13" inch Macbook Pro Harddrive compatibility problem (Western Digital, Seagate, Hitachi)

[zaynshirazi]

im having the same problem, can anyone help me. The disk utility only show the OS X lion CD and if you try installing the lion,it goes up to the point of selecting the hardisk where again i cant see the hardisk.I tried to put my orginial Fujitsu 250 GB hardisk 5400 RPM and a Segate 500GB hardisk 7200RPM...however, i installed LION on 250GB harddisk and connected to another macbook using the sata usb cable and that macbook picked OS X Lion. Please help me out here.thanks!

[kjeezy101]

Dude! I had a problem with my old hard drive. First things first it crashed I tried to do first aid on it and that didn't work it kept saying that Volume Bit Map can't be fixed and there was another one I can't really remember what it was but it just wouldn't fix it.. I couldn't erase it. I couldn't do anything so I just said forget it I'll get a newer, bigger hard drive and I installed it and now nothing comes up in disk utility, just the DVD drive. Please help.

[KingMacintosh]

1:05

Typical fucking WDC patriot. Every single WDC I've used has failed between 1 year for the laptop drives and 3 years abouts for the desktop drives. Every Seagate (5 or 6), the one Samsung I've used and the one Fujitsu I've used haven't failed me. Interesting experiences I've had.

I feel sorry about your problem however, that's fucking bullshit it would piss me off beyond belief and I have no money for more than another drive usually so I couldn't afford to go buying a couple drives LOL!

[iphonepunker]

with the amount of money u have spent on HDD u could have bought a SSD Try SSD iv never Had a problem with the my 256GB OCZ vertex 3 on my late 2008 Macbook pro 15" Super fast i have never seen that many HDD failures come from a Mac a DELL yes but never a Mac lol

[norcalsurfer]

@zeret Apple ended up replacing the unit with a newer one. Try resetting your PRAM, that may fix it, but who knows, mine repeatedly failed. My new 13" has been running strong for 9 months.



[iixliltonyx33]

@norcalsurfer how did you explain to them the problem to get them to replace it because i am experiencing the same problem but dont know how to tell them about it because they might say i messed something up upgrading and swapping hard drives

[tboikal]

Once question, all those HD you bought for the MAC, were they all 7200 rpm or 5400 rpm? Just so you know, 5400 rpm is recommended for the MAC book pro instead of 7200.

[jyraiaa]

I had the solution, for me this works.

I had a Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid 500GB 7200RPM

This crash every time, before i do the trick.

My MacBook 13" Pro Mid 2009, the trouble is related to sata2, because setting with jumper to 1,5Gb/s works ok.

You need reset PRAM and NVRAM, type the following keys together, before mac show the apple (the gray screen).

Turn on your computer and:

Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.

[choimai562]

i am having the same problem.. i have had an hatachi 500gb 7200 rpm install for about a year.. i thought that it had failed me but no.. no new harddrive will work internal but if i use it as an external, it work perfectly and will boot.. i wont be able to detect the disc under disc utilities either.. i am pulling my hair out big time.. no more apple care and i cant find help anywhere

[AndreaCurrieCrafts]

@choimai562 Try to reset the PRAM, that worked for me. What year is your comp? 13"?

[choimai562]

@AndreaCurrieCrafts My MacBook 13" Pro Mid 2009.. I tried resetting that PRAM and still the the same.. I think its the cable for some reason and not the harddrive

[norcalsurfer]

@choimai562 Did you find the problem? I suspect it is the logic board and cabling on the mid 2009s. Apple gave me a brand new machine and it runs great! Very happy with the service!

[jyraiaa]

@choimai562 Reset the PRAM and NVRAM, make that i said

[ad5665]

i have a new 2010 2.4 macbook pro 13", i installed a 500gbs WD scropio blue and it goes really slow. like when i right click some times it takes a few seconds for it to load. but it allways starts with out fail

[norcalsurfer]

@ad5665 Sounds like a drive issue, try a different drive or - I hate to say it "Verify permissions" - though I've found the WD Blue drives to be nothing but reliable, excellent drives.

[jyraiaa]

@ad5665 Reset the Pram, this would resolve the issue

[jyraiaa]

@ad5665 reset the pram this would resolve the issue

[robertouy]

This "JUST" happened to me. I bought my MBP in June 2009 and installed a 320gb 7200rpm Fijitsu HD (I did the install) and been working finde since then. But some days ago same thing happened to me, I was working, went to another room, and went back, and the computer screen had some glitches and wasn't responsible, so I did a hard restart, and the folder with question mark appears on the screen. Tested 4 different hard drives, doing lots of things, even disconnecting the battery, and no luck :-S

[norcalsurfer]

@robertouy Try to reset the PRAM

[jack390]

OMG!!! you should have just bought it from apple!

[norcalsurfer]

@jack390 uhh, yeah, in retrospect, you are correct, but it's just stupid that you can't easily upgrade these things. The 13" UMPB has issues .. that is for sure. Other than that, pretty awesome little machine for around town.

[jack390]

@norcalsurfer yeah apple likes to make their products exclusive as in all the stuff they use would be hard to get. i got the old macbook long back and the guy i bought it from told me hell give me a free 1 gig ubgrade and i said fine. turns out the you can only use even number rams n the apple ppl said they wont fix it :(

[gentuxable]

It's strange that Apple doesn't support 3rd Party drives, because Apple describes how to replace the drive in their manual.

My new 15 inch MBP with Core i5 works fine with a Hitachi Travelstar 7k500, but I think the bug you have is somewhere between EFI and the NVidia Chipset IMHO.

[norcalsurfer]

@gentuxable They replaced the logicboard, DVD drive and ribbon cables and I haven't had an issue since, though I do get the spinny wheel of death a lot compared to my old 15" MBP. It seems somewhat stable now. I'll update if it fails again as users have experienced at x number of cycles on 3rd party HDD's - random huh?

[kwikfilmsTV]

wow those are a lot of hard drives. i'm looking to upgrade my internal hard drive on my macbook unibody late 2008... the 1TB western digital looks tempting but i think it might be slow being that it's 5400 for final cut work... what would you recommend?

[kwikfilmsTV]

wow those are a lot of hard drives. i'm looking to upgrade my internal hard drive on my macbook unibody late 2008... the 1TB western digital looks tempting but i think it might be slow being that it's 5400 for final cut work... what would you recommend?

[DarkenedSol666]

Are you selling any of your spare drives? :P

[norcalsurfer]

not at the moment. - they're small capacity- don't think you would want them.

[elchicoboy]

You could boot windows in the macbook pro, then download a software that gives you all the resources from the computer and you can check all the hard drive specifications so next time you buy a hard drive, you'll have the same specifications of course with more memory... but with the same rpm's if that's the case, etc.

[norcalsurfer]

Just an update.. the Macbook Pro is back from the apple repair center, they replaced the logicboard, the HDD and the DVD drive. I installed my larger 640GB WD drive and it's been working for an hour now. I'll install the larger memory later this week after I'm sure everything is solid. Thanks for the help!!

[mojochopper]

Glad to hear that they did some work on your computer. Sounds like you are going to be ok.

Out of curiosity, would you mind checking AppleMenu|About This Mac|More Info|Serial-ATA and note what is listed as the speed?

[norcalsurfer]

It came back with Firmware 1.7.. which I feared, but it's working. Strange huh?

[mojochopper]

Strange indeed. Maybe apple worked out a hardware solution to this issue. Did it take much effort to convince the apple store to look at your computer?

[norcalsurfer]

I just told them the stock config (mem and HDD) still was having trouble booting, only booted 70% of the time. Then I showed them the six drives that didn't work in the machine. While they said they don't support 3rd party drives, it was obvious there was a bigger issue at hand than just drive incompatibility. I lucked out, the guy that helped me was willing to listen, not usually my experience at Apple.

[kc243243]

should i get the mac book pro 13 now or are they gonna come out with new ones?

[xXgiigXx]

no, wait at least a week , my friend works at the apple store and says the new ones might go on sale tuesday

[norcalsurfer]

I would wait, this is a really annoying problem to have. Actually do us a favor, go tell them you won't buy one until they help fix the current issue. Being stuck at 160GB SUCKS!

[mojochopper]

Sounds like your issue is Apple's firmware update EFI 1.7. The fix is to get it rolled back to EFI 1.6. The apple store should know how to do this for you.

[mojochopper]

Apple issued this update to change SATA speed from 1.5 to 3.0 GBit. It ended up breaking com . patibility with a number of 3rd party hard drives.. Apple's stance is that they don't support 3rd party components and so far has not issued a fix. It's not clear whether this is a hardware or software issue.

[mojochopper]

There's a ginormous thread about this topic on apple's discussion board. (go to apple site, click support, the community, search for "EFI 1.7 Hard Drive") to find the thread. I tried putting the link in a response but YouTube doesn't won't save the message with a link. For what it is worth, I was lucky to find out about this in time to refuse this update and am using the 7200 seagate drive successfully for 5 months. I think EFI 1.7 comes preinstalled now, so no choice.

[norcalsurfer]

I finally took the machine to the genius bar having run the machine through every possible scenario to fix it. I asked if I could purchase a larger drive from apple but they won't do it and instead sent it in to the factory for testing of the logicboard.

I'll keep you posted.. I'm NOT going to accept that I'm stuck with 160GB HDD.