Hard Drive Upgrade Issues

Question

Hard Drive Upgrade Issues

A few weeks ago I decided triple my space and increase the RPMs of my hard drive and settled with a 750GB Seagate Momentus 7200RPM 2.5" SATA HD 16MB Cache. I recieved the drive, Carbon Copy Cloned from the original, installed it and noticed lagging on tasks that never had caused any issues before (ie. opening a new tab, opening iTunes, using track pad commands between windows, etc.) in addition to glitchy graphics (text next to Apple logo & volume indicator) and system crashes (while using iTunes & Ableton Live -- hard disk overload light came on multiple times). I troubleshooted with OWC's tech support, but wasn't able to come to a conclusion as to what was causing the issues (using disk utility, selecting startup disk, PRAM resets, Rember [to make sure my RAM wasn't shot] etc.). I had another identical Seagate HD set to me thinking it may have been a bad drive, only to find the same problems. After troubleshooting more with OWC, I wasn't able to figure out the issue. I thought it was my computer or maybe the SATA connecor so I put my stock 250GB HD back in and the computer worked perfectly again. I took the computer to the Apple store and their diagnostics all pointed to healthy software and hardware. I decided it may have been an extremely unlikely coincidence of two bad drives or a compatibility issue of the specific model of drive so I returned the Seagates for a 750GB WD Scorpio Black 7200RPM 2.5" SATA HD 16MB Cache. After installing this, I immediately started experiencing the same problems. Has anyone else experienced similar problems? Any tests I should run? Or are these hard drives not compatible with my specific computer for some reason?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 15"

Posted on Nov 16, 2012 10:17 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Nov 16, 2012 10:35 PM in response to froggiefingaz

Another thing that may be worth noting is that these hard drives (all 3) ran without issues externally via USB 2.0. I tested all three before installing each externally to make sure they seemed to be working properly.

Reply

Answer 2

Nov 16, 2012 10:40 PM in response to froggiefingaz

I've hear many positives with the Seagate and some disasters with WD - but your's seems as if it doesn't matter what the drive is. Even though your old drive is working fine, you might have a bad SATA cable. I would call OWC and order a new one just to rule that out as the possible culprit.

Good luck,

Clinton

Reply

Answer 3

Nov 18, 2012 7:33 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham

Thanks for the response Clinton.

Based off of what tech support said at OWC, if it was the SATA connector, the drive wouldn't boot at all (or in other words: it would either work or not work, but not half-work/be slow).

I'm not sure exactly what that leaves as a possible problem unless the CCC of the drive was bad. I am currently doing a clean install from the DVD on a zeroed disk, but it took 8+ hours and didn't finish yesterday. I am concerned my DVD drive is broken as well, but maybe this symptom leads to another diagnosis for the case altogether?

Reply

Answer 4

Nov 18, 2012 7:48 AM in response to froggiefingaz

Did you attempt a secure erase? If so, that's what may be taking so long...

I'm not sure where that leaves you now, either. I've never had a bad clone using CCC - but there's always a first time.

You may want, at this point, just to take the computer with the newest hard drive into you local Apple Store and have them run diagnostics on the unit. It's worth trying, anyway, if you've no joy with a simple clone and restore.

Clinton

Reply

Answer 5

Nov 18, 2012 8:02 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham

The first time I did the clean install I put the HDD in the computer without erasing anything. When that didn't work I did a "zero" of the HDD while it was connected externally, then reinstalled it internally and I am now currently waiting for the OSX to install on it again via DVD...and it is looking like it is already stuck after about an hour.

I don't think I'll set foot back in an Apple store about this problem...spent 5 hours trying to get them to check my computer at various stores at the beginning of this week. They would only check my stock hard drive (and nothing was wrong with it or any of the components on my computer, according to their tests). Any time someone told me they would check my new hard drive, I would wait and then they would tell me "no we can't check any third party hardware...not to mention that our tests won't be meaningful on third party hardware". (And that is a very truncated version of the experience.) Whether that is true or not...I don't know, but I don't think I will be going back down that road again, considering the frustration and time lost there.

At this point I have no idea what to do next. Anyone have suggestions? I really would rather not go back to dealing with only 10-20GB of free space on my hard drive, but I don't seem my music or software collection shrinking anytime soon.

Reply

Answer 6

Shootist007

Level 6

16,703 points

Nov 18, 2012 8:06 AM in response to froggiefingaz

froggiefingaz wrote:

Thanks for the response Clinton.

Based off of what tech support said at OWC, if it was the SATA connector, the drive wouldn't boot at all (or in other words: it would either work or not work, but not half-work/be slow).

That is completely false. There have been many reports of system problems that are related to a failing drive cable.

Reports of system booting then crashing and overall slowness along with other problems.

Replacing the cable has fixed most if not all of those problems.

Recently there was a long thread on Seagate 750GB XT series drives failing. It turned out to be the cable and not the drives. When the cable was replaced the problems stopped.

So Replace your drive cable. This is a known weak point in the MBP design.

Reply

Answer 7

Nov 18, 2012 8:14 AM in response to Shootist007

Thanks, I'll look into that, and hopefully I'll be able to come back to this thread soon and mark it solved.

Reply

Answer 8

Nov 18, 2012 8:17 AM in response to froggiefingaz

Shootist is right - that's why I suggested replacing the cable. It can work fine with one drive and cause problems with others. And if a new SATA cable works, it's a cheap solution.

Good luck,

Clinton

Reply

Answer 9

Nov 20, 2012 6:36 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham

Thanks for the great advice guys. Looks like it was the SATA connector after all...or at least after a few hours of smooth usage. My only lingering concern is that it takes just under 30 seconds for the Apple logo to appear upon restart or startup...much longer than it used to take, not to mention this is a faster drive. Any suggestions on that?

Reply

Answer 10

Nov 20, 2012 7:07 AM in response to froggiefingaz

Never mind. Fixed it under Startup Disk in Preferences. Thanks again.

Reply