imac hard drive compatibility problem?

[markjarbour]

Hi guys , this is for the MAC pro's out there
Model : A1224

EMC 2266

2009 Apple imac  (says 2008 on base but from specs its a early 2009 I believe

Original Drive, Hitachi 320 GB model: HDT721032SLA380 (This one died)

.. I just bought a WD Caviar Green wd10eadx  1TB to put in it , and the iMac will not detect it, i just get the folder with the question mark is it because my HD is not compatible?

 

 

 

Thanks

[Action_Johnson]

The new hard drive needs to be initialized to work with MacOS.

 

Use an external disk or thumb drive to create a bootable MacOS installer so you can open up disk utility off of it, and format the drive so it's in either HFS or APFS. 

 

once you've done that, you can use your bootable USB drive (whatever it might be) to do a fresh install of MacOS , and once that's done, you're finished. No drivers to install or anything, just rock and roll. 

 

One of the few nice things about the Apple "Walled Garden"

[markjarbour]

Ok so heres the next details ,  I can get to the disk utitliy  when the old failing hard drive is installed , but when i stick the new one in , i cannot access it and it loads a Folder with a question mark blinking.    did I buy a bad hard drive maybe?

[markjarbour]

so in other words , it would let me install from USB , using the old drive , but not the new one. and i dont want to repair or re install on the new one  , as it also lets me restore from online , but with the new one installed , i cant even get to them menu .  so im leaning to incompatible.    it is a 2009 model .  would age have anything to do , by looking at the specs of the old one and comparing them to the new one , could that be a reason ?

[markjarbour]

I was kinda hoping someone would say the spedcs from your old one is too different from the new one ... like SATA   & Sata II   or what not .   I found an article on ifixit.c om  about the 2009 needing to use the same type of drive with the thermal sensor as the cables installed only worked with those kind of drives , but I could not find any confirmation or anything about this being true or not.

[Action_Johnson]

It's not incompatible, the folder with the question mark is Apple telling you there's nothing on the drive. 

[Action_Johnson]

Your dead drive, take it out, it's dead. 

 

New drive, put it in, boot up computer, you get the folder question mark. That's fine. 

 

You need to either use a different computer, or put the busted drive that's still bootable back into the computer, and make a bootable MacOS installer. 

 

Put new drive in, plug in thumb drive, turn on computer, hold down option. It should then present you with an option of where you want to continue, choose the thumb drive. 

 

After that, it'll boot in a recovery mode of sorts, and just open disk utility, format the new drive, then back out of that and go to "install MacOS (whatever version)"

[markjarbour]

1 minute ago, Action_Johnson said:

Your dead drive, take it out, it's dead. 

 

New drive, put it in, boot up computer, you get the folder question mark. That's fine. 

 

You need to either use a different computer, or put the busted drive that's still bootable back into the computer, and make a bootable MacOS installer. 

 

Put new drive in, plug in thumb drive, turn on computer, hold down option. It should then present you with an option of where you want to continue, choose the thumb drive. 

 

After that, it'll boot in a recovery mode of sorts, and just open disk utility, format the new drive, then back out of that and go to "install MacOS (whatever version)"

it lets me do that with the old drive yes ...  I have the bootable usb made already .  iv booted into it many times , but as soon as i put this new drive in ...  I can no longer get to the "Present you with the option of where u want to go" like you said.  for me    that part somehow does no longer work LOL ... hope now you get what i mean .   its frustrating because I never had this issue. Im gonna have to throw it in a cradle and test the drive , my luck I bought a dud.  

 

back to you soon with that result . 

 

thx for your patients!

[markjarbour]

okay Im one step closer, I think i figured it out

 

 

 

[3:52 AM]

it now detects the HD ,
i had to from windows connected the HD with USB , go into CMD as ADMIN , then

Diskpart

list disk

select disk 1

clean

create partition primary id=af

list partition

select partition 1

active

exit