well I got my Macbook Pro up and running perfectly with a New WD Scorpio Blue 500GB drive. thanks for the tips, I'll be sure to search for this page again when I go to upgrade my bro's PB next month.
@Ekoe: thanks for the pointers, everything went well, the only ribbon cable I disconnected from the logic bard was the hard drive cable, I propped up the upper case assembly using 2 new pencils. it was surprisingly stable and allowed me the access room I needed to work. all I did after was power it up, pop in my restore disc, formate and install after that I just used the migration utility to transfer everything from my old drive to my new one, the whole process took less than 2 hours.
@wetrix: I actually used one of those compartment boxes that you can get for $3 at walmart to separate out the screws. I separated them by RAM shield, Back Panel including the 2 from inside the battery compartment, and then a third for the outside edge screws. I kept the locking bracket and the torx screws for it together on the lid of the box. (It's really handy to have a little eyeglasses screwdrivers for those 2 screws inside the battery compartment otherwise the screws just don't go in straight)
@pdxflint: I actually called up Applecare before doing the upgrade and spoke to them about i, they said as long as nothing gets broken I'm still covered. They won't cover the new hard drive if it fails, but if I keep the original drive and reinstall that if I ever need service on other parts in my computer, I should have no problems. (I got an external enclosure with my new drive, so keeping the original drive won't be a problem, neither will re-installing it if some other part goes bad.)
Again thanks for the tips everyone, they were most helpful!
