My early 2009 macmini's harddrive died last nite and wondering what to do.Is there any way at all to get info off of drive? Is there a way to get mountain lion back on a new hard drive using restore cd with lion on it. Would it maybe be better to get a whole New Mac of some kind.Thanks in advance Sean.
Hard drive replacement is easy. My late 2009 mini has had four hard drives in it. Finally one of the plastic prongs is partially broken which makes no difference at all.
You can get the finest mechanical hard drive available for a mini, a Western Digital 750GB Scorpio Black, from Newegg for about one hundred dollars. Use OWC's instructions for replacment. The WD is a little more expensive at OWC.
If you haven't had a 7200 RPM HD in your mini you will find that it does make noticeable performance difference, not a much as with an SSD but 750GB for $100 is pretty nice.