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Macbook (2007) Hard drive user replaceable?
- Thread starter zepharus
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I disagree with user replaceable on anything that expects regular people to have a torx screwdriver.
In the real world, 99% of the non-repair/tweak people out there, do not have a torx screwdriver.
I know you repair macs for a living, and I respect your craft. You also bring up a good reminder about the torx.
Some people may certainly prefer to pay someone else to do the task rather than do it themselves. This is basically geek squad's business model.
But to state that something is not user replaceable since they'll have to buy a tool easily found at any best buy or radio shack is erroneous.
Some people do not even have regular screwdrivers, and they have to go buy them as well
You're right most people don't have one. I didn't. Just because you have to buy a $5 tool doesn't mean it isn't user replaceable.
I know you repair macs for a living, and I respect your craft. You also bring up a good reminder about the torx.
Some people may certainly prefer to pay someone else to do the task rather than do it themselves. This is basically geek squad's business model.
But to state that something is not user replaceable since they'll have to buy a tool easily found at any best buy or radio shack is erroneous.
Woah!
I never said people shouldn't do it themselves. 90% of the posts I make here encourage & give instructions and free information so people can fix their own stuff without breaking it or paying crazy marked up parts costs. I have had people ask me to install RAM for money, and have refused.
My intention isn't to garner business. It's to get apple to change their stuff. I hope the same happens when I bring up that you can spill coffee on a lenovo and not have a dead computer.
It was the same with some of their towers. You couldn't remove a hard drive with a philips.
I don't know who at apple thought it was a good idea to make it so you need a torx screwdriver to do anything.
It is not even about having to buy it. Almost every home has a philips screwdriver lying around. For those that don't, a neighbor typically does, and can hand it to them. But a LOT of people do not even know what a torx screwdriver is, so they will not even know what to call it, or google for. And it's very likely that if you ask your neighbor what it is, he will have no idea.
They'll do what I did three years ago. Walk into a radioshack and ask for the "star thing screwdriver", and get a look of bewilderment. Because the person at radioshack, even if you are an ignorant fool like myself, knows less than you do. I showed them the screw. They claimed they didn't have it.
They did have a set, which I found out three trips later. But they couldn't direct me, because as stated earlier, most of the untechsavvy world, and even a lot of the tech savvy world, has no idea what torx means, or is.
If you don't have a philips screwdriver, but see that you need one, you can go out and say "I need a small flathead" or "I need a small philips", and even at crappy stores, someone can direct you. Philips and flathead are easily recognizeable to all but the most uneducated American.
I personally find the screen more user replaceable than the hard drive because this can be done with a regular screwdriver, and a philips or a nail filer to pop off the beige clips. It's not that torx screwdrivers are not available. It's that most people do not know what a torx screwdriver is and the immediate people they have at their disposal to get information from might not know either.
A machine that is supposed to be manufactured to be easy to use compared to the perceived complexity of a PC shouldn't use 20 different types of screws in its makeup, and shouldn't use torx screws on supposedly user replaceable parts. I never needed an icetray to organize my screws until I opened a mac!
Yes!
It is definitely user installable. I actually just upgraded my hard drive to a 320GB - way better than the one that is factory installed. If you don't have Snow Leopard yet, I would get it from www.macbookupgrades.com. Their upgrade drives have Snow Leopard, iLife, and iWork already installed on the drive. Good luck!
It is definitely user installable. I actually just upgraded my hard drive to a 320GB - way better than the one that is factory installed. If you don't have Snow Leopard yet, I would get it from www.macbookupgrades.com. Their upgrade drives have Snow Leopard, iLife, and iWork already installed on the drive. Good luck!
Louis' points are very good and it's obvious he knows his craft extremely well. I understand where he's coming from here. But wanted to point out that one of the advantages of Torx is to be more resistant to cam-out (contributing to stripping the screw and possibly damaging the screwdriver) than for, say, Phillips.
From a repair perspective, I would far prefer dealing with someone else's laptop where screws weren't stripped by an average joe who attempted to use incorrect size Phillips screwdrivers or used less than optimal techniques.
From a repair perspective, I would far prefer dealing with someone else's laptop where screws weren't stripped by an average joe who attempted to use incorrect size Phillips screwdrivers or used less than optimal techniques.
I liken torx to the metric system. It's better, but there isn't a dream or a prayer in the next 30 years of it becoming a standard that the common man looking to upgrade his hard drive so he can hold more porn will be familiar with.
You CAN thread torx though by trying to get it out with a flathead though. Guess how I know...
For small form factor screws that need to be screwed down securely, I think torx is fine. Anyone who wants to replace hinges had better know what torx is.
dont do it!!, if you do a search you'll find out that hard drive is weld in and if you try to remove it, well you really dont want to know what will happen. seriously do a search..
Wow. You're a moron, and you have no idea what you're talking about. Do some research before you start posting blasphemous statements online. I bet you're one of those idiot Mac users that likes to go into the Apple Store and tries to play "stump a Genius", when in reality you don't know your a** from a hole in the ground.
Here's the direct link to the PDF provided by Apple that gives the user instructions on how to replace this hard drive: http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/MacBook_13inch_HardDrive_DIY.pdf