Dr Scrubbington
Level 1 (8 points)
Desktops

Q: iBook Clamshell not detecting new internal hard drive

I have an iBook Clamshell (M2453, 300MHz) and I just replaced the old 6GB hard drive with a new 60GB hard drive. The new disk is a regular 2.5" IDE/PATA drive. I do not know the brand or rpm of the drive, as the seller provides varied brands/rpm's and I did not check before installing it. I'm guessing it's either Hitachi, Seagate, Fujitsu, etc, either 5400 or 7200rpm. I don't think that should matter though, because the drive did come in clean condition and was formatted. The problem is that when I try to install OS X 10.3 on the new hard drive, it is not detected at all. It does not show up on the "Select Destination" screen, Startup Disk, nor the Disk Utility. The Disk Utility only shows the OS X install CD, nothing else. I can confirm it's not the CD's fault, as I have used it plenty of times in the past to install OS 10.3 on other Macs. I have tried resetting the NVRAM, PRAM, I even tried pressing the PMU button under the screen, but nothing worked. However, the old hard drive with OS 9.2 functioned perfectly, and I made sure to connect everything securely when I replaced the drive, so does this mean the new one is just defective, or is there another option to try fixing it? I wouldn't like to take apart the laptop again, but if I have no choice I'll do what I must. Thanks in advance.

iBook, Mac OS X (10.3.x), M2453, Tangerine 300MHz

Posted on Aug 23, 2016 3:10 PM

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Q: iBook Clamshell not detecting new internal hard drive

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  • by Jan Hedlund,

    Jan Hedlund Jan Hedlund Aug 24, 2016 2:58 AM in response to Dr Scrubbington
    Level 6 (9,864 points)
    Aug 24, 2016 2:58 AM in response to Dr Scrubbington

    If Disk Utility is not able to detect the hard drive, it could indicate a problem with the drive, the hard drive cable or the control circuits in the computer. Disk Utility should at least see the drive as such, even if a volume is not shown.

     

    To begin with, if you have access to an appropriate Mac OS (9.x) system disc, you may want to test the Drive Setup utility instead (merely in order to further investigate whether the hard drive can be detected at all). Also, the disk utility on a PowerPC version (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCFAQ) of a suitable Ubuntu CD could possibly be used for similar drive information search and test operations on your computer.

  • by Dr Scrubbington,

    Dr Scrubbington Dr Scrubbington Aug 24, 2016 5:46 AM in response to Jan Hedlund
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 24, 2016 5:46 AM in response to Jan Hedlund

    Thanks for the reply, however unfortunately I do not own a Mac OS 9 install disc, and correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think there's a way to install from a USB. I think I'll open this laptop up again and check to make sure everything really is secured properly, if that's not the problem then I think it's just a bad drive. It happens sometimes. I'll ask the seller to see if I can get a replacement, I've bought drives from them before that have worked fine.

  • by K Shaffer,

    K Shaffer K Shaffer Aug 24, 2016 4:01 PM in response to Dr Scrubbington
    Level 6 (14,204 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 24, 2016 4:01 PM in response to Dr Scrubbington

    Some older Macs needed to have smaller partitions created on the hard drive,

    for the drive to be detected and used; so you may have to use a suitable disk

    utility to make a small partition for the boot system first. Reference for this had

    been in online in several older archives. Not sure if everymac.com tells details.

     

    The hard drive may be defective, if you have a good working relationship with

    the supplier of replacement parts, they could swap it & later test that drive.

     

    {There are limits, with what vintage USB could be used; or with what purpose.

    Some items were not satisfactory; had heard the old MacOS9.1+ supported

    USB1.1 but did not try it with a bootable system on flash media. Usually had

    externally enclosed FireWire hard drives, with their own power supply. Those

    usually have need for an oxford-type chip for booting Macs.}

     

    Good luck!

  • by Jan Hedlund,

    Jan Hedlund Jan Hedlund Aug 25, 2016 4:24 AM in response to Dr Scrubbington
    Level 6 (9,864 points)
    Aug 25, 2016 4:24 AM in response to Dr Scrubbington

    >I don't think there's a way to install from a USB

     

    In addition to the comments made by K Shaffer, the web page http://ibook-clamshell.com/index.php/en/hardware/330-booting-from-a-usb-drive could perhaps be of interest to you.

     

    If you want to carry out further tests before the time-consuming opening of the iBook, Ubuntu live CDs for PowerPC are available for free download as .iso files (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto). Providing that the iBook has more than 256 MB of RAM, an older version (such as 6.06 or 6.10) ought to be OK. Nothing has to be installed; one can run programs/utilities from the CD. However, it cannot be ruled out that the result would be the same as with Disk Utility under Mac OS X (that is, that there is a hardware issue).

  • by Dr Scrubbington,

    Dr Scrubbington Dr Scrubbington Aug 25, 2016 5:39 AM in response to Jan Hedlund
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 25, 2016 5:39 AM in response to Jan Hedlund

    Thanks for the reply Jan, I'll definitely look into it.

  • by Dr Scrubbington,

    Dr Scrubbington Dr Scrubbington Aug 26, 2016 1:18 PM in response to Dr Scrubbington
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 26, 2016 1:18 PM in response to Dr Scrubbington

    Alright, I've opened up the laptop again today, and after checking everything around the hard drive, I saw zero damage. My conclusion is that it was simply a defective drive. I contacted the seller of the drives and he said it would be fine to get a replacement, so I'm going to have to wait at least a week before I can put the laptop back together and get a new drive in. If I have any more problems afterward I'll come back to this post, but for now, I thank you for all the suggestions anyways.

  • by Dr Scrubbington,

    Dr Scrubbington Dr Scrubbington Aug 31, 2016 12:32 PM in response to Dr Scrubbington
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 31, 2016 12:32 PM in response to Dr Scrubbington

    I've received my new drive today and put it in... and it works perfectly. Guess it really was just a bad drive. That's fine, I was able to get the new drive free of charge, so it's all cool. Thanks for all the replies anyway.