new internal sshd not recognized

What exact model MBP do you have and what OS are you using?

Ciao.

It might not of been the hard drive that failed. Mac notebooks are known for having bad hard drive cables, the cable that goes from the drive to the logic board. If you have a external enclosure or a SATA to USB adapter connect the original drive to the system with that and see if you can boot the system off it. If you can then the drive is fine and the cable failed.

You'll need to have the cable replaced before you can install any drive back inside the system.

Did you use the original Snow leopard install disk and did you hold the C key when you started the MBP?

Ciao.

Since you indicated that the old HDD boots the MBP when connected in the external enclosure, install the new SSHD in the enclosure. Boot the MBP with the Snow Leopard installation disk and in Utliities select Disk Utility and format the new drive. Then install the OSX on it. Retstart the MBP OPTION key down and test if the new boots the MBP. If successful, install it. If it does not boot, then the internal connection is faulty and must be repaired/replaced.

Ciao.

Look at iFixit.com and do a google search for "Hard drive cable for YourModelYear Macbook Pro".

They cost somewhere around $30-$50. Not sure what Apple would charge to replace it.

In my opinion there is no sense installing OS X on the SSD right now because the only way to us it would be in the eternal enclosure you have connected to a USB port. Which will be slow. So wait until you get a new cable before you bother install OS X on the SSD and you can install it inside your Mac.

But to check the SSD install it in the external enclosure and boot your Mac from the Snow Leopard install DVD, hold down the option key at startup and select the SL DVD as the boot source. Then once the system boots from the SL DVD go to the Utilities menu item and select Disk Utility. Once that opens look for the SSD in the left most area. Select it and then click the partition tab. Select one partition from the Partition Layout drop down and then click the Option button and select GUID as the Partition Table. Then close the options window. Format it Mac Extended (Journaled) and give it the name Macintosh HD. Click the Apply button. Once that is all done the SSD will be ready for you to install OS X on it.

I'm experiencing exactly same problem... in two older Macbook Pros. One a mid-2010 17" (i7), the other an older unibody 13" (C2D). SSHD is a "Seagate Laptop SSDH" 1tb - st1000lm014. Did what I usually do when replacing hard drive:

1) put new drive in USB enclosure

2) clean install of OS. In this case Lion (although I've now upgraded it to Mountain Lion)

3) use recovery to migrate settings and files from old drive to new drive

4) stick new drive into laptop.

New drive not recognized --- flashing question mark folder.

Stick new drive (sshd) back into usb --- boots right up

Stick old drive back into sata --- boots up fine.

When installed in harddrive slot / sata, new dirve will not show up in disk utilities. I tried this both with it partitioned and unpartitioned.

I initially tried all this on my 17" (MacBookPro6,1 - i7). Then, just for giggles, I tried in my 13" (MacBookPro7,1 - C2D)

Googling around suggests a problem with sata-ii vs sata-iii, but I haven't found any postings with useful guidance. I have a case open with Seagate but don't expect much.

If the new DEVICE does not show up in Disk Utility's window, you have a communications problem, usually a bad cable as it is the component most likely to fail. The connector on the logic board can go too, if you are not careful enough while munging around in the guts of the computer.

If the VOLUME doesn't show up on DU's window or refuses to mount, you probably have the partition scheme or volume format wrong. A bootable OS X volume has to have GUID partition scheme and Apple Extended (aka HFS+) format.

Unless specifically labeled as a Mac product, 99.9% of drives sold today have an MBR/NTFS format meant for Windoze PCs.

To be clear, at least on my post:

SSHD boots when attached via usb. SSHD shows up in disk utility when booting to recovery if attached on USB. SSHD doesn't boot when installed in EITHER OF TWO macbok pros when installed internally. SSHD doesn't show up when booted into recovery when SSHD is installed in laptop (SATA). Other drives work hunky-dorry when installed in same two macbook pros.

It is the CABLE. Apple used substandrard cables in those year MBPs. They can not handle the DATA transfer rate of faster drives or the SATA 3 interface. Once the cable is replaced with a updated version the problem will go away.

Please read this thread.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3857094

I'm glad you edited your post. Original starting sentence.

Please read the post you are responding to BEFOR responding.

We are only users here and trying to help. We really don't need an attitude.

Thanks for the help on the cable. Finger's crossed. Seagate tech support says they have no record of anyone reporting this problem. Pretty funny; I sent them a reply with links to half a dozen such discussions on this board.

FWIW, Not sure posting a sentence that the author deleted is such a cool thing.

But thanks anyway and hope the replacement cable fixes it. I'll post back with outcome.

How did you format the SSHD ? Did you have the bootable partition with recovery partition set in the options (check the GUID-partition table).

My conclusion is that the main culprit is not the cable, but the partition settings. Perhaps this will help before you do hardware hackings here and there.

I just had the same problem today. Here's the background story and how I fixed it over the last 8 hours or so.

First Super Duper for some reason only copied about 2/3rds of my 280G used on my 320 G stock internal HDD to the 1TB SSHD in an external USB enclosure before setting the new drive as bootable and rebooting. Obviously that failed. Not willing to trust Super Duper with another 4 hours of my time I decided to try Carbon Copy Cloner. It seemed to work better (faster) and even offered me an option to fix the recovery partition. I completed the clone via CCC and tested the reboot from the new drive on USB. It worked great. I swapped the drives and put the 1TB inside and the orig 320 G HD in the USB enclosure as backup. Rebooted. No dice. Mac wouldn't recognize the new internal 1TB as an option to boot from even when rebooted with the option key held down. Everything already has been reassembled and screwed down tight. Panic 🙂

Rebooted from the orig drive and went into disk utility. New drive is recognized in disk utility and size reported correctly. However when asked to verify the new drive Disk Utility reports errors and says it needs minor repair. When asked to repair it fails and says cannot repair. When asked to erase it, it refuses saying it can't write to it. Same story when asked to partition.

Tried rebooting into hardware diag mode holding D key down. Didn't work. Rebooted into recovery mode with CMD-R held down. Loaded disk utility. Asked Disk utility to repair 1TB disk. This time DU fixes the boot record. Drive verifies ok.

Reboot holding Option key down to attempt to boot with 1TB. 1TB does not show up again as an option but something new called EFI does. Selected it. Turns out to be the 1TB drive. Mac boots snappily. Removed orig HD still in USB and rebooted a few times. Good speed. All stable. Enjoy.

Mark

<Link Edited by Host>

I was having the same problem over the last few days. I was tryng to install a Seagate 1TB Solid State Hybrid Drive SATA 6Gbps 64MB Cache 2.5-Inch to replace a 500GB drive in my early 2011 MBP .

First, I had a problem with the drive not being recognized by the computer when plugged in via USB. I originally purchased a NexStar TX to do the data transfer, but even with the Y connector it was not getting enough power to boot the drive (it would just turn and make some minor noises). I eneded up getting a self powered USB to STAT cable and that solved the first problem.

The next problem was that while I was able to formatting and clone the drive using disk utilities, and I was able to boot the computer with the new drive from the USB, once i transfered it inside, it no longer worked. What was weird is that the original drive would boot just fine when installed inside or outside, which led me to believe that the cable was just fine.

To make a long story short, i ended up placing the original drive in the USB and the new drive inside. I booted up from the original through USB. Once runing the computer on the old drive through USB, the computer would see the new drive, but would not recognize what was on it, even though it did recognize it when the new drive was in the USB.

So what i did was keep the new drive inside the computer and start from the OS X Recovery System (Press Command-R during startup). From there i used disk utilities to reformat the drive with 1 partition with the setting: Format - MAC OS (Extended); options GUID Partition Table. I had done this previously with the drive three times and the drive whould not boot when placed inside. The difference from before was that now i had the new drive inside and was boot from the original hard drive outside vis USB.

Next I restored the data from the original drive into the new drive.

Once done creating the new clone verion, i booted the computer again and pressed "option". This time i was able to see both drives.

Next i just truned of fthe computer, unplugged the original drive from the USB port and when i restarted normally, the computer boot just finr from the new drive.

Not sure why this worked, but after three days trying everything else with no avail, it the issue solved itselv with this process. Hopefuly it helps some one out.