What could be wrong with my new Hard Drive?

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I have two 2008 MacBooks and my first one I upgraded my tiny 160gb hard drive to a 750gb Western Digital Scorpio Blue 5400 rpm SATA drive. EASY! No problems, and new drive works great.

Now, the second MacBook I bought had a 250gb hard drive and I bought a 500gb Western Digital Scorpio Blue 7200 rpm SATA drive. I did the exact same process as before by cloning my hard drive with Super Duper and I tested the new cloned hard drive by booting my MacBook up and holding down the "option" button to boot from the usb connected cloned hard drive. It booted up a bit slow, but fine. Everything was on there and working. Then I took the old 250gb hard drive out and put the new 500gb hard drive into the MacBook. Turned on the MacBook and got a blank screen, then a file folder with a question mark in it. I had now idea what was wrong. Then I switched back to the 250gb hd, rebooted the Mac, and works great.

So after this, I recloned the drive with Super Duper again. Tested it again and it booted. Then switched the two drives in and out of the MacBook again. SAME THING! I get a folder with a question mark.

Can anyone tell me what may be wrong? Please?
 

chscag

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How about having a bit more patience? This time of day folks are getting off work and perhaps in transit and have not had time to digest your thread.

Anyway, here's my thought on this.... the SATA connector on the 500 GB drive may not be lining up correctly when you insert the drive in the cavity. Check to make sure the rubber insulator guides are in place on the new drive. They may have come off when you removed the old drive and are still stuck to the old drive. By the way, this is a common problem with the older MacBooks.
 
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The little rubber side guides are still in their place. The new hd is the same exact physical size. Same brand even (WD Scorpio Blue). It plugs into the SATA connector just fine. I guess maybe it's to old to run a 7200rpm? I am really stumped here.
 
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Could you do the same thing with Carbon copy clone (free software for LION osx), and use the 500gb HD, so how it works. I have use CCC no problem, at this point you get to try everything.
If all else fail, try using 750gb in the second macbook you have problem with, another words make use of 750 GB hd, you know this hd works on first macbook and see what happens on second macbook.
With this you got to try every option, with apple product that everything will be fine at the end, if it is not fine then not at the end yet.
 

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