HELP! Macbook Pro Hard Drive Upgrade

[heads up]

I just bought a Hitachi 200GB 7200RPM hard drive for my macbook pro. I followed all of the instructions from fixit.com, and everything went smoothly hardware wise. With the new hard drive inside, and everything closed up, i try to turn on the laptop, BUT NOTHING HAPPENS! The white light on the front turns on, and the dvd-drive make a noise, and thats it. Nothing at all shows up on the screen, just black. No "baah" startup sound or anything. So I figured I need to insert my Leopard DVD to make it work. Didn't help me, and now I can't get the disc out!

I'm afraid to call apple since I'm pretty sure they don't approve of taking their laptop apart.

Somebody please help!

 

[Silver-Fox]

that should be fine seeing as that still is within the warranty i think

 

[heads up]

i also have applecare... but I'm almost certain that what I just did voided my warranty. Can anybody confirm this?

 

[Porsche1209]

Format it

When I first installed the hard drive on my macbook, I thought that the hard drive was a dud. As it turned out, it was unformatted, and I needed to do this before proceeding. To do this, there is a tool on the OSX disc that you access from the menu bar at the top of the disk environment (after booting from the disc). I'm no expert, and I'm fairly new to the Mac domain (but I'm a happy convert), so if you need more specific instruction, a more experienced board member is welcome to take over.

 

[heads up]

i realize this... but i can't even get something to show up on the screen. when i turn it on, the white light on the front stays on, and the dvd drive makes noise. The screen is black.

 

[shoppy]

Or you have blown the logic board, I did the same in my old 1.8 CD MBP. If the hard drive was not formatted your screen should still turn on. I don'e see how is in warranty on he MBP if you have opened it. A they take a while to unscrew, unlike the MB's.

 

[heads up]

Or you have blown the logic board, I did the same in my old 1.8 CD MBP. If the hard drive was not formatted your screen should still turn on. I don'e see how is in warranty on he MBP if you have opened it. A they take a while to unscrew, unlike the MB's.

well i can hear that the hard drive and dvd drive turn on, and the white light on the front turns on. i doubt i would get power to all 3 of these devices if the motherboard was blown.

 

[heads up]

Problem solved.

For anybody who has this same problem... you need to reset the power management unit in the laptop by removing the ac cord and battery, then holding down the power button for 5 seconds.

 

[geissap]

Problem solved.

For anybody who has this same problem... you need to reset the power management unit in the laptop by removing the ac cord and battery, then holding down the power button for 5 seconds.

Lol...your a lucky man. The odds were definitely in favor of bad hardware not just a SMC reset but glad it worked for you.

 

[Jiddick ExRex]

Nice to hear you solved it.

Next time make sure you have an external boot and restore from (or slam the original in an external enclosure...)

 

[Watermonkey]

Wow! That's good information! How many web sites did you visit before trying it? Thanks for sharing, I'll be sure to remember that one!

 

[Cave Man]

Another piece of advice for those undertaking hard drive transplantation - clone the original hard drive onto the new drive (e.g., Carbon Copy Cloner) and make sure you can boot from the new drive (USB or FW) before cracking open your laptop. The Universal Drive Adapter is about the best $30 I've spent for such activities (USB/PATA/SATA 3.5 and 2.5).

 

[heads up]

Wow! That's good information! How many web sites did you visit before trying it? Thanks for sharing, I'll be sure to remember that one!

Lots! haha

I forget what the website was, but they said that when upgrading to a larger capacity and faster hard drive, you may need to reset the power management unit because the new hard drive might require more power than the old one did. Since I upgraded from an 80GB 5400RPM HD to a 200GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache HD, I needed to do this.