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wicket73

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 6, 2011
3
0
Hey guys, new to this forum, but not the Mac. Been using them since 1999, but I have never tried to repair or upgrade any hardware myself. I want to install a newer, larger hard drive on my 2009 MacBook. The problem I am going to have is that I lost my OS X recovery disk that was included. Any ideas on how to get around this?
 
Hey guys, new to this forum, but not the Mac. Been using them since 1999, but I have never tried to repair or upgrade any hardware myself. I want to install a newer, larger hard drive on my 2009 MacBook. The problem I am going to have is that I lost my OS X recovery disk that was included. Any ideas on how to get around this?

The easiest way if you don't have the discs is to simply buy Snow Leopard from the Apple Store. It's only $29.

You could also try using Carbon Copy Cloner to make a clone of your drive onto an external, install your new internal drive, then restore the clone to your new internal.
 
The easiest way if you don't have the discs is to simply buy Snow Leopard from the Apple Store. It's only $29.

You could also try using Carbon Copy Cloner to make a clone of your drive onto an external, install your new internal drive, then restore the clone to your new internal.

Somebody else suggested using a cloning software, thanks. I thought about Snow Leopard, but wasn't sure if that would work since the $29 version is the upgrade disk if you already have OS X installed. I thought about just buying the full version of Snow Leopard, but I'm a poor college student, and trying to get away with spending as little possible. LOL
 
The $29 version "upgrade" of Snow Leopard includes the full version. You can boot off of it.

I used Disk Utility to "clone" my HDD to the new HDD and then swapped them. Piece of pie. Easy as cake.

Michael
 
Somebody else suggested using a cloning software, thanks. I thought about Snow Leopard, but wasn't sure if that would work since the $29 version is the upgrade disk if you already have OS X installed. I thought about just buying the full version of Snow Leopard, but I'm a poor college student, and trying to get away with spending as little possible. LOL

Licensing issues aside, the $29 disc is the same as the "full" version. I used it on a brand-new HDD in my MacBook when I upgraded.
 
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