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Are there people who would help me upgrade my MBP?

McNelton

McNelton

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 2, 2010
16
0
I have a mid-2010 MBP and want to upgrade both the HD and RAM. From 320HD to 500ish SSD "Hybrid" (or just 500HD) and from 2x2GB to 2x4GB (or 2x8GB, depending on price), respectively.

I'm not a super tech guy, but I'd like to do it myself. I'm not that scared, but I'd much rather have someone who's done it before with me when I do it. I would definitely pay this person or just take them to get pizza after. Or burgers.

So I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas of how to pull this off? I posted on FB, but don't feel confident, (I live in Orlando, but don't have a ton of Mac-head friends). Thinking about posting on craigslist but that's just still sketchy sounding to me. I know most tech-business people would probably shy away from this because they don't want to be liable, but I just want someone with experience as a backup.
 
If you have ever changed a lightbulb in a fridge or a filter in a vacuum cleaner, you will most certainly be able to upgrade the ram and HDD in your machine. It's as simple as unscrewing few screws and then pulling stuff out. Just watch a few videos beforehand and take your time, make sure to wear an anti-static bracelet and everything will be fine.
 
The friend doesn't have to be a "Mac head". Anybody who's ever done this with any laptop could help you do this. It's really simple if you follow a step by step guide, for which there should be many available.
 
It is shockingly easy. Go slow and take your time.

For the HDD main thing I would say is when you're disconnecting the wire on the end of the hard drive keep the drive flat and just tilt it up a little. The wire runs underneath and you don't want to rip it.

So just lift the cable end of the drive up an inch or so, enough to get your fingers on each side of a plug, disconnect the wire and left the drive out, while keeping the wire flat. Sorry if it's confusing but that's pretty much the most important thing to remember.
 
If you know the good old lefty-loosey, righty-tighty thing, you have all the skills needed to upgrade your computer.

If I lived anywhere near Orlando I could probably do both for you in 5 minutes flat, including disassembly and reassembly.
 
Barney63 said:
If you are desperate I will help you out. Just pay for my fare as I'm from the UK ;)

Barney
Click to expand...
I'll raise you on that Barney. If the OP wants to, he/she can come to Japan and I will bring my tool kit to his hotel and do the upgrade there. All he has to pay for is my transportation fee to his hotel (in addition to the plane fare to Japan).
:eek::D:eek::eek::D
 
Such gracious offers! Now do I want to go to the UK or Japan... I will let you all know, haha.

Regarding the OS, I plan on getting a (second) EHD of some kind and making a clone (right?) before installing the new HD. I've been reading tons on this, but have a question about OS install/reinstall/upgrade. I'm actually stilling running 10.7. Could you help me verify the order of the process...

Backup
  1. computer to current EHD
  2. Clone HD
  3. Take bottom off computer
  4. Put in new RAM modules
  5. switch new HD for old one
  6. put computer back together
  7. ...how does one install osx from this point?
  8. ...then upgrade to mavericks?
  9. ...must i put in my install cd (snow leopard???)
Again I am amazed by the helpfulness of the people on this forum. Thanks so much.
 
That's pretty much it for general procedure, except that I would add the following immediately after removing bottom:

- Disconnect battery.

... and add this immediately before putting bottom back on:

- Reconnect battery.
 
McNelton said:
Such gracious offers! Now do I want to go to the UK or Japan... I will let you all know, haha.

Regarding the OS, I plan on getting a (second) EHD of some kind and making a clone (right?) before installing the new HD. I've been reading tons on this, but have a question about OS install/reinstall/upgrade. I'm actually stilling running 10.7. Could you help me verify the order of the process...

Backup
  1. computer to current EHD
  2. Clone HD
  3. Take bottom off computer
  4. Put in new RAM modules
  5. switch new HD for old one
  6. put computer back together
  7. ...how does one install osx from this point?
  8. ...then upgrade to mavericks?
  9. ...must i put in my install cd (snow leopard???)
Again I am amazed by the helpfulness of the people on this forum. Thanks so much.
Click to expand...

With the new hard drive in the external enclosure, you could simply clone your current setup using disk utility or Carbon Copy Cloner, and litterally just plop the new hard drive in and boot right away with things just like before, with the exception that now you have more space.
 
snaky69 said:
With the new hard drive in the external enclosure, you could simply clone your current setup using disk utility or Carbon Copy Cloner, and litterally just plop the new hard drive in and boot right away with things just like before, with the exception that now you have more space.
Click to expand...

So put the new HD in an enclosure, format it, clone my HD to it, then install it and boot like usual but with the extra space?

That easy? What about taking an already OS-installed/set-up HD out of an enclosure and putting it into a laptop? Is that risky to do with an HD?
 
McNelton said:
So put the new HD in an enclosure, format it, clone my HD to it, then install it and boot like usual but with the extra space?

That easy? What about taking an already OS-installed/set-up HD out of an enclosure and putting it into a laptop? Is that risky to do with an HD?
Click to expand...

Nope, not risky. Unless you erased the original telling yourself you don't need the data on it anymore, and that for some reason, the new HD bricks itself.
 
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