Hard drive not recognized - cable?

I opened up the laptop, wiggled the hard drive cable around a little bit, and now the drive is being recognized. Good ol' Mac voodoo. I don't know if that means maybe the cable just wasn't seated well in the logic board, or if the cable has a short or weak spot and should be replaced. I guess I'll wait and see if the problem arrises again.

Well that was quick. We got half way through the install of the OS and the laptop shut itself off. The install had been hanging for a while too. Looks like I'll be buying that cable after all.

New cable didn't work. Laptop still hangs during OS install and then shuts down. Maybe the logic board is shot. I don't know, but I'm giving up. Time to buy a reliable computer, a PC! 🙂

No, time to buy a $65 Toshiba Hard drive.

There are only 4 HD mfg. on Earth, and your Macbook has the best HD money can buy in it.

That being said, ANY and ALL HD can and will fail having owned 100s of them.

😊

I already replaced the hard drive, that wasn't the problem. That's why I then tried replacing the hard drive cable. That's not the problem either. I think it's either the logic board or the main board. Who knows.

Also, you can put a Toshiba HD in any laptop. There's nothing special or unique about Mac HDs. They're all standard 2.5" drives. I've never tried Toshiba before. I've had pretty good luck with Western Digital, Seagate, and Hitachi. I usually check the network forums and see what those guys are suggesting. They work with huge HD arrays and really know which ones last the longest and perform the best. 🙂

And only 4 HD manufactures? WD, Seagate, Samsung, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Toshiba, .....

Yes, only 4.

Yes, I know there is nothing special about Mac HD, except they use the best.

Samsung and Fujitsu arent independent anymore, theyre bought up.

The experts running server farms most all agree the very best HD money can buy in 2.5" is a Hitachi (also branded under Toshiba), which now owns its own 3.5" division, formerly owned by Hitachi.

Yes, I know a bit about HD, Ive got a 100 laying around here alone. As for WD commercial HD, theyre the lowest rated.

Sorry about your ordeal in getting your Mac fixed. Sometimes diagnosis can be a pain, I know I did it for years on others laptops, but that was ages ago,.....things are a LOT simpler now, laptops contain a LOT less parts, its easier to diagnose than it used to be .

Well it's too bad Mac doesn't use the best for it's other parts. 🙂 Yea, I have a really old 3.5" Hitachi that is still kickin @ss.

So how would you diagnose whether it's the logic board or mainboard being the HD communications problem? I'm tempted to replace the logic board and see what happens but I'm not convinced it's the problem and don't want to blow $200.

Who is number 4? I just see WD, Toshiba, and Seagate.

Your Apple store will diagnose it for free for you.

Remote diagnosis is like working on a car engine by using long tweezers thru the tailpipe 😁

Apple does use the best of parts.

If $300,000,000 satellites can fail,..... so can your Macbook.

I've seen and owned the best money can buy, worked on same, .....there are only 4 HD mfg. and only a few processor mfg., and only a few good sources for monitors.

they all can and will fail at some point, even IF you take perfect care of them. Then it boils down to warranty and customer service.

Apple has #1 service for a reason.

The ancient motto of "if it has more than 1 part, it can and will fail" is a timeless truism.

Regardless of quality. 😍

Who is number 4? I just see WD, Toshiba, and Seagate.

Hitachi is, even though bought up by WD, theyre still an autonomous entity for build and design construction etc. WD, from what I gather lets Hitachi "do its thing"

Hitachi is about to roll out Helium filled HD, which will reduce power use by 20%+, removing heat and friction from platter and spindle revolutions.

I took it to the Apple store. They said they wouldn't touch it because it's too old and they've discontinued service for it. It's a 2007. No service is the worst kind of service.

Ah, a 'classique' Mac. Then a logic board makes it economically unrealistic to fix. 6 years of use.

And finding a board would be unrealistic as well, your cheapest option would have to buy another 'dead' model to salvage parts from.

I love to collect dead computers, get a pile of them and you can build a working one, ....fun and educational. 😊

So youre only out the cost of a SATA cable. You can use the HD you bought anywhere, buy an enclosure for it and use it as an external HD on your next computer. 😊

sorry re: your predicament, time for a new(er) computer.

Yes, I read what you said about your Hitachi drive,...yes the expert consensus is without any question that Hitachi 2.5" are the best that can be bought.

Hitachi's crap; I'm sorry, but I'm not swayed by your random, unsupported graphic. If you have something with actual data, I may entertain it. For now, I'm going with past experience. I've had countless WD in my life, and only ever had a single issue with one, and that was after it was 5 years old, and was the last PATA drive I had when all else had gone to SATA. The only Hitachi I ever had came in a new MacBook I bought in November of 2006, that was dead by January of 2008.

Mac uses the best parts? Are you even READING this thread? It's because of the crap hard drive cable they install in their machines. I work in a support environment, and JUST got done telling the latest girl that she'd have to order a new hard drive cable. From Apple? Of course not. Apple refuses to recognize this as a problem. She'll have to go to Amazon or eBay. Then we'll replace it for her for free after she buys the $20 cable, instead of inflated Apple/Apple repair location prices. (Where we are, the closest Apple store is 3 hours away.)

When I called Apple trying to get information about this problem 6 months ago, the "tech" told me he couldn't even find anything on the issue.

In their efforts to make everything smaller and thinner, they made a crappy hard drive cable and refuse to acknowledge the problem; there should be a recall, plain and simple. Anything less is asking for a class action lawsuit.

Don't get me wrong, I DO believe they make solid computers, but it's what you're paying the premium price for.

So after having the Hard Drive cable renewed in March 2013 the same problem has occurred this week. Hopefully, the Apple Store in Toulouse will be sympathetic and replace the cable for free; we live in hope! I'll keep you posted but it must be a fault in the the cable design that Apple will not admit to!

I'm joining the club... MacBook Mid 2009 replaced original drive with 1TB drive and few months later I got flashing mark. As the others, I thought it's a drive failure but after connecting to USB, the drive works perfectly (although of course slower than on SATA) so I ordered new hard driver cable from eBay. Unfortunatelly, in my case it didn't helped, same flashing mark and POSIX error when trying to format the drive. So I ordered OptiBay caddy, suddenly the MacBook was as good as new (difference between SATA1 vs. SATA2 can't be noticed with standard HDDs), but only for few more months. Now the hard drive doesn't work neither in original bay, nor in the DVD bay. This makes me think that the problem is not really in the cables but there is something wrong with the SATA controller in Mid 2009 MacBooks.

To make the situation better, no Apple stores in my country (Czech Republic), so only way to visit one is Germany but I don't think it's worth 200km+ of driving to probably only be told 2009's MacBook is too old and they don't know about any issue 😟

I've just had this problem with my mid-2012 Macbook Pro. Applications kept freezing and the rainbow loading thinging kept going. Eventually had to shut down. Turned on again - flashing question mark folder on grey screen. Shut down, turned on again using the Option key but no hard drive showed up. Did internet recovery. Once it saw the disk hardware but Macintosh HD was greyed out, another time it wasn't there at all. So couldn't restore in either case. 4 months out of warranty, just my luck.

Thought I would have to replace my hard drive, but after some research, found this thread and thought this might be my answer. Bought an external case for my hard drive (sata to usb 3.0) and put it in there. Rebooted using the Option key again and Macintosh HD showed up. Working fine from the usb connection, in fact much faster (maybe the faulty hard drive cable was slowing down my comp?).

Ordered the 2012 hard drive cable off eBay (each year is different, check underneath the cable for the p/n number, 2012 is 821-1480-A). Will continue working off the drive externally until then.

Hopefully the new cable works. Very glad my hard drive is fine!!!