thinking about a new hard drive

[billyjoegibsonx]

Just bought the standard 2.4ghz 13.3" aluminium macbook with 250gb storage n 2gb ram. I know how to do ram upgrades, but i want to upgrade my hard drive to 320gb. i know i could have got apple to do it online, but i wanted to buy it there and then in the shop. I have never installed a new hard drive before and i've looked about but can't find anywhere to help me.

If i go out and buy the correct hard drive, what do i need to do ? How do i install Mac OSX on to it ? can i use the discs i got with my mac? or do i need to buy another copy ?

any websites or help would greatly be appreciated

thank you

 

[misterredman]

You just need to swap the drive inside the mac with the new one, as explained here:

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/MacBook_13inch_Aluminum_Late2008.pdf

No need to get another copy since you will be using the OS on the same machine.
What you can do is get an external enclosure for your "old" internal drive to use as an external backup drive (for time machine or else). In that case you will not even need to reinstall everything. Just follow this procedure:

1)install the new drive in the external enclosure (USB) and connect it to the macbook.
2)Install Carbon Copy Cloner or Superduper (both available for free online) and clone the internal drive to the external (at the end you have two exact copies, one internal and one external).
3)test the external drive by booting from it (hold down the option key and select that drive). If everything is alright proceed.
4)swap the internal drive with the external one (see the guide above)
5)Test everything is working as expected, then you can format the old drive in the external enclosure and use it.
6)Done!