Macbook internal HD not to be found...

Y

yogaboy

Registered
Hi,

I've a Macbook that was running Tiger. The other day it froze, and on restart it couldn't find the startup disk. Tried to run Disk Utility but it didn't even see the disk. I tried the disk in a cradle on another computer but it wouldn't work.

So, I reasoned it was a fault with the drive. Bought a new Hitachi drive. Put it in the Macbook. Started the install but exactly the same problem - the disk is not to be seen, not by the installer, not by Disk Utility, not in System Profiler.

I ran the Apple Hardware Test and chose the extended one with looping. Ran it for hours. It says that it can't find a problem.

Am I doing something wrong? Any input on this is much appreciated.

Iain
 
djackmac said:
Try the new drive in the "cradle" on the other computer and see if it shows up, then post back.
Click to expand...

Thanks for looking at this.

I put the new disk in the cradle and plugged it into a linux machine. The device is listed as /dev/sda, and fdisk can see it, but there's nothing on it, obviously.

While I was there, I used gparted to add a GPT and format the disk with HFS+. I then put it back in the macbook. Boot from cd, and still can't see the disk in Disk Utility or Startup Disk.

I ran 'disktool -r' and then 'disktool -l' and it produced this, which I can't read:

***Disk Appeared ('disk0', Mountpoint = '', fsType = '', volName = '')
***Disk Appeared ('disk0s1', Mountpoint = '', fsType = '', volName = '')
***Disk Appeared ('disk0s2', Mountpoint = '', fsType = '', volName = '')
***Disk Appeared ('disk0s3', Mountpoint = '', fsType = '', volName = '')
***Disk Appeared ('disk1', Mountpoint = '/Volumes', fsType = 'ufs', volName = 'untitled')
***Disk Appeared ('disk2', Mountpoint = '/private/var/tmp', fsType = 'ufs', volName = 'untitled')
***Disk Appeared ('disk3', Mountpoint = '/private/var/run', fsType = 'ufs', volName = 'untitled')

I also looked in /dev for anything that looked like a hard disk, but didn't see anything obvious like an hda or sda, but I don't really know what I'm looking at.
 
I was just looking in System Profiler, and under Serial-ATA it has listed "Intel ICH7-M AHCI". I looked this up and found this link:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080215072351407
If you want to use some of the new 2.5" SATA hard disks in your MacBook (or Mac mini for that matter), you'll notice that they do not show up in Disk Utility, and that you cannot even format them. They will work externally as a USB device, but will not show up when used internally. That's because the newer drives are SATA II (or SATA 2) and their higher "transfer rates" are not compatible with the Intel ICH7-M AHCI (which only support up to 1.5 GHz) used in the MacBook and Mac mini.

To be able to use your new 250GB or even 320GB drive, you have to put a jumper on the two leftmost pins (when viewed from the front, meaning the other connector pins are on the right hand side). This worked for me on a Samsung 250GB drive, as well as a Toshiba MK3252GSX 320GB drive.
Click to expand...

I didn't see any jumpers on the disk, but I'll have a look again. Perhaps there is some firmware I can update with?
 
If I'm not mistaken all macbooks are serial ATA II. There are no jumpers on a 2.5" SATA HD. I've only seen jumpers on the 3.5" drives. Is there any tension when inserting the drive into the drive bay on the macbook? There are only rubber guides to guide the drive to the SATA connection which can come loose and bunch up in the bay to where the drive won't seat properly to the SATA connector.
 
Well, I found out that not all SATA2 drives will fall back to SATA1. Some do, some don't, but you have to force the Hitachi T7K320. I emailed Hitachi customer support and got back this reply, which has some useful links.

Thanks for all the help, I really appreciate it.

thank you for contacting our Hitachi Technical Support Center.
You can switch with the Hitachi "Feature Tool" a SATA II drive to SATA I.

You can download the Hitachi "Feature Tool" from the following Website:

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

You can find the Feature Tool User's Guide on the following Website:

http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/downloads/FTool_User_Guide_207.pdf

Please note that the drive has to be connected to a motherboard that
supports SATA II to apply these changes. Only afterwards the drive will
work with a SATA I motherboard. The Feature Tool is designed to run on
Windows compatible PCs, but unfortunately not on Apple products. Maybe you
can ask your reseller to help you with this or somebody with a PC.
Click to expand...
 
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