Once complete (about two hours, for ~ 70GB) I restarted my computer holding down the option(alt). I selected to boot from the new Hard Drive still connected via FW.
6) Once I verified that I could boot from the new drive and that it was indeed exactly the same as my current drive, I shut down my computer and went through the process of swapping the new drive out of the FW enclosure and putting it in my PB. (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=111925) for an illustrated set of instructions on how to do this.
7) I just started up my computer and I am writing this post from my now new internal HD that is indistinguishable from the old one, only I have roughly 1 gajillion, billion, more 1's and 0's to order into files of my choosing. I am doing snow angels in 1's and 0's.
I hope this and the answers from dolbinau help the next person who want to do a really easy new Hard Drive install on their G4 Powerbook (Tibook)

MacBook Pro won't boot with new hard drive, but a different MacBook Pro will

So here are the details. My friend and I both have 13-inch Mid 2010 MacBook Pro's. Same processor and specs since they were purchased at the same time, but originally had 250 GB hard drives. His hard drive failed and needed a new one. Put a 500 GB Seagate Momentus 5400.6 in his computer, and tried using a flash drive with "Install OS X Mavericks" on it to install Mavericks on his new hard drive. No matter what, it wouldn't install. I finally was able to install OS X 10.9.4 on it by connecting the new hard drive to my computer with a USB hard drive enclosure. I put the hard drive back inside his computer and it wouldn't boot (stuck on the gray screen with apple logo and a spinning wheel). I then attached to the hard drive to his computer externally with the USB enclosure, and then it booted and worked perfectly.
So, it seemed like the problem was with something inside his computer, but then I switched our drives, and that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. I put my original hard drive into his computer, and his new hard drive into my computer, and they both booted and worked perfectly, so I have no idea why his computer will not boot with the new hard drive internally.
To summarize, his computer boots with: 1) new hard drive connected externally (won't work if it's internal), and 2) my hard drive internally
but my computer boots with: 1) new hard drive connected externally AND internally, and 2) my hard drive internally.
Both hard drives have OS X 10.9.4 installed
If anyone has any idea what's causing this and how to make his computer work with the new hard drive internally that would be greatly appreciated.

So after switching the internal SATA cables from each computer, now we have
His computer, with my SATA cable:
1) Worked with every hard drive!
My computer, with his SATA cable:
1) Works with 1 TB Toshiba hard drive
2) Works with 500 GB Seagate hard drive
3) Works with my original hard drive
4) Flashing folder with question mark with his old hard drive
So it turns out you were right! Definitely had something to do with the SATA cables. But it's still strange that mine was able to boot with all the hard drives except the one that was originally in his. So it seems like it was some combination of his SATA cable and something else, since when his SATA cable was in his computer only 1 hard drive (my original) worked, and when it was in my computer, 3 hard drives worked. But at least its working, and I'm just gonna keep our SATA cables switched since that seems to work out fine

Mac Book Pro 15" mid 2009 after installing new hard drive and 8 gb memory, start up disk is still full, start up from power off is very slow, and programs open immediately after start up EX. word, excel. Help?

I installed a new 1tb WD hardrive in my mid 2009 macbook pro along with upgrading from 4gb to 8 gb.
My start up disk is still almost full, booting up is extremely slow, and programs open up by themselves once booted up ex:word, excel.
New TB drive shows up alng with 8 GB but, new hard drive not updating somehere? What am I missing? See screenshots below

Thanks for the response, but I'm looking for answers to a few of the other answers before I look at completeing the steps above.
1. Whyis the new TB drive recognized in image 1 but still have the original 256GB size still recognized(and almost full) in image 1 also? The HD should now be 1 TB, not 256 correct? If this were the case, the HD, would only be fraction of full capacity, Where is the disconnect between reconizing the installed tb HD but, it not being used?
2.Image Number 2 shows once again that the new tb internal HD is recognized. However, in image 3, the HD 256GB drive is still shown underneath the new HD. Does this show that I am misssing something, some step, related to confirming the new HD should be fully reconized instaed of this old 256 that still remains?
3. In image 4, the SATA heading, shows the TB hardrive, However, in image 5, the 256GB drive is still being shown under the storage heading? Once again, seems like I've missed some simple step to make this all the same?
4.Why is the start up from boot up soooo slow now. I was never even close to this slow(slower than PC startup slow) before the new HD was installed. IS this common when updraging to a new HD? Doesn't seem right?
5. Why now all of a sudden when the computer finally boots up are certain programs automatically opening up, word, excel, when they have never opened up like this before?
Summary: 1. New memory issues, 2. Very slow start up, 3. Programs opening up automatically at startup.
Until I address these issues, I'm not going to worry about loking through and deleting heavy folders.
All responses welcomed!

Why won't my edited RAW images show after a LR re-install onto a new Hard Drive?

Hi there. Recently my hard drive took a (hike) and crashed - data may or may not be recoverable (Geeks are working on that), and I needed to reinstall my CS5 and Lightroom software to a new hard drive (I had to buy a new one). All of my RAW photos are stored on an external drive and were not harmed, thankfully. Here is my dilemma. Most of the presets I used also went crashing with that hard drive, (yes I believe they were backed up but also on that hard drive...stupid I know-trust me I know!!) but most of them were the free ones from the adobe recommended users on this site. I actually found many of my favorites still posted on the Adobe site and re-downloaded and installed the presets I'd been using the past year and a half, and imade sure those presets were housed properly in their folder via Preferences in Lightroom. Great. I can continue on with my work. WRONG! When I went to go import a recent shoot that I had already edited, it imported the RAW files but none of the previous edits I had worked on for these photos were showing up...it was as if I didn't even touch them and they came right from my camera. What in the world is going on? I'm baffled...and freaking out as I have thousands upon thousands of edited shoots in RAW, and I fear that none of the edits and enhancements made to those photos are going to be present and I'll have to start over. Please tell me that all of my last 2 years of editing photos are still with the RAW files?!!!
I found a deal on a an HP Intell Core i7 processor) 2 TB hard drive tower, so I ended up needing to install the 64 bit versions of CS5 and Lightroom 3.6.
I did test out the RAW (.NEF) file in Photoshop CS5 and my edited RAW image came up "correctly" - so I know that the information is still with the RAW image...I just need it to work and show in lightroom, as it is easier to export the files to the sizes I need them to be.
Please be kind in your replies...I appreciate any help/guidance I can get on this. Plus the photos I need are for Seniors graduating in a few months here so you can imagine the panic mode is just a bit higher than normal. Many thanks.

The default location for the backups created by Lightroom on exit is in the same folder as the catalog itself (i.e. that would be on the same faulty drive). It is, however, possible to redirect those backups to a different destination, such as a different hard drive.....but only you know if you did that or not. Do you have any other backups, e.g. drive level backups?
Just to be clear, if you are importing afresh into a new catalog from Raw files that do have XMP sidecar files, you should see the final edited state from the previous catalog, but you won't see the individual history steps that got you there (as that's one of the things that are not included when you write XMP data from within Lightroom). If there is no XMP sidecar, you'll just get the original OOC image.

I copied library to a new hard drive, now iphoto won't recognize files.

I am new to iPhoto, so be gentle. My daughter uses it a lot, and now I seem to have messed up her library. We are using iPhoto 4.0.3. OS 10.4.11
I installed a new hard drive. I copied the iTunes and iPhoto libraries to the new larger hard drive. I copied the iphoto library to a designated folder (not the default folder). My daughter has now moved the photos into their default location, and advised iPhoto of where to look - User/Daughter/Pictures/iPhoto library. When she opens iPhoto her photos don't appear. When she picks a photo and drops it into iPhoto, the message appears,
"could not be imported because an unrecognizable type or file may not contain valid data."
The files are jpegs that open fine in Photoshop, Preview etc.
I did some reading and saw reference to deleting the file com.apple.iphoto.plist. Tried that, no success.
I would appreciate your assistance. Like I say, I don't know iPhoto at all. As a second question, I have a G4 with a dual 1.8 processor, what version of iPhoto/iLife should I be looking to upgrade to?
Thanks for your help.

"could not be imported because an unrecognizable type or file may not contain valid data."
That is the standard error you get when you try to import a photo that already resides inside the iPhoto Library folder. It prevents duplication in your library.
It sounds like you followed the correct procedure, but let's double-check. iPhoto can be run from a location other than the default. When you moved the library, did you copy the whole iPhoto Library folder as one intact unit? How did your dtr point iPhoto to the library? The correct way is to hold down Option while launching, select "Choose (or Find) Library" then navigate to the iPhoto Library folder and Open. Is this what you/she did? If so, perhaps try again?
As a second question, I have a G4 with a dual 1.8 processor, what version of iPhoto/iLife should I be looking to upgrade to?
I am very happy with iLife '06 on my 1.4 GHz G4 mini with 1 GB RAM. You could get iLife '08 for iPhoto 7, but be aware that iMovie 7 won't load on your machine because it requires a G5 or Intel machine. I made the decision not to upgrade because I'm happy with my current performance, and I think that the video-intensive and RAM-hog iPhoto 7 would bog down my mini. You can still buy iLife '06 from Amazon.com. See the system requirements:
http://www.apple.com/ilife/systemrequirements.html
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306336
Regards.

I'm trying to install a new hard drive on my Touchsmart but the recovery disks won't boot.

The Touchsmart 300-1120 is only 1.5 years old and it's hard drive is already fried. I bought a new hard drive, ordered the recovery disks, and it still won't boot. I've changed the boot order to go from the CD drive first, but all it does is click and then give the same error message it gave when the fired hard drive was in. I checked the diagnostic, and it can see the new hard drive...it just won't boot.

Sometimes they do work - i've done it before. I have a late 2008 Macbook Uni and used the install dvd of my 2009 Macbook White and it worked.
Why not just clone your hard drive? It'll save you a lot of time doing a clone rather than doing a clean install.
Unless you're having issues with your old set up or your old hard drive is dead.
You can download Carbon Copy Cloner - install your new hard drive in a external usb enclosure (around $10) and clone fromt here then test it before you install it in your Macbook.
Once you've done the swap, you can install your old hard drive in the USB enclosure and use it as a backup drive.
Good luck

MacBook won't boot from new hard drive.

I'm trying to upgrade my hard drive, but my macbook will not boot to the new hard drive. I have erased and cloned the hard drive about three times now, using both Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper. It won't boot while it is in the macbook and it won't boot from an external hard drive case. All I get to is the screen with the mac logo and the spinning wheel. I have made sure the drive is GUID formatted, but it still doesn't work. When I put the new drive in an external case and plug it into the USB port of my macbook I can see and access everything on the drive. Can somebody please tell what I am doing wrong?
By the way the new hard drive is a 500gb western digital Scorpio blue drive.

I got a new hard drive recently 500gb seagate. I followed the directions on this page http://www.ehow.com/how2063795format-hard-drive-mac-os.html , Mine was a little more complicated since i had 2 partitions windows and mac on mine. Initially the process took a day and it started getting to the same thing as yours where it would get to the mac logo and not find the hard drive. I reformatted several times before i got to the point where i could boot up.Eventually I just figured out all the info was there the drive was formatted i could boot into windows 7 but not mac. So i put old hard drive back in the computer booted up with that. Attached new hard drive via usb in external case i was trying to put in the mac. I was able not to boot up but it would show the drives that have been formatted into the new drive and i simply copied my existing Disk by dragging it onto the new hard drive. Than turn off your mac keep your hard drive plugged in. Press and hold the option key in start up and you should see the 2 seperate hard drives and be able to boot into the new one. Was a long process for me took several complete deletes of the new hard drive and reformatting before it would work. once you get to the mac logo and spinning wheel its just saying mac cant find your boot up disk though. Sorry its confusing a bit any questions email me.

Satellite Pro 460 won't start with new hard drive in

I recently got a Satellite Pro 460 but it had no hard drive in.
It starts great with no drive in but as soon as I put a brand new hard drive in it won't start.
I thought that it might be to new a hard drive so I took my old working drive out my old Toshiba Satellite and still it won't start.
Any one got any ideas why this is and what can i do about it

It sounds like 80GB is too large for that model, I really doubt the BIOS and Chipset can support more than 8GB HDD. 8GB may not even work.
Here is some information regarding different HDD modes and limitations: http://www.adminxp.com/hardware/index.php?aid=129
504MB - limitation where the system is limited by the compatibility with the values of the BIOS system and the ATA interface by help of using the CHS mode. This limitation is valid for older computers 286/386/486. (1024 cyl 16 heads x 63sectors/track x 512 = 528,482,304bytes - 504 MB). In many cases special programs will help (Disk Ontrack Manager - Seagate, Disk Wizard - WD). Some operating systems can have problems with this software support and can have higher requirements on your knowledge of the OS and used programs.
2GB - Limitation of the maximal value of the FAT16 file system partition for DOS and Windows 9x. Some older computers cannot address more than 4095 cylinders (4,095 x 16 x 63x 512 - 2,113,413,120 bytes)
4GB Limitation of Windows NT - Partition with the FAT16 system cannot be higher than 4GB - Fdisk cannot be used for creating, but the Disk manager is used (Disk management in Windows 2000)
8GB - Limitation of the BIOS system. For the support of larger capacities you need extended functions of the BIOS system. Limitations valid for the x86 computers and some motherboards with Pentium and Pentium II processors. Some other operating systems must know how to use the extended BIOS functions (Extended Interrupt 13). We can use Windows NT 4.0 as an example where you need an updated disk driver or the Service Pack. (OS - DOS 6.xx and lower, Windows 3.x and lower and some other older OS do not have the support of the Ext. Int13).
8 GB - Limitation of the FDISK program in the DOS 6.22 OS.
?? GB - Possible problem with disks larger than 67GB under Windows 9x... See article WD800
32GB - (65535 x 16 x 63 x 512 - 33,822,351,360 bytes) other limitation of the BIOS system.
68GB - Possible problem with disks larger than 67GB under Windows 9x... See article WD800
137GB - Limit for the ATA specifications (28-bit addressing for particular sectors - 268435455 sectors - 137,438,952,960 bytes)
2,2 TBytes - 32-bit addressing used by new operating systems (in Windows 98 by help of the FAT32 file system).
144 PetaBytes - a limit for new ATA specification using 48-bit addressing, in peparation. Maxtor, Microsoft, VIA, Compaq and other companies under name Big Drives participate the development. The standard should be implemented and authorized by the ANSI NCITS T13 Technical Committee organization (www.t13.org) in the prepared ATA/ATAPI-6 standard (see www.maxtor.com/bigdrive)

New hard drive still won't be recognized!

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