brand new WD blue HD in the cddrive bay. can't format or erase.

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Level 1

1 points

brand new WD blue HD in the cddrive bay. can't format or erase.

Hi,

i just intalled brand new WD blue 750Gb instead of the old hitachi in the cd drive bay.
finder doesnt see it. I started the computer up and system gave a message "the disk you inserted is not readable by this computer".
I hit "Initialize" and it opens up diskutility. So far so good but thats where wierd stuff starts:

I cant do anything with the new disk at all. Neither erase nor partition it. Right click on the disk only shows "help" and dialog thats all.

Other strange fact that the disk is called "media", thats the same name as older one that i just replaced.

What do you think is going on? is the system "confused" somehow and cant understand that its a new hd?

or is the brand new disk faulty?

Or possibly im a not seeing an obvious here.. In any case hope for your wise help 🙂

Posted on Apr 17, 2014 6:57 AM

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Answer 1

Nurali Author

Level 1

1 points

Apr 17, 2014 7:30 AM in response to Nurali

I was wrong about the name, older disk was called differently.(data HD)

So nevermind that part of the question, just a momentary confusion.. 🙂

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Answer 2

Apr 17, 2014 7:37 AM in response to Nurali

In image#2, can you pull down the "Current" menu in Partition layout, and if so, can you select one of the partition choices, since that should be the next step.

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Answer 3

Nurali Author

Level 1

1 points

Apr 17, 2014 10:51 AM in response to FatMac-MacPro

I tried that too.

Im able to choose 1 partition but cant apply changes as "apply" buttom isnt active.

Thanks for asking anyway 🙂

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Answer 4

Nurali Author

Level 1

1 points

Apr 17, 2014 10:52 AM in response to Nurali

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Answer 5

Nurali Author

Level 1

1 points

Apr 18, 2014 4:08 AM in response to Nurali

found this discussion here, one of the suggestions says that taking HD out, connecting to a different Mac or PC externaly and formating it suppose to solve the issue.
Gonna try and write back in next few days..

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1154068

"So I am an IT Tech and I was installing a new HDD in an iMac 7, 1 today and the brand new WD320GB drive was not being recognized when I was attempting to load the OS. The issue is usually due to new HDD being bare drives and not being formatted to any specific file system. The way I solved this was I connected the HDD to another system (I used a PC) and formatted it from within the OS (does not matter what file system you use). Then after installing it in the Mac the OS X installer recognized the drive and prompted me to format it using the erase feature in disc utility. Pretty easy but also a little frustrating. You can easily avoid having to do this if you purchase a drive that is Mac Ready, meaning it has been formatted for HFS file system already. Hope this helps someone."

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Answer 6

Nurali Author

Level 1

1 points

Apr 20, 2014 3:31 AM in response to Nurali

Ok update.

Using the sata/usb cables formated the hard disk to mac journaled. No success. Same message after putting it inside my macbook pro. disk is not redable..

taking it out braking on 3 partitions didnt do any difference.. same story, not readable.

Nothing else to do but return it back.

Would be nice to hear from someone more knowledgeable before i return it...

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Answer 7

BobRz

Level 5

6,138 points

Apr 20, 2014 3:40 AM in response to Nurali

It's very possible that the drive is fine and the problem is the internal SATA connection. The optical drive only runs at SATA 1 speeds while your new drive runs at SATA 3. A cable that works fine for SATA 1 may not work with SATA 3 at all. If you can format the drive and read it via USB, the problem isn't the drive. What are you using for a caddy? Cheap ones have problems sometimes.

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Answer 8

Nurali Author

Level 1

1 points

Apr 20, 2014 4:07 AM in response to BobRz

Hi BobRz, thanks for quick response 🙂

Thats what i thought too, SATA incompatibility.
I cant remember the name of the caddy but it works. I tested it with older drive that used to be the primary before i replaced it with the SSD. So its most def SATA issue..
So, i guess im just returning the disk and finding one that SATA 1, right?

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