Swapping hard drive?

[asmith1802]

I have got a 13" macbook pro (500GB HDD/ 4GB RAM) to replace my older white macbook. I had recently replaced the HDD in the macbook with a 750GB hybrid drive and had been updated to OSX Mavericks. Would it be possible/sensible to swap this drive straight into the macbook pro? Would it work/start/recognise the hybrid drive as having the OS on it? I would also be putting 8GB of memory in at the same time

Thanks

 

[Intell]

Yes, you can swap it without a problem so long as it is not a retina Macbook as those have a different incompatible hard drive connector.

 

[disasterdrone]

Yes, you can swap it without a problem so long as it is not a retina Macbook as those have a different incompatible hard drive connector.

Woah - it depends. I mean, yes, but make sure that the OS is able to drive the new machine. You may want to reinstall, depending on what you have on the old device. It may not have the most recent drivers etc.

 

[Intell]

Woah - it depends. I mean, yes, but make sure that the OS is able to drive the new machine. You may want to reinstall, depending on what you have on the old device. It may not have the most recent drivers etc.

Source machine has 10.9, latest version of Mac OS X. Target machine must not be retina. No compatibility issues with asmith1802's swap. He could even theatrically swap it into a new Mac Pro (let's just pretend that it'll fit) without problem because it would be running 10.9.1, while the Mac Pros ship with 10.9.0. He could put that drive into any machine that can boot into 10.9 and it would work just fine without problem.

 

[heisenberg123]

Woah - it depends. I mean, yes, but make sure that the OS is able to drive the new machine. You may want to reinstall, depending on what you have on the old device. It may not have the most recent drivers etc.

agreed it may work but I would rather backup any files on the white MB to an external


make a bootable version of OSX mavericks

if your not sure how re-download the mavericks install file, but quit out when it says click next to continue

than I use diskmaker x all you need is a blank 8GB USB stick and follow the instructions, be patient it looks like it might not be doing anything but its creating the bootable usb, you will hear homer simpson say wooohooo when its done

once its done, put the hard drive in the new MBP and boot up and hit CMD R to enter recovery menu, you can now erase the hard drive in disk utility

once its erased you restart, this time hit option on boot up and it will detect your usb with mavericks on it, just install on the now blank hard drive and you will have a clean install

 

[Intell]

Not "may work", it will work. Every installation of Mavericks has the correct drivers and other files needed to boot on any machine from a 2007 iMac to a retina Macbook Pro. All you need to do is clone it or swap the drive. There are no compatibility problems or other issues when using an older drive that has been upgraded to the latest version of Mac OS X.

 

[disasterdrone]

Source machine has 10.9, latest version of Mac OS X. Target machine must not be retina. No compatibility issues with asmith1802's swap. He could even theatrically swap it into a new Mac Pro (let's just pretend that it'll fit) without problem because it would be running 10.9.1, while the Mac Pros ship with 10.9.0. He could put that drive into any machine that can boot into 10.9 and it would work just fine without problem.

I missed that the original drive was running Mavericks - agree that should work, just wanted to make the point that when doing this it's important to check the OS version.