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Mid 2009 Model A1278 / 2.26 or 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo processor EMC 2326

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Installing OSX on brand new hard drive

I have installed a brand new solid state hard drive in my macbook pro 13" mid 2009.

I replaced the old hard drive because it was failing.

Now that I have the new hard drive installed I am struggling to get OS X installed onto the new hard drive. I have ruled out using a USB enclosure on the old hard drive because it was failing.

I do have the original OSX snow leopard start up disk. I have tried using this to install OSX onto the new HDD but it would not work.

I think it might be because the new HDD is unformatted?

I have also been into disk utility to try to resolve this but this does not work.

I have tried partitioning the new HDD but I get an error message "Partition failed .... POSIX reports: The operation cannot be completed. Cannot allocate memory".

I have also tried the restore function in Disk Utility to restore the disk using my time machine backup disk, but I get the error "Could not erase target - Operation not permitted"

I have also tried to restore the HDD from a time machine backup, but when I try to select a Destination it says the "disk does not have enough space to restore your system"

Any suggestions on how to solve this would be much appreciated!

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

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Please give us the make and model number of your new drive.

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The new HDD is a Crucial M500 240GB 2.5 inch SSD

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Well, if your old HD fails and the new one makes problems.. then you might consider checking your HDD cable, maybe that's causing the drives to fail.

Also try to download a ubuntu live cd or just gparted to format the drive. Maybe it will work.

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Hi Buco - thanks for your comments. Do you have any tips on how to download a ubuntu live cd or gparted

?

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I agree with Buco about a possible HD/IR cable failure, they are very common on this model and can destroy the hard drive. Your machine has a Int. HD Interface: Serial ATA (3 Gb/s).

The Crucial drive is a 6 Gb/s and I have not been able to verify that it is backward compatible, but probably is. Check with Crucial to be sure.

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Hi Mayer, I had a look but I couldn't see any damage to the HD cable (nothing from the naked eye). Are there other ways I could check the HD cable apart from looking at it? For example are there system tests I could run? Or would I have to take it to an Apple Genius for them to check the cable?

When I bought the Crucial SSD, I told Crucial exactly what model I had (i.e. MBP, 13" Mid 2009) and they said it would be compatible with this model. I will double check with customer services just to check anyway but it should be compatible !!

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Nick will be eternally grateful.
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