07-15-2009, 03:38 PM

I just got off the phone with Apple Care and I was told that I couldn't upgrade my hard drive. Is this true? and if not what hard drives will work with my MacBook?

I have a Late 2008 MacBook
Intel Core 2 Duo
2 GHz Processor

07-15-2009, 04:12 PM

You don't go to AppleCare to upgrade your hard drive.
You go to AppleCare if there is something really wrong with your Mac, like a failed logicboard.

And you can replace the RAM and Hard Drive yourself.

Get a 2.5" SATA notebook Hard Drive and you'll be fine.

07-15-2009, 04:17 PM

Originally Posted by empty_noise

You don't go to AppleCare to upgrade your hard drive.
You go to AppleCare if there is something really wrong with your Mac, like a failed logicboard.

And you can replace the RAM and Hard Drive yourself.

Get a 2.5" SATA notebook Hard Drive and you'll be fine.

Yeah I know that I wanted to know what kind of Hard Drive I needed. thats all. and thank you very much

07-15-2009, 04:47 PM

You might find my guide useful

YouTube - Guide: How To Swap / Upgrade Hard Drive / HDD and RAM / Memory In A 2009 Apple MacBook Pro 13"

07-15-2009, 04:52 PM

Tip: keep your OEM HDD and RAM in case you need to send it back in to Apple at some point. They get cranky when folks send in systems with "non-Apple" components installed.

I personally have had good luck with the Seagate Momentus 7200rpm 2.5" SATA HDD's and the Super Talent Masterdrive SX 128GB 2.5" SATA2 drive in MacBooks, MacBook Pro's and Mac Mini's. Good luck!

07-15-2009, 09:32 PM

XJ-linux, I just bought a 500GB seagate momentus 7200rpm for my macbook and I've copied my hdd using super duper but when I try to boot from it while it's still in the external drive it's not working. Am I doing something wrong? I'm following directions I've watched and read online. Please help me.

07-15-2009, 10:10 PM

Originally Posted by XJ-linux

Tip: keep your OEM HDD and RAM in case you need to send it back in to Apple at some point. They get cranky when folks send in systems with "non-Apple" components installed.

I personally have had good luck with the Seagate Momentus 7200rpm 2.5" SATA HDD's and the Super Talent Masterdrive SX 128GB 2.5" SATA2 drive in MacBooks, MacBook Pro's and Mac Mini's. Good luck!

are the factory HDs 7200rpm? and if not what is the difference and will there be a change in battery life?

07-15-2009, 11:18 PM

Originally Posted by newtomac22

are the factory HDs 7200rpm? and if not what is the difference and will there be a change in battery life?

spins faster (rpm, if know anything about cars cough), should seek/write faster, use more power and hotter.

07-15-2009, 11:29 PM

now i am also upgrading the RAM and I was wondering if it made a difference which one I upgraded first. The RAM or the HD.

07-16-2009, 12:11 AM

ram first, harddrive is just for storage, depends on what your running you might not notice any difference with a higher rpm drive, unlike desktop drives, notebook drives dont have add memory for buffering/cache.

my MB came with a 80 gb drive and 1gb ram, i had a 320 gb drive sitting around so it cost me nothing to upgrade, on monday i found a local guy with 2gb ram from his imac, so i bought it for $20 cnd (good deal ) by years end i want 4gb ram

07-16-2009, 12:42 AM

okay then that works. now when I install the new HD what do I do? do I just boot up the Mac OSX Install Disc?

07-16-2009, 12:56 AM

Get your new hard drive, put it into an enclosure and connect it to your Mac.

Use Superduper and clone your existing hard drive to your new one.

SuperDuper!
Standard Version is all you need and it's Free!

Just be sure to use "Backup – all files" in SuperDuper and once the cloning is done you will have a fully bootable copy of your old hard drive.

Then you just need to swap out your existing hard drive for your new drive and put your old one in your enclosure where you can do whatever with it.

Video of how to swap the hard drive:
YouTube - "Unibody" MacBook Hard Drive Installation

Once your new cloned hard drive is in just turn it on and your'll be right where you left off, with all your Apps, settings, etc., but with more space.

Don't really have to but you may want to run Disk Utility and repair disk permissions just in case.

07-16-2009, 02:23 AM

backing up my system was not a concern for me, i could have done it if i wanted to, the 320gb drive is from a western digital passport essential :lol , but i wanted a clean install.

am not sure if its worth spending the money on a case, if you can find a deal on a ext drive that would be the way to go..

07-16-2009, 07:20 AM

Would this HD work?

Newegg.com - Seagate Momentus 5400.6 ST9500325AS 500GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive - Laptop Hard Drives