Swap HD from newer MBP to Older MBP?

[WonderWyze]

Hey all,

New around here, but have found many answers to questions in these forums in the past.

But my current situation finally made me register. I had a 2011 13" MBP die due to a drink spill, logic board is done but the HD is fine. Was wondering if I could swap the hard drive from this "newer" machine into my 2009 15" MBP that's just been sitting around.

I was only able to find threads about swapping old HDs into newer machines, but never the reverse so I'm not sure if this would work.

Older Machine is currently running the latest version El Capitan and the newer machine was running Sierra before it met its demise.

Would love any advice.

Thanks,
WW

 

[robvas]

Yes you can.

 

[leman]

It will probably work, but the safest option would be to migrate the data from the HDD using an external enclosure.

 

[MacInTO]

If Sierra is supported on the 2009, then it will work.

 

[ZapNZs]

It would be an unsupported operating system on a 2009 MBP, although many are running Sierra on unsupported Macs - as it is a 15-inch, does Sierra have the kexts for the 2009 GPU?

 

[WonderWyze]

It would be an unsupported operating system on a 2009 MBP, although many are running Sierra on unsupported Macs - as it is a 15-inch, does Sierra have the kexts for the 2009 GPU?

To be honest, I'd be lying if I told you I know what you're talking about...lol.

 

[MacInTO]

To be honest, I'd be lying if I told you I know what you're talking about...lol.

In layman's terms, it won't work by simply swapping the drive.

However, you can hack it to make it run.

The answer to how it's done is on this forum or Google, I'm sure!