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Released June 2009 / 2.66, 2.8, or 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo Processor

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I believe the Hard Drive Cable is bad, it won't format, boot,

I cloned the old hard drive after placing it in a case and using it as an external drive.....so that I could increase to a 1T storage space, but I have not been able to boot from the new cloned drive...it was reformatted and partitioned according to CCC instructions.

Now, I want to reformat/erase the drive, but I can't get it to erase/unmount, or anything. Can you help??

Update (06/27/2017)

The Macbook Pro is mid 2009, I can't find a model # in About this Mac

The Hard drive is HGST 1T, I did try to erase it in disk utility, it said not successful.

The Mac will not connect to my WiFi at this time, so I can't plug it in to EveryMac Lookup.... When I click on my WiFi, the box for password doesn't even appear. This has never happened before, so I figure my unsuccessful attempt to erase the mounted internal HD has messed that up. I am booting from TM backup. Main thing I need is to get back online, now, or I won't be able to fix anything. I connect using a hotspot, and it's never failed me before.

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Can you tell us what your exact model is as well as what hard drive you bought. There are a few possible issues here besides a bad SATA cable.

To help you identify your system you can go to this web site: EveryMac - Lookup and plug your systems S/N in. Once you have your models info paste the URL here for us to see.

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had you used disk utility to erase?

any error messages?

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The serial number is on the back of the machine in fine print.

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Oh Boy! We got a bit of a laundry list here ;-{

First, you may have lost the settings if you've reformatted your original HD. So you'll need to find the connection info for your routers WiFi access point (AP).

Lets see if we can get your drive issues worked out. You'll need to return this drive as it just won't work in your system - Sorry

If you look at the two links I posted above you'll see your systems HD port SATA speed is only SATA II (3.0 Gb/s) and if you look at your original drive you'll see it also lists the same SATA speed. Now look at the HGST drive spec sheet you'll see the drive is a fixed SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) which is too fast for your system!

OK what to do??

You'll need to get an auto sense drive (one that lists both SATA II & SATA III) sadly these drives are getting hard to find. If you can try to get this drive: Laptop SSHD Here we can see this drive offers support for all three SATA speeds! Now be careful Seagate stopped making this model and now only offers fixed SATA III drives! Here is one that is listed Seagate - 1TB Internal Serial ATA III/Serial ATA II Solid State Hybrid Drive for Laptops. At least note the packaging the new model has a very different box.

You might be able to find an older SATA II fixed speed standard drive Vs this hybrid but I think you'll like the better performance! Yes its a slower drive (spindle speed) But! this drive has a SSD cache! So what you get is the hyper speed of an SSD for the OS boot and some app modules. you'll find the drive is in fact faster than the 7200 RPM drive.

I would also recommend you get a new HD SATA cable as well. Check your systems black plastic clips that the bottom cover fits into at the mid plan. If they are broken your cable could be damaged. If you still have a good one make sure its located near the HD to help protect the cable.

Here's the cable you'll need: MacBook Pro 15" Unibody (Mid 2009 to Late 2011) Hard Drive Cable - Apple P/N 922-9751

MacBook Pro 15" Unibody (Mid 2009-Late 2011) Hard Drive Cable Image

Product

MacBook Pro 15" Unibody (Mid 2009-Late 2011) Hard Drive Cable

$29.99

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