jreuben65

I connected all the cables...i can hear and feel it spinning, but when i boot up with my external boot drive...i can't see the new drive in disk utility to format it...

it is a seagate 7200rpm 320gb

i hooked up my old hd and the same thing...i can hear it spin, but it is not in the disk utility sidebar...and it is formatted already.

any clues..

thanks for any help, I am really frustrated

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As the OP of this thread I just wanted you all to know that my prayers have been answered.

The tiny component I found in my machine was the source of my problem...I had accidentally dislodged the tiny coil that cancels the noise in the datastream to allow the disk to read and write as normal...I cannot emphasize how tiny this coil was...miniscule

I bought a broken board for $29 on Ebay from a core 2 duo mbp and brought it to my genius friend Keith, who had originally looked at the piece i found in the machine and determined what it was, and that it was broken and I would need a new one. With a little trial and error he was able to find a similar coil on the broken board and remove it in one piece and solder it back on to my board. At first it still didn't work, but he traced it to a short in the coil...he cleaned up the solder some and re-attached...

Then BAM! it booted up to my new 320gb drive like they were old pals.

I am so relieved that I didn't have to buy a brand new board.

For a total of just over $100 bucks I was able to bring it back to life.

I am so relieved

@monofrio I hope you can find a similar solution.

as to running off a usb cable, that is what I have been doing for the last two weeks while i sorted this all out. The main thing I noticed was the much longer boot up time, but after that it ran very smoothly...firewire 800 may be faster, but I didn't feel hampered at all besides the really slow initial boot up.

Thanks everybody for your suggestions...I am overjoyed to have a happy ending.

PEACE

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that link probably didn't work...go here instead

http://picasaweb.google.com/canislatrans...

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@monofrio

I don't have the greatest pic, but if this link works it is about 1/3 of the way from the bottom right corner of the HD connector cable, if you draw a line from the that long connector to the square HD connector

you will see a little white arrow on the board...it should be pointing to a tiny black rectangle soldered on the board...that is the coil that i damaged...

https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=ba...

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I found the source of my problem, while removing the hard drive cable from the logic board, I inadvertently knocked a small inductor coil off the board...its tiny, and soldered in right by the cable connection...must have caught it with the edge of my spudger.

i amazingly found the piece in the machine...and a friend who does this sort of thing is looking for a replacement and he is going to hot air solder it on.

if i hadn't found it, and had a friend with unique micro soldering abilities, I would be in need of a new logic board...right now we are sourcing the correct coil.

I will report back when operation is finished.

he has traced the part and is sure that if it is gone , no data transfer would occur...and since that is my problem...hd is working, formatted etc...We are pretty sure we found the solution...

Monofrio...if you are looking down at the HD connector on your board, the piece I am missing is just off the lower right corner of the rectangle where the cable snaps in.

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@customerservice....it doesn't recognized formatted disks in the internal HD bay either...I have formatted my new drive and it is still invisible in disk utility..

@moldor- how do you change the settings on the cable...i don't see anyway to do that.

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@valid...I have done that...both the new drive and the old drive are fine in the enclosure...i can see them, format them, partition them etc...

but while i can hear and feel the drives spinning when in the internal drive bay, neither is recognized in any fashion...(they are both now formatted correctly and like I said, work fine when in the external enclosure...

I am hoping that the new ribbon cable will fix this...i will let you all know when it arrives..

thanks for all the advice and attention to my problem.

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Skippy, what do you mean switch back? I have concluded its the data part of the ribbon cable and have another on order...but open to more suggestions

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its the early MBP, 2.0ghz core duo (not core 2 duo)

it had a fujitsu 80gb 5400rpm HD

I am replacing it with a Seagate 320gb 720rpm HD

I am running Snow leopard...

I cloned the old Hd and am booting from a 1tb external Maxtor

I have reset P vram

I have unsucessfully tried to run a hardware check at startup

No Serial AtA shows up in system profiler like the old fujitsu did

I tried connecting the new drive before closing the lid...it didn't show..i reconnected the old drive, it didn't show either (i have wiped it and it is no longer the boot drive)

it ir works...the sleep light works, but maybe not the same as before (i can't remember if it stays on while the computer is on, it isn't now), but does come on when sleeping.

i am at wits end...

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its the same cable as power...seems like i barely touched it, but that seems to be the only answer...though I keep thinking there is some issue that just is preventing it from seeing the HD bay..it must be the cable...anyone have a similar experience? Power, but no data?

this is the cable I am talkng about

http://www.ifixit.com/MacBook-Parts/MacBook-Pro-15-Inch-Core-Duo-Hard-Drive-Cable/IF185-030

the light works the IR, the power to the drive...only data seems to be not there...is this possible?

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Well i just did exactly that replaced my 80gb with a seagate 320gb...the mechanics went fine, but now I can't get the computer to recognize any internal HD...whether i switch back to the 80 or not...very frustrated, must be an easy answer...i can hear the disk spinning, and the data and power are one cable, so don't know why the processor can't see it...

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