mbrill

Q: Cannot properly format new internal hard drive

Hi,

 

I own a 2012 Macbook Pro and I recently had the 500GB hard drive fail on me. After confirming this with the Genius Bar at the Apple Store, I decided to put in a new 750GB hard drive myself. I confirmed with the Apple Store employee that I had purchased the correct hard drive from Western Digital and installed it myself. Everything went fine with the installation, and I was able to boot up the computer and get to the disk utility just fine. Once I got to the disk utility, I attempted to erase the disk and use the new format of Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

 

From here, the disk utility seems to work fine, but then once it got to the 'Partitioning. Estimated time: x' the time kept on adding up. I left it overnight and now the time is at 9 hours! This is obviously not working correctly. Are there any suggestions to this problem?

MacBook Pro, Windows 7

Posted on Mar 18, 2015 6:54 AM

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Q: Cannot properly format new internal hard drive

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  • by Captain_WD,

    Captain_WD Captain_WD Mar 25, 2015 6:16 AM in response to mbrill
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 25, 2015 6:16 AM in response to mbrill

    Hey mbrill,

     

     

    What are your old and new drives (models)? I would check the drive for errors and if it's functioning properly. It is possible that the drive was damaged during transportation and it could be faulty. I would recommend connecting the drive to a PC and running WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tool (the manufacturer tool) and see if the drive functions properly. I would run both the quick and the extended tests in order to check the drive's S.M.A.R.T. status as well as for any bad sectors that the drive might have. Here's a link to the diagnostic tool: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=Ddmdlk

     

     

    If you do not have a PC to te st the drive on, do find a way to test it on the Mac for any problems with bad sectors and with the S.M.A.R.T. status. You could try Disk Utility->First Aid->Verify Disk and if it comes clear, this should indicate that the drive has not hardware problems. Click the "Repair Permissions" button to check permissions on system files. This may generate a lot of error messages, but they can be ignored. If you run it a second time, most will be gone. Here's a list with error messages that you could ignore: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203172

     

     

    Captain_WD.

  • by FatMac>MacPro,

    FatMac>MacPro FatMac>MacPro Mar 25, 2015 8:36 AM in response to mbrill
    Level 5 (4,835 points)
    Mar 25, 2015 8:36 AM in response to mbrill

    mbrill wrote:

     

    ...Everything went fine with the installation, and I was able to boot up the computer and get to the disk utility just fine. Once I got to the disk utility, I attempted to erase the disk and use the new format of Mac OS Extended (Journaled)...

    I assume that you booted up and opened Disk Utility by booting into Internet Recovery Mode. Most hard disks are supplied by the manufacturer set up to install and run Windows. To run it on a Mac, you need to not only format it "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" but first give it a GUID Partition Table and then partition it, which is where the "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" format is applied. So first, you need to select the HD Media line in Disk Utility and create a new partition, click the Options button and select GUID Partition Table. Have you already done that?