2.2 MacBook Hard Drive changeover

[Cakester]

I've seen the tutorial in regards to replacing the hard drive. I do not have an external drive currently and I'm thinking of upgrading my 120gb/5400 to a 320gb/7200. However, I'm not as informed as to how I would transfer my existing files/OS to my new hard drive?

Is there a best practice? What tools would I need besides a quarter, a torx screwdriver and a boatload of patience?

[Tallest Skil]

Why do you need a torx? You use a phillips to take the L panel off and a phillips to take the HDD out of the rack...

[Cakester]

Why do you need a torx? You use a phillips to take the L panel off and a phillips to take the HDD out of the rack...

cool, thought I needed that.

[GfulDedFan]

cool, thought I needed that.

Turns out that you do need a T8 Torx Screwdriver. This is the tool to take the EMI shield off the old drive so you can move it to the new drive. Those screws are not phillips.

As far as a "best practice", I'm not sure what the best method is. It depends on what equipment that you have (i.e external drive, enclosure, cloning software, etc..). Personally, I would advise you to think about an external drive in order to have a medium for backups. Having a backup of your important data is important.

This doesn't mean that I feel that the use of an external is the best method. Again, personally and for what it's worth, I like the use of an enclosure method for 2 reasons. 1) You only need to clone once; and, 2) You can put your old drive in the enclosure to make an external drive. -GDF