[wes72487]

I am experiencing a very strange problem with my brand new Aluminum macbook.

I bought it with a 160 GB HD, thinking I would just upgrade it myself, since it doesn't void the warranty on the unibody macs.

I have now tried three different SATA 2 drives: Two WD Scorpio Black 7200 RPM 320 GB drives and a Scorpio Blue 5400 RPM 320 GB drive. All have the same problem: I cannot format or use them, I get I/O errors. Only when connected internally via SATA, not when using a SATA/USB adapter. I get I/O errors when I try to format it from the Leopard install disk, from a linux live CD, or if I successfully install leopard when connected via USB and then try to boot when connected via SATA.

The original hard drive still works fine, and all of these drives work on other computers or on this same macbook when connected via USB. My first thought is that my SATA controller is bad, but then why does the original hard drive and Super Drive still work? What could possibly be going on here?

I called apple and they gave me the "We do not guarantee non-apple hardware will work on this mac" response. Since when is hard drive compatibility dependent on anything other than bus?

I am really baffled here. Could this be another variation on the ram compatibility issue? Is apple aiming for hardware incompatibility? Is anyone else having this problem or have any thoughts?

I want to try other makes of hard drives (Hitachi, Seagate), but will first have to make enough money to pay the restock fees on all the hard drives that don't work :-(.

HELP!

[ibook_steve]

Welcome to our forums!

What are your exact steps for formatting these drives? Are you partitioning? Where exactly are you seeing these errors? In Disk Utility? Let us know exactly what you are trying to do. I'm sure it's just a configuration error in Disk Utility.

Steve

[wes72487]

I have tried partitioning the disk using disk utility from the Leopard CD and I get either "Unable to UnMount" or "Input/Output Error" If I follow the exact same procedure when the drive is connected via a USB/SATA adapter, it works fine.

I have also tried booting to a Knoppix live CD and formatting the drive when connected via SATA and I also get I/O errors. I even tried just writing raw data to the drive from knoppix using "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda" and I get I/O errors. Again, it works just fine when connected via USB.

I can format install leopard fine via USB, and it will boot via USB, but when I connect it via SATA, it won't boot.

[Doc HM]

Disc Utility can be picky formatting drives.

In the left hand column you will see two volumes for the drive, the drive itself and below as a subset the volume on that drive.

Generally you should aim to format the entire drive rather than the volume. If that fails try using the partition tab rather than just formatting.

Select one partition, click the correct option for booting to Intel Mac (GUID) and it "should" work.

[wes72487]

Yeah, I've been working with macs for many years and am a systems administrator. I've tried partitioning the drive and formatting the volume. Always using GUID. And the strange thing again is that the same procedures work when connected via USB with the same drive using the Leopard install CD and that trying to dd raw data to the drive causes I/O errors, but only when connected via SATA.

It really must be the SATA controller, but then why does the factory drive perform fine? and the SATA superdrive? and is it that the new macbook SATA controllers aren't compatible with aftermarket drives, or just that mine is broken?