Attempting to upgrade my hard drive

JBird · Oct 26, 2011

Hi I've tried to upgrade my Macbook Pro's internal hard drive which is 160GB (Hitachi) to 750GB (Western Digital). I'm having issues cloning the existing drive as I've tried using Super Duper and Carbon Copy Cloner.
Both appear to work perfectly and allow me to boot using an Iomax USB 2.0 adapter (to see if it works). However once I replace the hard drive it will not work at all and the question mark folder appears.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Bob_Stan · Oct 26, 2011

Are you sure you are reconnecting the Sata Connector properly. OWc has some pretty good free videos on replacing a hard drive. I would suspect it must be something with the connector as that is the only difference with your drive in the two scenarios.

JBird · Oct 26, 2011

Hi I've tried that and the old hard drive works fine every time I reconnect it. Do you think I should take it into an Apple Shop to see what they think?

Bob_Stan · Oct 26, 2011

Maybe someone with more knowledge could chime in.

shanlon · Oct 26, 2011

JBird said:
Hi I've tried to upgrade my Macbook Pro's internal hard drive which is 160GB (Hitachi) to 750GB (Western Digital). I'm having issues cloning the existing drive as I've tried using Super Duper and Carbon Copy Cloner.
Both appear to work perfectly and allow me to boot using an Iomax USB 2.0 adapter (to see if it works). However once I replace the hard drive it will not work at all and the question mark folder appears.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong so any help would be greatly appreciated.

So it boots fine from the USB adapter.. when you put the new drive in the laptop, what comes up when you hold option? Does it show the drive?

JBird · Oct 26, 2011

I've restarted the laptop with the new hard drive connected via the adapter and holding option I have a choice of the two and it runs fine.
With the new hard drive inside I only get the Question Mark Folder.
With the older hard drive inside it boots up fine.

SFBloodBrother · Oct 26, 2011

I would just get an extournal HDD.

shanlon · Oct 27, 2011

JBird said:
I've restarted the laptop with the new hard drive connected via the adapter and holding option I have a choice of the two and it runs fine.
With the new hard drive inside I only get the Question Mark Folder.
With the older hard drive inside it boots up fine.

This is strange. Logic tells me that if you can boot it off of USB then the drive is bootable. However maybe that specific drive is not compatible internally? What is the exact make/model of the drive and your laptop?

JBird · Oct 27, 2011

I know it's not making it easy sorry about that. The hard drive is:
Western Digital WD7500BPVT Scorpio Blue / 750GB / 2.5 inch Internal SATA Hard Drive
And the Computer is:
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009) 13.3"/2.53/2X1GB/160-5400.

Bob_Stan · Oct 27, 2011

This is a real shot in the dark. Is there a jumper on the back of the drive? If there is, see if there is a setting for SATA1, and jumper it that way. If it is already set that way, try removing it. I noticed on a google search that 1n 2009 there was a bunch of issues with Western Digital Scorpio drives, but that is old history by now.

harryb2448 · Oct 27, 2011

Whenever you change the drive in a laptop, make sure you also get new SATA cables as the heat does make them brittle and liable to fracture.

JBird · Nov 8, 2011

I thought that might be the case except that the original drive works fine when I put it back in. I've looked around and can't seem to find anything about incompatibility issues between the two.

JBird · Nov 8, 2011

Bob_Stan said:
This is a real shot in the dark. Is there a jumper on the back of the drive? If there is, see if there is a setting for SATA1, and jumper it that way. If it is already set that way, try removing it. I noticed on a google search that 1n 2009 there was a bunch of issues with Western Digital Scorpio drives, but that is old history by now.

Hi there's nothing like that. This is the model
Western Digital WD7500BPVT Scorpio Blue / 750GB / 2.5 inch Internal SATA Hard Drive

Can't see why it won't work.