Macbook Pro 5,5 cannot format 320GB WD SATA

Trojan

I have a MacBook Pro 5,5 (13" mid 2009) running Mac OSX v10.6.8 off an external USB drive, due to failure of the supplier Hitachie HDD.

I've attempted to replace the non-functional internal Hitachi HDD supplied with a 320GB Western Digital "Scorpio Blue" SATA disk ("WDBABC3200ANC-ERSN"), but the machine cannot format the 320GB drive.

Disk Utility that states "Disk Erase failed with the error: POSIX reports: The operation couldn't be completed. Cannot allocate memory".

I also tried some alternatives recommended by http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10430235-263.html - both of which failed:

1. Using the "diskutil" command:

diskutil eraseVolume HFS+ NAME IDENTIFIER

2. Using the "fdisk" command:

fdisk -a hfs /dev/IDENTIFIER

Any ideas?

conor.hogan.2

No idea have you a windows machine or a linux machine so you can wipe it and then see if the mac can use disk utility to format it properly?

Trojan

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

No idea have you a windows machine or a linux machine so you can wipe it and then see if the mac can use disk utility to format it properly?

I formatted it as NTFS using a USB external enclosure on a Windows machine, and tried it again in the Macbook - it still cannot format the drive.

Is there a way to format the drive as HFS+ (that's the journalled MacOSX native format now, right?) from Windows?

Maybe GParted Live CD might be worth a try.

Colonel Panic

Trojan wrote: »

I formatted it as NTFS using a USB external enclosure on a Windows machine, and tried it again in the Macbook - it still cannot format the drive.

Is there a way to format the drive as HFS+ (that's the journalled MacOSX native format now, right?) from Windows?

Maybe via MacDrive? It's ages since I've used it though and I don't know how crippled it's trial version is.

BTW, what happens if you nuke the existing partition from Disk Utility? Same error as just trying an erase/format?

Trojan

Colonel Panic wrote: »

Maybe via MacDrive? It's ages since I've used it though and I don't know how crippled it's trial version is.

Will have a look at that.

Colonel Panic wrote: »

BTW, what happens if you nuke the existing partition from Disk Utility? Same error as just trying an erase/format?

Yep, exactly the same symptoms.

Trojan

NoDrama wrote: »

Maybe GParted Live CD might be worth a try.

Looks like it doesn't do HFS+: