Trouble re-formatting Macbook Pro Hard drive

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Trouble re-formatting Macbook Pro Hard drive

I've recently had to reformat my 13" Macbook Pro Unibody and have been unable to do so. I've done it previous times before however now, I recieve a POSIX error as well as others regarding an "input/output error" or that it is "unable to allocate the memory."

So far I've tried booting from the disk and used disk utility (that's where I get the errors) and I've tried to format using terminal to no avail. I recieve the same errors. I've come across suggestions to use "gparted." I was able to create a partition however it is not recognized when I go into terminal or try to install OSX 10.6. Can someone walk me through or point me in the right direction to re-format my hard drive? I'd appreciate the help and would rather resolve the problem my self with the help of others rather than going to the Apple store and spending loads of money I don't have. Should you need more information feel free to ask and I will provide.

Message was edited by: CapKid

Macbook Pro Unibody Early 09, Mac OS X (10.6.7)

Posted on Apr 6, 2011 1:58 PM

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Answer 1

Apr 7, 2011 10:30 AM in response to CapKid

POSIX is the permission system that Mac OS uses. Could you post exactly what the errors say?

And this may be a silly question, but are you trying to format it as a Mac OS Extended Journaled (HFS+) format?

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Answer 2

CapKid Author

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Apr 9, 2011 4:46 PM in response to mberardinelli

Disk Erase failed with the error: POSIX reports: The operation couldn't be completed. Cannot allocate memory.

That's the error I get when trying to partition and or format.
I've already swapped the hard drive, changed RAM, and reset NVRAM/PRAM to no avail.

To answer your question, yes I have. Not a bad question, can never be too careful but, yes I have. Thanks for double checking. Starting to lose hope and might just sell it off and save up for a new one. 😟 I'm getting desperate here, when it comes to customer support Apple charges more than I can shell out. Any more ideas?

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Answer 3

Apr 11, 2011 4:43 AM in response to CapKid

I found a ton of other threads and posts about this problem... most of them were talking about external drives connected via USB (which worked fine with FireWire for some reason), but I found one who had the same exact problem as you with a 13" MacBook Pro internal drive.

That guy said that he replaced the hard drive cable (the one that connects the drive to the logic board) and everything worked fine.

It seems to be some type of firmware issue. And now that I think about it, I had a client machine with a similar problem at one point. We ended up sending the machine to Apple (it was still under AppleCare) and they did in fact replace the hard drive cable due to "firmware issues."

I would give that a try. It seems to be most logical being that you had the same problem with two different hard drives.

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