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Brand new MBP, installing larger HD, what do I need to do?

malnar

malnar

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 20, 2008
634
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I just ordered a 13" MBP about 15 minutes ago and plan on ordering a 500gb Scorpio Blue soon to replace the stock 160gb drive. If I plan on swapping out the drive immediately, what do I need to do? Can I just install the drive and then put in the OS X DVD to install it, or do I need to do something to the Scorpio Blue first? I've looked for this situation elsewhere but can't find the exact answer - most are upgrading from a drive they've been using and want to transfer their files whereas I don't.
 
Download Carbon Copy Cloner (free). Buy a cheap USB drive enclosure with the Scorpio Blue (I got mine at newegg for $2...seriously). Plug in the Scorpio Blue via the USB drive enclosure. Use Carbon Copy Cloner to copy your 160GB drive to the new drive. Turn off the machine. Take the back panel off. You need to have a Torx T6 and a Phillips 00 screwdriver available. DON'T use another size on the phillips screw, as it's VERY easy to strip. Remove the stock hard drive. Put the other drive in. Turn the machine on. Done. :)
 
jamesryanbell said:
Download Carbon Copy Cloner (free). Buy a cheap USB drive enclosure with the Scorpio Blue (I got mine at newegg for $2...seriously). Plug in the Scorpio Blue via the USB drive enclosure. Use Carbon Copy Cloner to copy your 160GB drive to the new drive. Turn off the machine. Take the back panel off. You need to have a Torx T6 and a Phillips 00 screwdriver available. DON'T use another size on the phillips screw, as it's VERY easy to strip. Remove the stock hard drive. Put the other drive in. Turn the machine on. Done. :)
Click to expand...
I would think it would be much faster to just install the new drive and then install OS X onto the new drive than to clone the contents from the old drive, right? Doesn't it only take about 10 minutes to install from the DVD but a couple of hours to clone? I'm just asking if I need to format the drive or if that will all be taken care of when I put the DVDs in - I've never done anything hardware-related with a Mac before.
 
OSX takes around 2-3 hours to install from DVD. I can guarantee that cloning is much faster than reinstalling OSX and using migration assistant. Migration assistant can take another few hours on top of the OSX install.

The OSX install will walk you through formatting a drive if you decide to go that path. If you plug the drive into an existing OSX installation, you will be notified that it needs to be initialized and Disk Utility will launch to format the drive.
 
geoffreak said:
OSX takes around 2-3 hours to install from DVD. I can guarantee that cloning is much faster than reinstalling OSX and using migration assistant. Migration assistant can take another few hours on top of the OSX install.

The OSX install will walk you through formatting a drive if you decide to go that path. If you plug the drive into an existing OSX installation, you will be notified that it needs to be initialized and Disk Utility will launch to format the drive.
Click to expand...

2-3 hours? Your must be clowning. Its like 30 minutes. I can do it under 10 with an install from a USB external HD.
 
Sneakz said:
2-3 hours? Your must be clowning. Its like 30 minutes. I can do it under 10 with an install from a USB external HD.
Click to expand...

DVD drives are slow. I can assure you it took just almost 2 hours on my Mac Mini 1.83GHz.
 
If he just ordered the MBP today, and the HDD today, I doubt he would even need to clone or use the Migration Assistant. I would swap the HDD and re-install from the DVD Media that comes with the MBP.

This is all assuming he orders both around the same time.

I also just installed OSX Server 10.5 in Parallels in under 20 min, from the Retail DVD.
 
JGruber said:
I also just installed OSX Server 10.5 in Parallels in under 20 min, from the Retail DVD.
Click to expand...

Bad example. Virtual machine installs are drastically shorter than physical machines.
Case and point, I can install Windows XP though Boot Camp on my MBP in almost an hour, but with VMWare Fusion I was able to complete the install in under 5 minutes (with the physical CD).
 
If it's taking your almost an hour to install XP in Bootcamp, there is something wrong with your machine. I've done many times on many different machines, and it's 25-30min MAX, and that is to get into Windows and drivers installed.
 
If you're replacing the HD right away than just reinstall the os from the restore dvds, there is nothing special you have to do to the HD before you install it in your MBP and start the installation process.

If you plan on using your current HD and then moving to the 500GB some time soon I'd go the clone route.

In my experience Leopard takes around 30 minutes to install on a HD, around 15 on an SSD. Cloning time depends on the size of the partition you're cloning.
 
If your new MBP comes with EFI 1.6 firmware, I would not upgrade it to the current 1.7 version until Apple sorts out some of the problems it's causing with replacement (and even some stock) drives. If yours comes with 1.7 already installed, you may be lucky and your new drive may work just fine. It seems to be hit-or-miss.
 
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