Macbook & 1TB HD

**killerinc** · June 27th, 2012, 10:52 AM

Hello i am working on a Macbook A1181 13" White Laptop.

I tried two of the exact same drives and still i cant get a 1 tb Western Digital 9.5mm drives brand new drives to install the original OS X Disks. Held down C and tried to install OS X on it and no drive showed up then ran Disk Utility and it showed as a 7.3 Tb drive. Tried to Erase got the Disk Erase Failed ... Input/Output Error. Then tried to partition and got the same error.

I am a repair tech and have done this many times but cant figure this one out.

500 gb is the biggest drive i can get to work properly but the drive is full and needs a bigger drive.

Has anyone figured this out cuz it cant be 2 bad drives and it seems like a drive limit issue. Read somewhere else that someone has the same issue but with a 640 GB Drive that reads as a 5.5 Tb.
Is 500gb the biggest that will work?
Thanks.

**DeltaMac** · June 27th, 2012, 11:57 AM

Try replacing the internal drive cable.

There's essentially no limitation on drive capacity.
The number listed by Apple http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2422
"just under 8 Exabytes", and also expressed as 9,223,372,034,707,292,160 bytes.
fyi - that would be 73,786,976,277,658,337,280 bits!

**killerinc** · June 27th, 2012, 02:09 PM

Yeah thats what is baffling cuz it should be fine. One thing though is that if i put back the 500gb or put in a brand new 500gb it works fine. Why anything over 500 gb wont work is a mystery.

**djackmac** · June 30th, 2012, 11:18 AM

I've seen the same issue a few times recently with those old 10.4.x OEM Intel installers and newer drives. Use a retail 10.5.x or 10.6.x installer and everything will work fine. Maybe something with the firmware on these newer drives that don't mesh with the installers code.

**killerinc** · June 30th, 2012, 03:05 PM

Thx i will try that DJ.
Update.... I purchased a new 500gb which what was in there and it read during the installation 3.3tb . So i think it might be an issue with the controller on the motherboard. It's reads the all the drives but at a higher capacity. But still cant install OS X

**djackmac** · June 30th, 2012, 05:38 PM

Originally Posted by killerinc

Thx i will try that DJ.
Update.... I purchased a new 500gb which what was in there and it read during the installation 3.3tb . So i think it might be an issue with the controller on the motherboard. It's reads the all the drives but at a higher capacity. But still cant install OS X

What part of use a retail 10.5.x or 10.6.x installer do you not understand? That's all it takes. There is no "issue" besides those installers don't work with the newer firmware on these drives.

**killerinc** · June 30th, 2012, 05:59 PM

I know, i was going to try it when i get home, but when i told you about the 500gb update that was something i did before i read your post.
On a side note the original 500gb has bad blocks and wont boot and Lost data. Can u recommend any programs that can help recover the data.
I have used in the past DiskWarrior, but it's not helping in this case.

**DeltaMac** · June 30th, 2012, 06:37 PM

Disk Drill looks to be a good recovery product.
or
Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery
or
Prosoft Data Rescue 3

If you don't have any great success with software, then there's always a commercial data recovery service, such as DriveSavers
Be prepared with a large chunk of money for that...