New internal hdd problems

[mithril]

I just purchased a new Samsung HM640JI hard drive to replace my old 250gb fujitsu hd.
The problem is, if I put the new samsung hdd inside and try to do a clean install of snow leopard, the setup always hangs at "extracting essentials" and I have to keep the shutdown button pressed to close my laptop.
I thought I have a ram problem or that my dvd is busted but that's not the case because I inserted the samsung hdd in an enclosure, connected it via usb and the install went just fine.
After the setup was over I rebooted a couple of times (still in usb enclosure) and everything was fine but after I inserted it in my mac everything went to ****: excruciating slow boot and runtime. I repeated the process twice to be sure.

If anyone can help me I would really appreciate it!

Macbook model: 15" MBP 2.53 Intel Core 2 Duo 9400m Mac OS X (10.6.2)

 

[dtravis7]

What is the exact model of the new Samsung? Is it for sure HM640JI? I am wondering if since it's probably a SATA II drive, there is an issue between the drive and the SATA controller in the Macbook Pro.

Exactly which MBP do you own? There was an issue like I mentioned above with some SATA 2 drives and the SATA controller in certain MBP's so need to know your exact model Macbook Pro.

It might be a simple as a jumper on the Samsung if it's what I think it is going on.

Edit: found this.

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/faqView.do?b2b_bbs_msg_id=126

They use a patch instead of a jumper if that is your issue.

 

[mithril]

I got the model wrong, it's HM641JI: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/productmodel.do?type=94&subtype=99&model_cd=514

My macbook:
Hardware Overview:

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,4
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.53 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP53.00AC.B03
SMC Version (system): 1.49f2

15" MBP 2.53 Intel Core 2 Duo 9400m Mac OS X (10.6.2)

----
the controller:
NVidia MCP79 AHCI:

Vendor: NVidia
Product: MCP79 AHCI
Speed: 3 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.20 Supported

FUJITSU MJA2250BH FFS G1:

Capacity: 250.06 GB (250,059,350,016 bytes)
Model: FUJITSU MJA2250BH FFS G1
Revision: 00810020
Serial Number: K94DT992CK9M
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
Macintosh HD:
Capacity: 249.72 GB (249,715,376,128 bytes)
Available: 12.69 GB (12,692,725,760 bytes)
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2
Mount Point: /

 

[tjk]

Same kind of problem here.

Hi,

i have also problems with my new Samsung HM500JI (SATA 3,0 Gbps) hdd. It works fine with external usb2-enclosure, but when i took backup with time machine in a third hdd and tried to restore my os to the new hdd, i got an error. It was something like "restore couldn't complete", nothing specific. I tried it 2-3 times and also tried to install OS X 10.5 from the original install DVD on the blank hdd. It also failed, it gave some errors, actually started after that, but couldn't restore again from my time machine backup.

So either the hdd is broken (i did disk utilitys verify and repairing, no errors) or the sata-speed is too high (or whatever). The patch is only .bat / .exe, for making bootable cd/fdd (floppy) so do you think it will work on mac? I don't know how the **** i can run .bat-file after restarting my mac...

I use MacBook 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, with 2 GB DDR3 memory. I have the first and cheapest model of the aluminium MacBook.

And yeah, did you get it working now with patch/jumper/some trick?

-ex-windows user

 

[mithril]

The culprit was the boot rom version 1.7
I had to downgrade my EFI from 1.7 to 1.6, now everything is working fine.

 

[harryb2448]

Well it has been reported for some time that not all SATA II drives are in fact backwards compatible with SATA drives despite the various marketing hype that surrounded the release of the faster drives. Check out the Samsung web site and see if you can use jumpers to throttle the drive back to SATA speed 1.5GB/s.

 

[dtravis7]

The culprit was the boot rom version 1.7
I had to downgrade my EFI from 1.7 to 1.6, now everything is working fine.

Ah, now I remember an Anandtech article on this very issue. Thanks for the heads up. What Harry suggested would work also but I like the Firmware update better as long as the issue is fixed.