2007 MacBook won't recognize new hard drive

I did all the research to find a replacement hard drive for my 2007 white MacBook, but it is not recognizing it in the Disk Utility, System Profiler, or Startup Disk.

MacBook model = MB061LL/A

Hard drive purchased = Newegg.com - SAMSUNG Spinpoint M8 HN-M160MBB 160GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive

Did I purchase the wrong hard drive? If so, what is the right one?

evelovelee said:

I did all the research to find a replacement hard drive for my 2007 white MacBook, but it is not recognizing it in the Disk Utility, System Profiler, or Startup Disk.

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Did your research include Other World Computing (OWC...Macsales.com)? IMHO probably one of the best places to purchase upgrades (hard drives & ram) for Macintosh computers on the internet.

evelovelee said:

Did I purchase the wrong hard drive? If so, what is the right one?

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Did you format the hard drive first after installing it...so that your Macintosh can read it?

- Nick

I can't remember - I looked a lot of places.

I would love to be able to format the hard drive - but it's not showing up anywhere so I can't! If you can let me know how to find it that would be great - currently I'm booting up from OSX installed onto an external drive. I also have a Carbon Copy Clone of my previous drive that I was hoping to restore from, but, again, can't see the drive...

evelovelee said:

I would love to be able to format the hard drive - but it's not showing up anywhere so I can't! If you can let me know how to find it that would be great - currently I'm booting up from OSX installed onto an external drive. I also have a Carbon Copy Clone of my previous drive that I was hoping to restore from, but, again, can't see the drive...

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Have you opened 'Disk Utility" (in the Utilities Folder)?

- Nick

Yes - Disk Utility only shows the external drive and the combo drive.

It's not showing in the System Profiler either.

When I put my old hard drive back in it works perfectly, BTW - so I didn't actually screw things up in installation!

Send the Samsung back to NewEgg and get a refund. If your old hard drive still works, then all the connectors and SATA cable must be good. And if you correctly installed the Samsung. It might have been dead on arrival.

Ugh - not the news I was hoping for - but at least I didn't destroy my pooter!

Thanks!