Problem with HDD and installing OS

[jdaniel]

So I have had this problem before but this is for my friend's mac that I am trying to fix...his mac 2012 13" is not detecting his hard drive...

1. his hdd works fine outside his mac, I attached it to an enclosure I can see it no issues.

2. I put in a new hdd to his mac it will not erase it properly, it will be stuck at 1/2 way point and will not progress and fail eventually.

3. I give up using his mac..i take out the new drive put it in the enclosure and I figure I format it with my mac, name it put it back into his mac and it should see it and it would be an easy install, no such luck, the installer will not see the HDD, disk utility will see it but with disk0s1, which is very weird because I partitioned it and named it etc on my mac and it was showing nicely and it is not showing on his mac...

I checked the cables nothing that I can discern is wrong.. what else can I try?

 

[jdaniel]

So I have had this problem before but this is for my friend's mac that I am trying to fix...his mac 2012 13" is not detecting his hard drive...

1. his hdd works fine outside his mac, I attached it to an enclosure I can see it no issues.

2. I put in a new hdd to his mac it will not erase it properly, it will be stuck at 1/2 way point and will not progress and fail eventually.

3. I give up using his mac..i take out the new drive put it in the enclosure and I figure I format it with my mac, name it put it back into his mac and it should see it and it would be an easy install, no such luck, the installer will not see the HDD, disk utility will see it but with disk0s1, which is very weird because I partitioned it and named it etc on my mac and it was showing nicely and it is not showing on his mac...

I checked the cables nothing that I can discern is wrong.. what else can I try?

I have also tried loading software into the new drive with my mac and place the nice loaded hDD into his mac.. NOTHING.. i get a folder with a ? blinking..so it doesnt like the old drive and doesnt like the new drive.

 

[Fishrrman]

It might be useful if you told us the name of the manufacturer of the drive, and its model number.
Also, which model Mac?

My solution to the problem:
- Put the drive into an external USB3 enclosure, connect it to his Mac.
- Is the drive now "seen by" his Mac?
- If yes, install a clean copy of the OS onto it, migrate whatever he needs to migrate onto it, and use it as "an external booter".

It should run fast and clean with USB3, very little difference (probably none that's "noticeable" in day-to-day usage) from an internally-installed drive.

 

[Weaselboy]

If you have two different drives that work fine externally, but not internally, that points to a bad internal drive cable.

 

[jdaniel]

Well I guess I can try booting externally in an enclosure but I doubt he wants a ghetto fix like that, yes I'm leaning towards cable, hopefully it is not the board. I guess if I try booting externally and it works then I would be eliminating the board as the problem

 

[Weaselboy]

Well I guess I can try booting externally in an enclosure but I doubt he wants a ghetto fix like that, yes I'm leaning towards cable, hopefully it is not the board. I guess if I try booting externally and it works then I would be eliminating the board as the problem

Yep... trying a boot in an external closure would be my next troubleshooting step also.

 

[jdaniel]

I tried hitting option whilst booting from external drive but it did not work

 

[jdaniel]

Here's a pic

 

[jdaniel]

But I tried booting the same drive from my working Mac it gave the same error

 

[jdaniel]

So I tried a few more things I used the same enclosure and new hdd and I tried to boot from my own Mac didn't work, I used my own bootable back up disk on both macs and even that proved problematic, only time I managed is if I connected the enclosure to my TB display this could be due to a finicky enclosure hard to say right now

 

[Weaselboy]

So I tried a few more things I used the same enclosure and new hdd and I tried to boot from my own Mac didn't work, I used my own bootable back up disk on both macs and even that proved problematic, only time I managed is if I connected the enclosure to my TB display this could be due to a finicky enclosure hard to say right now

This is kinda confusing. Do you have another enclosure you can try?

 

[jdaniel]

Nope, but I figure if I want it to work I have to get it fixed anyways right so nothing much I can do I guess I'll get someone to look at it and see what happens will update when I know