MacBook HardDrive installation issue

Hello,

This is my first time posting and i'm hoping someone might be able to help. I'm new to MAC. My sister gave me her Macbook which she had for a couple of years now. SHe told me she knew the HD would die out and last week it did. Went to boot up and I got the folder with the ? on it. Went out and bought a new Toshiba 2.5 Sata HD. went online and saw how the installation would work. Removed battery, then removed old HD installed new HD and powered everything up with the MAC OS X disk. Problem is when I go to load the software into the drive i want there is no Drive available. I think it's not seeing the HD for some reason? Is there something I was suppose to do? Is there another utility disk I may need to run?

You need to partition the drive before you can install Mac OS X. This can be done from the installation actually. Just go to the top menu, select utilities and start up disk utility. From there you can partition the drive.

Ok let me give that a shot again tonight. I thought I tried doing that and it just won't see or find my Hard Drive at all. It only recognized the only drive it saw which was the CD Drive.

Ok tried to reformat disk and it does NOT see the hard drive at all. Even tried to put in the old HD which I know is bad and run disk utlities and still doesn't see the drive. Could there be an issue where the drive isn't getting powered up?

visigoth4 said:

Ok tried to reformat disk and it does NOT see the hard drive at all. Even tried to put in the old HD which I know is bad and run disk utlities and still doesn't see the drive. Could there be an issue where the drive isn't getting powered up?

Click to expand...

If Disk Utility can not see the new hard drive or the old one when you're booted up from the DVD, then the drive is not installed right. Make sure the rubber insulated spacers (two) that are on the inside of the hard drive slot are in place and have not fallen loose. Sometimes that will happen and they block the drive from making contact with the internal connector.

Regards.

I know one of them was completely mangaled and I basically removed it..i don't think the other one was loose but i'll take a look. DO they really need to be in there or can they just be removed?

visigoth4 said:

I know one of them was completely mangaled and I basically removed it..i don't think the other one was loose but i'll take a look. DO they really need to be in there or can they just be removed?

Click to expand...

The rubber spacers on the sides of the inside slot are there to provide a firm fit for the drive and also give it some shock support. Removing them does not prevent the drive from working but it might cause the drive not to fit firmly in the slot. Try to get them back in place if you can.

Regards.