all, I have an emergency situation here. My l2013 MBP just died (best guess video card) I have travel today! If I go to the store and by a new MBP right now, can I swap in my 1gb ssd from the '13 model?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
My late 2013 just died, can I swap the hard drive?
- Thread starter mac8867
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Assuming you mean the classic MacBook Pro (non-retina) for the new machine, and if you have Yosemite or Mavericks on the old machine, then yes.
Here is a perfect example of why one should ALWAYS keep a fully-bootable backup cloned drive (created with either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper).
To wit:
The user has a problem with his internal drive, and because he must travel (be it on business or pleasure), he is literally "in the lurch" with a non-bootable computer.
Not much time to find a replacement drive (IF he can find one), or NO time at all.
But if he had that cloned backup, he could just connect it, and ..... BOOT!
All his apps would be there, all his data, everything -- as if he were booting from the internal drive itself.
Yes -- of course it would be a bit inconvenient to have to attach the external backup to boot and run the MacBook.
BUT -- at least he COULD boot and run for the time being, until he was back home and had the opportunity to "go to work" on it....
To wit:
The user has a problem with his internal drive, and because he must travel (be it on business or pleasure), he is literally "in the lurch" with a non-bootable computer.
Not much time to find a replacement drive (IF he can find one), or NO time at all.
But if he had that cloned backup, he could just connect it, and ..... BOOT!
All his apps would be there, all his data, everything -- as if he were booting from the internal drive itself.
Yes -- of course it would be a bit inconvenient to have to attach the external backup to boot and run the MacBook.
BUT -- at least he COULD boot and run for the time being, until he was back home and had the opportunity to "go to work" on it....
thank you captain hindsight.
yes you can remove the ssd blade from the old one and place it in the new one. assuming its not the ssd that gone bad.
Wouldn't it be less time consuming to buy the new machine and restore it from a backup rather than opening up both machines, swapping in the new blade and hoping for the best? I can't speak to whether the 2015 is as easy as the 2013 to open up and whether all the drivers would work or if there's any chipset differences between the two models.
Thanks all. The reason I ask is, it's a LOT less expensive to buy a 256gb'r machine and swap my 1TB.
Lol, it would be a good post except that what you posted has nothing at all to do with the situation. It pays to read the post before replying.
----------
So, how does that help him get the 1tb hard drive in his hew mac? The issue is he wants to put the 1tb drive in the new mac. I am curious about this also.
I am also curious if you can fit an earlier blade drive in a new macbook pro. Funny how people tend to answer threads without reading the post.
I won't claim to know for certain, but according to the used ones on ebay they claim to work in 2013 and 2014 at least. Since you have backups as long as it's the same type of drive I would certainly try it.
----------
So, how does that help him get the 1tb hard drive in his hew mac? The issue is he wants to put the 1tb drive in the new mac. I am curious about this also.
I am also curious if you can fit an earlier blade drive in a new macbook pro. Funny how people tend to answer threads without reading the post.
I won't claim to know for certain, but according to the used ones on ebay they claim to work in 2013 and 2014 at least. Since you have backups as long as it's the same type of drive I would certainly try it.
Last edited:
This has the OP in a very tricky situation. If it's a 2013 rMBP 15, it may be under Apple's extended warranty for dGPU seen here
Before you go buying pentalobe screwdrivers and rip your machine apart you may want to check into your nearest Apple store and see if they'll warranty your device and see if they have a recourse in getting the data off.
If you have a late 2013 with a PCI-E SSD, then your laptop isn't covered even though I think they eventually should be as the 750M is pretty much the same chip as the 650M.
Even so, usually if it's just the logic board and your machine isn't that old Apple may give you the flat fee $300 option to repair it. If you have access to a older mac pro with PCI-E slots another option is to find a Apple PCI-E SSD to PCI-E slot adapter and you can extract the data off that way.
Before you go buying pentalobe screwdrivers and rip your machine apart you may want to check into your nearest Apple store and see if they'll warranty your device and see if they have a recourse in getting the data off.
If you have a late 2013 with a PCI-E SSD, then your laptop isn't covered even though I think they eventually should be as the 750M is pretty much the same chip as the 650M.
Even so, usually if it's just the logic board and your machine isn't that old Apple may give you the flat fee $300 option to repair it. If you have access to a older mac pro with PCI-E slots another option is to find a Apple PCI-E SSD to PCI-E slot adapter and you can extract the data off that way.
Thanks again all. The apple support folks also advised me that the 2013 rMBP may be eligible after a hardware diagnostic. Getting an appointment amid all this iWatch business is another story. So, i bought a 2015 rMBP 8Gb 512. It's half the memory and storage. but doable. It's restoring from time machine now.
Again, thanks for the assist all.
Question about this post and swapping the SDD.
Wouldn't it cause conflict with the OS on the old SDD containing serial numbers and component ID data from the old device? Even if they are the same year / model / spec, I would think the previously loaded OS would get batty with foreign parts, even if they are the same?
I may be completely wrong here. I switched from PC to Mac 3-4 years ago. While I have never performed any Mac surgery, I have on windows machines, doing this same thing and Windows did not like it.
Wouldn't it cause conflict with the OS on the old SDD containing serial numbers and component ID data from the old device? Even if they are the same year / model / spec, I would think the previously loaded OS would get batty with foreign parts, even if they are the same?
I may be completely wrong here. I switched from PC to Mac 3-4 years ago. While I have never performed any Mac surgery, I have on windows machines, doing this same thing and Windows did not like it.
It won't cause any issues at the OS level, but some third party apps, notably MS Office and Adobe apps, will see they are on new hardware and make your reenter the registration information. Bu beyond that, it will work fine.
Yup a major Apple advantage. I've swapped hard drives out of broken Apple machines in the past and put them into an external enclosure, I was then able to boot up the drive and get the stuff out of it. Try doing that on a Windows machine! You'll get all these DRM errors telling you that the copy of windows is now 'deactivated!'