2nd internal drive not being recognized

Question

Level 4

1,025 points

2nd internal drive not being recognized

About 1.5 years ago I installed the OWC data doubler kit (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other+World+Computing/DDAMBS0GB/) into my MBP. Boot disk is an SSD, files are on the stock apple hard drive which is now residing in the optical drive bay as per the instructions.

All was working fine until a few days ago when I was told I couldn't log into my user account. I logged in as root and found that the 'files' hard drive is no longer recognized.

I opened up the back, disconnected everything on the files drive, reconnected, but still nothing. I'm assuming either the green connector port (pictured in the link above) on the 'data doubler' is broken, or the stock Apple optical drive cable which it connects to (which then connects to the motherboard I think) has gone bad.

Any ideas as to how to figure out what is actually wrong?

Thanks in advance!

MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3)

Posted on Apr 22, 2013 12:32 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Dustin Cook1 Author

Level 4

1,025 points

Apr 22, 2013 8:03 PM in response to Dustin Cook1

Update: Ran the Apple Hardware Test, the extended one, and it returned nothing..

Reply

Answer 2

silvergc

Level 4

1,002 points

Apr 23, 2013 8:26 AM in response to Dustin Cook1

Could be that the original hard drive has died. Do you have a way to test the drive separate from your Mac?

Reply

Answer 3

Dustin Cook1 Author

Level 4

1,025 points

Apr 23, 2013 8:34 AM in response to silvergc

I will try tonight, I'm not sure if u have anything to do that with.

It wasn't like it died though, it was as though it was unplugged. One second it was there, the next it was gone..

Reply

Answer 4

Dustin Cook1 Author

Level 4

1,025 points

Apr 23, 2013 8:34 AM in response to Dustin Cook1

If I*

Reply

Answer 5

silvergc

Level 4

1,002 points

Apr 23, 2013 9:04 AM in response to Dustin Cook1

Can you tell if the drive spins up on power up? If I understand correctly, you are saying that the Mac no longer sees the drive at all. It was working, and the next minute not. Disk utility doesn't see it either?

It could be that the cable has failed, but that seems odd if you haven't touched it for a year and a half.

You could move the SSD to that connector and try to boot the MacBook from there. If it boots, you have a bad drive, if not you could have a bad connector/cable.

Reply

Answer 6

Dustin Cook1 Author

Level 4

1,025 points

Apr 23, 2013 9:08 AM in response to silvergc

First paragraph totally correct.

I'll try moving the SSD over tonight. Thanks!

Reply

Answer 7

Dustin Cook1 Author

Level 4

1,025 points

Apr 23, 2013 12:10 PM in response to silvergc

I guess it is the drive. Boots up fine when switched. The busted drive does spin up, but isn't recognized anywhere. Is there a way to try to recover the data myself even though it doesn't get recognized?

Reply

Answer 8

Dustin Cook1 Author

Level 4

1,025 points

Apr 24, 2013 7:54 PM in response to Dustin Cook1

bump!?

Reply

Answer 9

silvergc

Level 4

1,002 points

Apr 29, 2013 1:59 PM in response to Dustin Cook1

Dustin,

Sorry, I have been unavailable for awhile. But, to answer your question, there are companies that specialize in data recovery from failed drives. I would suggest contacting one of them for information on how much it would cost. I think some of them also have SW that you can try yourself. I was able to do some recovery from a failed drive myself a few years ago, but don't remember the SW I used (sorry).

Reply