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Replacing the Hard Drive in my MacBook

tekulvi

tekulvi

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 27, 2008
51
0
Rotterdam Junction, NY
Just wondering if there are any best practices with regards to getting the data to and from the drive currently in my machine to the newest. I know I am probably opening pandora's box by asking for this because everyone has an idea on how to do it and i know alot of it is not uniform.

This is the link that apple provides for the physical DIY installation:

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/MacBook_13inch_HardDrive_DIY.pdf

The one thing I cannot find is a DIY guide the how to do the transfer of data. I know Migration Assistant is one way to get it done ( but I am sort of stuck on what comes 1st...sort of the chicken or the egg syndrome). Take out the harddrive and a fresh reinstall on the new is another method

Others say clone 1st...then do the Harddrive upgrade using a 3rd party.

I am pretty sure I can do the physical part...im probably overthinking the data transfer portion.

Any help is appriciated.
 
1. Buy extra hard drive.

2. Buy enclosure.

3. Enclose extra hard drive.

4. Clone internal w/Carbon Copy Cloner.

5. Turn off Macbook, replace drives.

6. Use internal in enclosure, if desired.
 
Get an external caddy along with your new drive. This means you can use the old drive as backup and will make the data transfer very easy.

1. Put new drive in caddy connect to machine as is.
2. format it in disk utility (hfs+) and then use Superduper to clone.
3. Boot from external to check that it works
4. Get out your screwdriver and follow instructions given and swap the new drive for the old drive.
 
tekulvi said:
Any step by step with Migration Assistant?
Click to expand...
Cloning is going to be your best bet. Irregardless, your going to need an external enclosure to house the new drive, unless you have a spare macbook laying around; then you would be able to use the migration assistant onto the new hard drive. I would just use carbon copy or superduper as previous persons have suggested. This way when you install the new cloned hard drive into your Macbook, it will be like booting exactly from where you left off with your previous drive.
 
All of the above, and keep in mind that the Apple manual linked above assumes the replacement disk will come with its own tray/shielding. Since yours probably won't, you'll need a T8 Torx head to move it over. See the free guides at ifixit.com for details, but it's pretty self explanatory once you're there.
 
Thanks for the advice. I actually purchased a WD Passport 320GB HD ( this comes in an enclosure). I am going to swap the drives out. I think i have the physical part down. So basically I should clone the drive 1st...then pop it out of the enclosure and remove the old and install the new. Put the old one in the enclosure and viola?
 
tekulvi said:
Thanks for the advice. I actually purchased a WD Passport 320GB HD ( this comes in an enclosure). I am going to swap the drives out. I think i have the physical part down. So basically I should clone the drive 1st...then pop it out of the enclosure and remove the old and install the new. Put the old one in the enclosure and viola?
Click to expand...

That should work, but it'd be best if you boot from the new drive still in the enclosure to make sure the cloning was successful. The swap them out.
 
What about Parallels on the clone?

I am ready to swap my 160GB harddrive with a new Western Digital 320 GB I got from OWC. I have superduper so I plan to clone. Has anyone done this that has Parallels installed with Window programs? Will the windoze applications and settings still work or heaven forbid do I need to reinstall all of this stuff. I am hoping EVERYTHING will stay the same. :confused:
 
I have not done this, but a Carbon Copy should Copy everything on the drive over, make sure you copy partitions etc. over too.
 
Success!

Did a restart, backed up the macbook on my new notebook drive I placed in the external enclosure with Super Duper. Then took out the hard drive in the macbook, put in the cloned hard drive, restarted and ViOLA! EVERYTHING worked just like before including all the programs on the windoze side! Beautiful software in SuperDuper, and what a painless process. Now I have a 320GB on the Macbook.
 
I just did an upgrade on my macbook. Follow that DIY guide.. you will need a T9 (torx screwdriver) to take the old hdd out of the casing and put the new one in. You can get away with using a wrench and grabbing around the screws to loosen them if you can't find a T9 locally (they can be found at Sears, Ace Hardware etc.....)

Here is what I did

1) Follow DIY Guide to take out HDD and put new one in.
2) Once drive is installed, and everything back together, boot up and put OS X DVD in drive
3) Format Drive using Disc Utility and install the OS
4) Backup from time machine backup
5) Done

I have a 320 gb WD HDD in my macbook now, absolutely love it. I'm sure there are other ways of installing, but this worked perfectly for me.

Pal
 
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