Drive not recognized for clean install of OS

[boscoe99]

Trying to reinstall clean OS but drive not showing up? Tried a new HD and same thing. MBP 2009. Just wouldn't boot the other day. Is there something which keeps the drive from being recognized? thx

 

[harryb2448]

Got an external caddy and access to another Mac? Pop the drive in that and see what happens. May be SATA cable, or alas, the motherboard. Hekps if you share with us computer and operating system details as don't know if trying install from a DVD, thumb drive or Recovery.

 

[boscoe99]

2009 Macbook Pro was running Yosemite

thanks, I do not have an enclosure or external sata cable...but I could order online. It was running Yosemite on a macbook pro 2009 13" model.

 

[boscoe99]

Trying to install from disk

Yes I was trying to install a clean copy from my original disk and then to restore from backup external hard drive but was unable to see any harddrive in disk utilities? thanks

 

[harryb2448]

Referring to a 'disk' ~ are you installing Snow Leopard OS X.6 or later from a LionDiskMaker DVD or thumb drive etc?

 

[boscoe99]

snow leopard

Yes sir, the only disk I have are snow leopard. *New development* I was confirming the type of sata cable I had and I removed the old hard drive for the 3rd time and gave the cable a once over, confirmed its type then put everything back in its place...and upon hitting the power button for the first time in over 10 days I saw the Apple logo instead of the folder/? combo? Not sure what happened at all? So I am backing it up once again and wanted to know what you would suggest please? Thumb drive bootable, new updated SSD type of hard drive or what? Thanks so much for your time, patience and assistance. Brett

 

[harryb2448]

Pop in your OS X.6 DVD and reboot and hold down 'C' after the chime and see if you can boot from the disk. If any joy leave Installer and go to Utilities in the Menu Bar, then Disk Utility > Repair Disk and see what is reported.

nd I am not a 'sir' yet ~ still waiting for that knighthood. Harry is fine.

 

[boscoe99]

Got to the disk utility and the only drives showing up are the external HD and the DVDRW? no laptop HDD? bummer...next best option? Sorry about the sir, was raised in Texas and just a sign of respect..Brett

 

[boscoe99]

well unfortunately we are back to the folder& ? combo again??? **** and it was actually back to working with everything like normal...I am at a loss. How did the install disk kill the working hard drive? or was it just a mirage?

 

[MacInWin]

It's beginning to look like either a cable (for the drives) or the motherboard (disk controller) have gone south. You may be in for some repair work. If you want to try it yourself (and you mentioned you've had the cable out already) you can try a new cable first. The one kind of hopeful sign is the intermittent working, which kind of points to a broken cable (internally).

 

[boscoe99]

thank you Jake, where would I start to locate a sata cable suitable for a macbook pro? anything would help out. thanks

 

[chscag]

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