Moving HD from Macbook white to Macbook Unibody

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Just got hold of a Unibody macbook with a 160gb drive running Snow Leopard

Currently got a white Macbook with a 250gb drive (and all my apps and files on) running Leopard (Snow Leopard upgrade in the next few days)

What's the chances of me being able to take the HDD from my existing mac and drop it into the unibody?

Concerned that it won't have appropriate drivers etc.

If it's not possible to do a direct swap what's the best method of transfer?

TIA
mrplow
 

pigoo3

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Just got hold of a Unibody macbook with a 160gb drive running Snow Leopard

Currently got a white Macbook with a 250gb drive (and all my apps and files on) running Leopard (Snow Leopard upgrade in the next few days)

What's the chances of me being able to take the HDD from my existing mac and drop it into the unibody?

Concerned that it won't have appropriate drivers etc.

If it's not possible to do a direct swap what's the best method of transfer?

TIA
mrplow

This sounds like a very straight forward, fast, and easy way to transfer your MacBook "stuff" to your "Unibody.

Access to the hard drive on both computers is very easy...so as long as your comfortable doing the work yourself, and there are no warranty voiding issues...then I would say go for it...and in less than 30 minutes your hard drive swap should be complete.

The only possible issue I could foresee is...if the OS on the older MacBook is an older version of what I'm assuming is 10.5. The "Unibody" MacBooks shipped with OS 10.5.5...so if the OS on your older MacBook is less than 10.5.5...then there could be some glitches. Otherwise if both laptops are running the latest OS version (something like 10.5.7 or 10.5.8)...then the swap should go fine.

Good luck...let us know how it went!

- Nick
 
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mrplow
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All went very smoothly.

After the switch both macs took a couple of minutes longer to boot the first time then all was as normal. Very easy.

Thanks for the swift reply.

mrplow
 
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Try doing that on a Windows box and it will eat is own tail.

Been there done that :D, Microsoft even has instructions on how to reload the HAL so it doesn't do it but it still didn't work in my case. 3hrs of installing windows and apps was not fun :(
 

pigoo3

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All went very smoothly.

After the switch both macs took a couple of minutes longer to boot the first time then all was as normal. Very easy.

Thanks for the swift reply.

mrplow

Awesome, awesome, awesome...glad it worked!

My only real concern was that (since I'm assuming the Unibody laptop is newer)...that the newer laptop might have some newer features...that were not present in the older MacBook.

One example might be the track pad. The older MacBook may not have the 3 & 4 finger gesturing that the newer Unibody probably has.

But since both laptops were not too much difference in age...and maybe both had the same version of OS on the hard drives...everything was fine.

I have found that when I did the same thing as you (swapping hard drives) from one computer to another...that features that were not available in the older computer (because it was an older computer)...all of a sudden were available in the newer computer...from an OS software perspective.

Assuming both hard drives had the same version of the operating system on them.

I'm primarily talking about features or options that are available via the "System Preferences" programs.

I think that when the OS is installed...the OS programs contain more info than an older machine needs...and this "extra" info is for features that are available on newer computers. So if you put the hard drive from the older computer into a newer computer (same OS version)...then all of a sudden those features are "activated"...since the OS software "detects" them as being present in the new computer.

This may be why on the initial startup of your laptop that took a bit longer than usual...since the OS was detecting the hardware of the newer Unibody laptop.

In any case I'm glad the swap went fine. My one suggestion would be to run "Software Update" on the Unibody laptop just to make sure it is completely up to date.

Congrats again,

- Nick
 

pigoo3

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Try doing that on a Windows box and it will eat is own tail.

Been there done that :D, Microsoft even has instructions on how to reload the HAL so it doesn't do it but it still didn't work in my case. 3hrs of installing windows and apps was not fun :(

Very very funny...I really liked your analogy of a Windows "box" eating it's own tail!:)

Or maybe it's own tail-like power cord!;)

- Nick
 

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