Transferring Hard drives between MBP's?

[InternetSandman]

Aight, first things first, I'm new to the MacRumors forums, so hi everybody =D

Second, and more importantly, I currently have a 15 inch core i5 2.4 GHz first gen MBP, with a 256GB SSD and hi-res antiglare display, and I'm looking to upgrade to the new 17 inch MBP. Trouble is, if I buy the 17 inch with the same upgrades as I bought the 15 inch with, even after I sell my old 15 inch I wind up at least $1000 out of pocket so far as I can work out

My question lies here: since the big money is in the SSD, is it possible for me to purchase the 17 inch MBP with only the antiglare screen, and the cheapest hard drive option, pop the SSD out of my current MBP and into the new one (swapping the drives altogether, if you will), and then selling the 15 inch for a lesser price.

First of all, I want to know if it's possible to swap the hard drives, and whether or not the systems will still be fully functional (would I have to reinstall the OS? no problem of course, just looking for guidelines), and secondly, whether this might provide a better value option

 

[TheHoff]

Yes, you can do just that. You can move your old SSD to the new machine.

You WILL have to reinstall but all of your users and settings will remain. The new MBPs have special drivers included in the provided SL disc and your old SL installation will not work. So simply move the drive over, pop the new SL disc in the new machine, boot up while holding "C" and perform the reinstall.

 

[panzer06]

Yes, you can do just that. You can move your old SSD to the new machine.

You WILL have to reinstall but all of your users and settings will remain. The new MBPs have special drivers included in the provided SL disc and your old SL installation will not work. So simply move the drive over, pop the new SL disc in the new machine, boot up while holding "C" and perform the reinstall.

Sometimes moving the drive works fine. Boot the old mac in target disk mode and connect to the new mac with fw800 cable and bootbthe new mac with the option key pressed until the boot drive choice is displayed. Pick the drive in the old mac. If it boots and everything works you would be fine.

I've moved drives from MBP to iMac to mini and iMac 7,1 to 9,1 and booted from old external versions of leopard on all the machines.

Cheers,

 

[TheHoff]

Sometimes moving the drive works fine. Boot the old mac in target disk mode and connect to the new mac with fw800 cable and bootbthe new mac with the option key pressed until the boot drive choice is displayed. Pick the drive in the old mac. If it boots and everything works you would be fine.

I've moved drives from MBP to iMac to mini and iMac 7,1 to 9,1 and booted from old external versions of leopard on all the machines.

Cheers,

Right, I'm with you. I fully expected to be able to move my SSD to the new MBP without the reinstall... but I don't think it is possible now since the 2011 MBP requires new files from the SL disc that don't exist in any other installation.