Crucial M4 SSD update idea--Assistance, please!

[iamvexed]

Hi All,

I've opti-bayed my 13" mbp, and am trying to upgrade the Crucial M4 SSD I put in the optical drive spot. Since I no longer have an optical drive, this is proving troubling, but I have an idea and was hoping someone could help me out.

My mbp is my "second" computer. I primarily use my iMac, and the two have, over time, gotten out of sync. Thus, I'm going to completely reinstall everything on the mbp and get them back in sync.

Since I'm erasing the HD in my mbp, I was thinking I might be able to make IT a bootable drive with the SSD update .iso, and thereby update the SSD. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to do so, or whether it's possible. Any help would be MUCH appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[iamvexed]

Got it! I used the directions I found here (which I'm also posting below), which worked famously. Many thanks to b_ran_don at the crucial forum for his post.

I'd recommend this very highly, since folks are apt to back up before attempting to update anyway. So the partitioning of the HD should not be too onerous (at least, it's less onerous than putting the optical drive back in and then taking it out again...).

Here're the directions from the above link.

I also was unable to get the syslinux USB thumbdrive method to work w/ the EFI on my system. I found a variation to this solution that doesn't require any Windows / Bootcamp steps. The catch is that your secondary HDD needs to be setup as HFS+ w/ an MBR partitioning scheme, otherwise you'll have to reformat it as such before proceeding (obviously most people will have originally formatted their secondary drives as HFS+ w/ GUID). This step wasn't painful for me since this is a brand new setup... I just installed the M4 in original HDD bay ('lower') and a new 2.5" HDD in the ODD bay (using an OWC Data Doubler assembly).

To create a bootable syslinux partition on the internal 2.5" HDD, use Disk Utility to create 3 paritions. Click "Options" and choose MBR. For partition 1, choose MS-DOS and for the size type "1" (GB) and hit enter (should go to 1.07GB). For partition 2, choose HFS+ and for size type "1" (GB) and hit enter. For parition 3, choose the remainder of the capacity (should be automatically set) and select HFS+. If you happened to have already had your volume setup as one parition of HFS+ using the MBR scheme, you can simply click the "+" button to add the two 1GB partitions to the end and you won't have to reformat your existing volume (it will just shrink by ~2GB assuming you have the available storage). Click apply.

Now, download and mount rEFIt-Syslinux: rEFIt-Syslinux.dmg

In Disk Utility, select the "Restore" tab from any view and then right-click on the mounted rEFIt volume and select "Set as Source". Right-click on the 1GB HFS+ parition on your HDD and select "Set as Destination". Select on the rEFIt volume and click the Restore button, then authenticate.

Now right-click on the mounted Syslinux volume and select "Set as Source". Right-click on the 1GB DOS partition on your HDD and select "Set as Destination". Select on the Syslinux volume and click the Restore button, then authenticate.

Now unmount the rEFIt-Syslinux.dmg.

Next, mount the Crucial ISO and find the boot image file (*.IMG) inside CDROM/BOOT/ISOLINUX/ and copy it to the root of your Syslinux volume (that exists on the internal HDD). Edit the syslinux.cfg file to point to the name of your boot image file (e.g. BOOT2880.IMG).

Finally, reboot your Mac while holding down the Option key and select rEFIt > Legacy Boot. Once prompted, select "SeaFlash" and hit enter... then wait for the Crucial boot image to load.