Macbook pro mid 2012 is not recognizing I tb internal HDD

Question

Level 1

0 points

Macbook pro mid 2012 is not recognizing I tb internal HDD

I recently purchased a mid-2012 15'' macbook pro, 2.3 ghz, 500 gb HDD, 4 gb RAM. I took it into a service last weekend to have it upgraded to 8 gb RAM, 250 GB SSD Samsung, and a 1 TB HDD HITACHI 5400 rpm. Everything was fine until yesterday when suddenly the computer stopped recognizing the I tb HDD. You can see it in disk utility but the disk drive is just shaded gray. This morning I noticed that when I start the computer with only the battery it doesnt recongize the HDDD but when the charger is plugged in and start the computer the disk is recongized but a window pops up saying that I can access the files that are on the disk but no changes can be made and nothing can be saved onto the disk. It also says the disk needs to be reformatted as soon as possible. Could this be the SATA cable problem? Or a power shortage? Or something with the motherboard?

MacBook Pro

Posted on Jul 3, 2013 7:44 PM

Reply

Answer 1

ds store

Level 7

30,725 points

Jul 3, 2013 8:04 PM in response to KazTav

Copy the files off and take the defective machine and hard drive back to the person who modified it.

Note that what you did was a hardware hack and Apple perfectly well could have disabled that option now.

If a replacement drive does the same thing then you pretty much know what it is.

Reply

Answer 2

KazTav Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 3, 2013 8:21 PM in response to ds store

Apple could have disabled what option?

Reply

Answer 3

ds store

Level 7

30,725 points

Jul 3, 2013 8:25 PM in response to KazTav

KazTav wrote:

Apple could have disabled what option?

Replacing the Superdrive with a hard drive, that's not a factory configuration.

That it doesn't work on battery and only on power is a obvious sign it's drawing too much current and the Mac will tend to disable things that are.

Reply

Answer 4

KazTav Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 3, 2013 8:35 PM in response to ds store

I'll definately take it to someone to have it looked at. Even with the power cord it shows the HDD but I can't modify or save things onto it.

Reply

Answer 5

ds store

Level 7

30,725 points

Jul 3, 2013 8:55 PM in response to KazTav

The Early 2011 machines was crazy with people replacing their Superdrives with SSD as disks were made obsolete by Apple.

Apple might have decided enough is enough and cut the power to drives in the Superdrive slot in the 2012 machines.

You'll know if a smaller drive does the same thing. 🙂

Reply

Answer 6

KazTav Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 3, 2013 9:39 PM in response to ds store

Have you heard of someone else having this problem? I just turned on my mac with out the power cord and it recognized the disk. I have no idea what is going on at this point.

Reply