I just wanted to do a quick writeup of what I've learned from upgrading my 2006 White Macbook from a 60gb 5400 Seagate drive (came with it) to the 7200 RPM 320 GB Western Digital Scorpio Black.
First of all, there's some discussion of whether the new drive vibrates, and the answer is yes it does to some degree. The 5400 isn't even perceptible, but the Scorpio Black makes the entire machine feel more like a computer instead of just a paperweight. (if that makes sense) Finder seems to work a little quicker now and programs load faster. I think the 16MB cache helps a lot in this respect (vs. 8MB for most 5400 drives.)
My computer has Tiger and boot camp beta installed with a split drive between Windows and Mac. I realized that I could not really rescue the Windows partition using Tiger, but apparently this is possible with a program called winclone on a Leopard machine. So I'm going to put the old drive into an external usb case for when or if I need Windows down the road.
Here's what you need to do this:
1. An External USB drive bigger than your internal drive (or with more space than the stuff you want to keep). Mine is 160GB.
2. Tiny/Jeweler size Philips screwdriver
3. Size 8 Torx driver. This is smaller than most sets provide, so you will probably need to go to Sears or a good hardware store and pick up one of this size for about $4.
4. a coin
A. Connect the USB drive to your macbook. Open Disk Utility and make sure the drive is formatted GUID with OSX Filesystem (Journaled). If you have a Windows files system on your external drive, this WILL NOT WORK.
B. Download Carbon Copy Cloner. Start up the program and start a backup from your original hard drive over to the USB drive. You may get a couple of error messages, but they probably don't matter.
C. Reboot the computer and make sure you can boot into the USB drive. You do this by holding Option when the computer makes the startup sound.
D. If everything looks good on the USB drive, you can shut down the computer.
E. Remove the battery with the coin.
F. Take off the metal L-shaped thing that holds in the memory and the hard drive. You need to undo 3 little phillips screws.
G. Pull the white plastic strip to remove the hard drive. Need to be careful at this point to avoid any static discharges, so take at least one shoe off and make sure your foot is on the ground.
H. Use the size 8 Torx to remove the hard drive carriage. Replace the old drive with the new one. Put the old one into the static bag.
I. Put everything back together. Note: when replacing the L-bracket, you should use a small flat-head screwdriver to stuff the memory buffer material back into their slots. Start up the computer.
Should boot into OSX, but you may have to hold the option key to get it to boot up. I've had this problem, but I think I may not have used GUID to format the disk.
Has anyone tried the 500GB - 7200 PRM Seagate Drive for the Macbook Pro 15" Unibody ?I am considering getting one, but remembered they have 2 versions Which one should i get ?
I'm thinking of getting a refurb MBP but they come with a 5400rpm hard drive and I want a 7200rpm. Does anyone about how easy it is to replace the internal hard drive in a MBP and how much it would cost?
I am planning to buy the New 13inch MacBok Pro that came out this July. Is there a possibilty of upgrading the Hard drive to 7200 rpm like the way I did it in the old model. I have had news that its not possible to upgrade this machine as we did the previous one.
Because of the re-introduction of the matte displays, I'm thinking about purchasing a 2.8ghz Macbook Pro. To make up for the 50$ of non-conformist-punishment-tax for the matte option I'd like to downgrade to the 320gb 7200 RPM drive. I've read about the issues with the 500gb drives - does the 320gb version also have the chirp / beep issue?
I want to replace my 3 year old drives before it's too late.
I have about 200 gigs of data, split between a pair of Seagate Baracuda 7200rpm drives I bought 3 years ago.
I am thinking on going with a single 500 gig drive for my data, and I can't decide between a Caviar Black, or a Baracuda 7200.12.
I have read that the Caviar Black have incredible performance, , but only for the 1TB since it has 3 platters.
How do the 500gig models compare between WD and Seagate? I just don't have the need for more. My OS and Apps are on the SSD at 23 gigs, and all the rest of my work/personal files take up about 200 gigs.
Which is going to be better, the Black, or the Baracuda? 500 gig models only.
I'm looking at a MBP on CL and the seller has swapped out the HD and put in this WD Scorpio 320gb 7200 rpm HD. I'm wondering if any of you have this hard drive and can confirm it's quality or claim that it is of poor quality?
I had a MBP with a 7200 RPM, 320 GB Hitachi Hard drive. I sold the MBP and got a white nvidia MB, but I kept the 7200 RPM drive and used it in the white MB (I did not reinstall the OS). Everything works fine, but I've noticed that it takes a very long time to boot. From the time I turn the MB on, to the time the spinning disk appears, it takes approx. 60 seconds. Other than that, the MB works fine. Should I do a clean install of Leopard. Would this help the slow boot time?
I installed the hard drive with no problem and have experienced greater performance, no clicking nor vibration, and no freezeup or rainbow wheel. I also did a clean install of Snow Leopard. I did a PRAM reset at the beginning and calibrated my battery. However, now I noticed my battery is draining FAST, only lasting 2 hours. I looked a little online and discovered I may still need to reset the SMC (shift-control-option + power key), which I will do shortly. The battery lasted 6-7 hours before with my old hdd and is at 96% capacity.
I'm in a little need of assistance with my PowerBook G4 Alum. 1.67GHz. The Hard Drive it came with got fried a little while back (alas, not in warranty) and I have been hesitant to try to repair it myself in the past. However, I now wish to resurrect my machine, seeing as how if I don't try this, I might as well just buy a new laptop. What sort of HD should I buy?
I know it has to be "ATA" but (1) I have no idea what that means, and (2) There seem to be many different types of HDs. I have no problem disassembling my PowerBook but I am lost when it comes to its hard drive. I think I would like to get a HD with 7200 rpm and 80-100 GB. Also, when do you see Apple releasing a MacBook with a good graphics card that isn't integrated?
I just installed the 4G Ram easily but my next step is to install a bigger hard drive. I have the 120GB one. My question is when I install the new hard drive, do i start up the mac mini and load up the OSX restore disc that came in the box with the mini? I also installed iWork09, will I be able to install iWork09 in the new hard drive (i know the iWork09 only comes with 1 license key).
This is in regards to the 2010 mini. I have been reading up on SSD, Hybrids and FW800 with a 7200. What is the easiest AND most effective/cost effective solution? If I went he FW800 route, can I use the same drive as my data storage drive? Will there be enough headroom to run the OS over FW and use the drive to stream movies playing in another room on Apple TV2 simultaneously? Will this give me a performance increase over the internal 5400 if I use the external 7200 for everything over FW800?
That is where my thoughts about the hybrid come into play. I know I can stream the iTunes content over USB2, which I have at the moment for the big drive. I would need to go buy an enclosure with FW800 to run it as a boot drive. I could use that same money and go get a 500GB Hybrid drive and install myself and leave the USB2 as data only. If the install is painless but tedious, I might just do that. If the FW800 route would be robust enough to run the OS and stream data to other devices simultaneously (ie use it as I would the regular internal drive), I might just do that and wait for SSD prices to come tumbling down and do a bigger internal SSD in the future.
I upgraded my Mac Book Pro hard drive to a Hitachi 7200RPM 300GB Hard Drive in November. All of a sudden my Hard drive is full and I cannot explain why. I retrieved the folder size info from the six folders I have on my HD and it claims that I have filled up roughly 100GB on the hard drive. I understand the MAC OS X is roughly 4-5GBs, roughly another 15GB for threading the utility files, so I should still have at least 180GB of space free on the hard drive. I recently downloaded the application known as AZUREUS aka VUZE could this app have put some extraordinarily large hidden folders on my hard drive? I deleted this app but my HD is still stating that I have used up 278GB of space which I know cannot be right. Can anyone out there help me with this situation? I am lost and upset not sure what is going on. According to my hard disk utility I only have 2.6GB of space availble which is insane!
One more note around xmas I found that my MAC had crashed unexpectedly but is working fine right now expect for the fact the HD is full and I can only see roughly 100GB of files on my 300GB Hard drive.
So on my computer when I click on instal nothing happens. Also my software update app is not opening. Does anyone know a possible cause of this and maybe a possible solution.
I have a 13" mid 2009 MBP and due to issues with the superdrive I decided to buy the OWC data doubler kit and install it with a 120GB SSD from them. I also upgraded to 8GB RAM at the time but I do not believe that has anything to do with this. After I did this, my original HD freaked out and wouldn't even show up in target disk mode. Eventually I made a clone of the Snow Leopard install disks onto a USB stick using a friend's laptop and installed OSX fresh onto the SSD. Luckily I had a backup of everything so I have not lost anything. Even with the fresh install, however, I am having a lot of issues with the OS. When I try to boot the machine, it often takes 3, 4 or even 5 times to boot normally. As far as I remember, booting into safe mode works right away but that is obviously not a solution. Usually it starts by hanging at a blue screen once or twice, then I can get to the login screen but it is either kind of grayed out or it just freezes and I can't even move the mouse to type in my password. When I do safe mode it boots up without this issue, but even after that I often see the computer freeze up during use, which happened the first time I wrote this post. This problem also occurs when waking up from sleep. If the laptop goes to sleep by itself or I close it, I have to power cycle it to return to use. The keyboard will light up, but the screen never comes on so there is no way for me to log in. These issues are extremely frustrating and make me feel dumb for doing this in the first place, considering that everything worked ok before(minus the superdrive). Has anyone seen these issues before? Resetting PRAM and booting into single user mode are not helpful, I have tried them many, many times and I see the same issues. I saw somewhere else that I should try to remove the fonts, startup items, and loginwindow.plist files/folders and put them on the desktop, but even after doing that the issues persist.
I'm a complete newbie to Macs. Bought my first Mac and wanted to upgrade the hard drive and complete a fresh install with my OSX DVD that came with my system. When I change the drive how to I get the OS on the drive? Do I boot to the DVD or the HD? How do I boot the drive I need?
my white macbooks hard drive broke along with my cd drive. I purchased a new hard drive and put it in but now I have no way to install Leopard since my cd drive is broke.I do understand the best way would be to buy an external CD drive and use that but I would rather not waste all that money on one use.I do have a firewire cable and my friend has a white macbook. I've heard that you can boot using another computer and use there cd drive via firewire by holding "T" or whatever.
I'm literally two steps away from installing a new hard drive and I can't get the torx screws out. Is it absolutely vital I take them out and put them in the new hard drive?
So i was given a macbook Model: A1181, but without a hard drive. so i thought okay, ill go buy a hard drive. so i go to buy a hard drive, Sata, which what the computer is, and connect it. I have a copy of 10.4 laying around so i go to boot from that disc by holding down the "c" key on boot and there is the standard mac startup chime , but the screen remains white until it flashes the folder with a question mark saying that it can't find the startup disc i also tried to hold down option on boot for startup manager but all i get is a cursor and it never gets to the startup manager. How should i proceed, because i can't get the original hard drive.
I have recently upgraded my hard drive from 320GB to 1TB and i dont know how to install osx lion. I lost the CD i've got so i downloaded one from a torrent site but i dont know wat to do!
My hard drive died last week on my MacBook and I failed to back up anything forever the last couple of months. Anyway, I took it to the genius bar and they confirmed its death, and showed me how to replace it. I decided to go ahead and do so on my own, and also upgraded the memory while I was in there. I also decided to upgrade to lion since my DVD drive was giving me trouble and it'd be easier to use the USB - and yes the computer meets the requirements for Lion.The problem is that when I try to boot up to format the HD, I only get a black screen. No disk utility when holding option, nothing. What am I doing wrong?
I downloaded Mavericks to a flash drive in order to wipe my MBP hdd. I would now like to reinstall Mavericks onto the HDD but my flash drive is too small to redownload the installer. What can I do to get Mavericks back on my laptop?
Info: MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2010), OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)
Notes. Failed HDD ASD Test. A new hard drive was installed in September of 2011 after the previous hard drive failed. Having worked well until now the system seems to give the same problems as it had previously. I am wondering if this is a compatibility issue as others have pointed out.
I have been told by the technician my only option is to replace the entire hard drive again for the second time with a new one. However to my understanding a ASD test is very specific and this my not be necessary? Further I am attempting a final backup just in case. I don't have to take it in where I could just back it up myself without the system shutting down.
I have two WD 640gigs and the stock WD 500, and I am having trouble deciding on the the optimum configuration. I am open to suggestions. I use my computer for general use as well as for my video editing and graphic design hobbies if that info helps.
I am curious as to the benefits of of the following:
Drive 1 (640) partition 1: 150gig for OS partition 2: Bootcamp remainder: Offline storage
Would there be a noticeable benefit to having the applications being separate from the OS boot drive? What if anything else should be split across multiple HDs to increase speed? I've heard of moving the swap file from elsewhere on the forum but I am not sure as to what exactly that is nor the benefits of doing it.
My final question(s) is how exactly I could go by moving my application folder to another drive separate from the OS drive? Just drag and drop? What is this deal with making an alias?
I have purchase a new hard drive for my MacBook Pro Intel 2 Core duo and know how to do it, but once it is installed in the machine, I want to know how to install the operating system. The computer now is almost empty (only a few photos I have backed up) so there is no need to transfer any data. Do I just use the discs that came with it? Please tell me how I restore the system with this new hard drive.
I think I'm going to format my hard drive to delete everything from it and start fresh with leopard. I already have leopard installed, but I think I should just format my hard drive (after backing up what I truly need like my music and other files) and then just install leopard.
Question, I have read that I go to disk utility to do this (format and install leopard), is this correct? If so, what else do I need to know before I do this?
I have an Aluminum MacBook, is it possible to install Windows with boot camp from a thumb drive? I have access to the ISOs I need (from MSDNAA), but I ran out of CDR/DVDRs. Ideally I would extract the ISO onto the thumb drive and have it behave the same as if it was a CD, is it that simple or is there something else I will need to do?
