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Disk works fine connected to USB but not when mounted internally

Hello all,

.

I have an iMac 11,1 Late 2009. It's internal drive was failing and I was able to recover, almost, all the contents using carbon copy cloner. For it, I formated the drive using GUID partition table.


The original drive was a 1TB Barracuda drive and the new one is a 2TB Barracuda.


After a reinstall of Yosemite, I was able to boot the computer with the drive connected via USB. Once I was able to boot, I mounted the new drive internally it showed up the grey folder with the question mark.


I used a USB stick with Yosemite installer to launch Disk Utilities and what showed was quite extrange to me: It showed MBR partition table and just a 250.6 GB partition. Partition type was 0xEE. All Verify and Repair options were grayed.


If I install the drive again in its enclosure and connect it via USB it boots perfectly.


Any ideas? Thanks to everyone in advance,


Ivan

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Mar 29, 2015 8:10 AM

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6 replies

Mar 29, 2015 8:22 AM in response to ivan_va

Connect the cloned drive to the computer and boot from it. Then using Disk Utility format the internal HD to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with a GUID partition. Then use the CCC to restore from the cloned drive to the internal HD. Next use System Preference - Startup Disk to make the internal HD the boot drive and re-start the computer.


This should work, next to get your recovery partition installed on the new internal HD, simply navigate to the Mac App Store, click Purchases and select the last version of OS X and install it. This will create the recovery partition and you should be done.


Overall it's a pretty easy process but you have to follow each of the steps very methodically.


If you have trouble with any of the steps then take it to an AASP and they can help you get it restored correctly, this of-course assumes you install the new HD in the computer and put it back together correctly.

Mar 29, 2015 8:27 AM in response to ivan_va

Let me see if I understand that correctly:


You cloned your failing internal to a new 2 TB external. You formatted the new external Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and GUID Partition Scheme. The new external works fine while connected via USB, but not once you install it?


If that is correct, then there is either something about the installation (cable/connection?) or the Mac is not recognizing the drive. I know that at some point, older Macs did not work with anything larger than 500 GB or 1 TB drives, but cannot remember details. Did you check that your model supports a 2 TB?

Mar 29, 2015 9:03 AM in response to babowa

Hi,


Thanks for your response


That's exactly what I did. The cables seem to be fine since the computer detects the drive and gives all the details about it (size, data connection, rotational speed...). But it just shows a extrange partition scheme.


I've checked in other forums and seems that it should support the 2TB drive.

Mar 29, 2015 9:12 AM in response to rkaufmann87

Thanks, very much for your response.


This could be a solution, but it will take many hours to do. I was just looking for the reason its happening so I could solve it without clonning the drive again. It seems very extrange that the drive works perfectly fitted in a USB enclosure but does show a different partition scheme when connected internally to the computer.

Disk works fine connected to USB but not when mounted internally

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