Replacing 17" Macbook Pro 500GB HD To 2TB HD Woes.

[TrentS]

I have a mid-2009 Macbook Pro 17" 500GB, and I am trying to replace the HD with a larger 2TB HD. The main reason for doing so is so I will have more room for all my projects, and also so I will finally be able to upgrade to Yosemite. Right now my HD does not have enough room to upgrade.

So, I bought a 2.5" 2TB HD, and I am having difficulties trying to make the new HD a startup disc, so I can boot from it. I have looked up how to "install a new HD on a Macbook Pro" on Youtube, but all those videos only show you how to physically install the hardware. I can't find any info on how to load the OS onto the new HD so I can boot from it after I install it internally. I've tried the TimeMachine way as well. All that did was put all my files on it, but I still can't boot from it.

It just seems that this should be a very easy thing to do, but I can't seem to figure it out. What am I missing here? Anybody out there can help me? Please do! Thank you in advance!

 

[McScooby]

3 options either: usb recovery key - http://www.macworld.com/article/236...otable-os-x-10-10-yosemite-install-drive.html
use a programme like super duper or carbon copy cloner to clone your existing & copy to new one, or,
internet recovery on new disk - https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201314 (be aware though it only installs original OS & you have to install each one since one by one)
Personally I prefer the usb key option, start with a new system & copy stuff across . use migration assistant from old drive - to each their own though!

 

[Cuniac]

I recently installed a new 1TB SDD into my 2011 MBP and all I had to do was finish the actual install of the drive, then start the computer to the internet recovery drive (Apple + R) while connected to Ethernet (wifi works too but slower). After than I ran disk utility on the new SSD to format and then checked the disk. Lastly I did the option from restore from a TimeMachine backup, but I could have picked install Mac OS new if I wanted to. Once the backup or New install is done your Mac will recognize there is a Mac OS volume and boot from it by default.

If your trying to do it a different way such as image the new hard drive you will need to have that image ready on an external drive/device. The imaging can be done from the Disk Utility in the recovery partition.

 

[TrentS]

I finally got it to work. TimeMachine was not allowing me to make that new HD a start up drive. So I wiped the TimeMachine files from it, downloaded the Yosemeti to my old HD, installed it on the new HD, and it rebooted on it automatically. Sweet! TimeMachine was totally messing everything up. So, now I have a 17" Macbook Pro with a 2 TB hard drive. Next I will upgrade from 4 Gigs of RAM to 8 Gigs!

 

[DblHelix]

I finally got it to work. TimeMachine was not allowing me to make that new HD a start up drive. So I wiped the TimeMachine files from it, downloaded the Yosemeti to my old HD, installed it on the new HD, and it rebooted on it automatically. Sweet! TimeMachine was totally messing everything up. So, now I have a 17" Macbook Pro with a 2 TB hard drive. Next I will upgrade from 4 Gigs of RAM to 8 Gigs!

I just did this on mine yesterday. I had the factory 5400rpm drive in mine and had a memory module fail on me so picked up 16gb of memory and a new hybrid 1TB HDD. All I did was plug it in, boot into internet recovery, partitioned, erased as journaled and installed from internet recovery and upgraded to El Capitan public beta. Working great for me and super easy. Had no old data I needed to keep. Anything I care about is in the cloud. Computer is much faster and back to running how it should.