Changed HD on MB pro

so here goes I went to change my HD on my macbook pro in hong kong as I am selling it and getting the new one. When I went in they said it would take an hour and I said no just change it I will put the os in myself when I get home. So they told me to come back in 15 minutes which I did, paid, they gave me my old HD and I left. When I got home I turned it on and the os was already installed! It was the choose language screen. I phoned them up and asked them how this is possible and they said that the HD's they buy come with the os already installed and the shop assistant fifnt format the hd. So why did they say it would take an hour if I wanted the os putting in?!

This is a proper mac shop they dont sell anything but macs but there is something fishy going on here and I dont know what. Has anyone got any ideas? I am going back tomorrow to confront them but what could they possibly have done to make them talk complete bull sh!t like this (sorry for swearing).

So why did they say it would take an hour if I wanted the os putting in?!

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It probably took an hour because your machine wasn't the only one they were working on that day and it takes a little time to actually do the swap. I don't really understand why you are upset.

miles01110 said:

It probably took an hour because your machine wasn't the only one they were working on that day and it takes a little time to actually do the swap. I don't really understand why you are upset.

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miles no you read it wrong mate. They said 1 hour with the OS installed HD or 15 minutes with a new HD and no OS installed. I waited 15 minutes, took it home and it already had the OS installed. How can this be?!

really confusing me lol anyone ANY ideas?

Where was this?

It takes a bit more than 15 minutes to swap a hard disk and install OS X, even if you have a good image ready to load. Either you didn't get a new hard disk at all, or you got a used one from a similar system that already had the OS installed.

Sounds fishy to me. Where did you go to get this done? Doesn't sound like the Apple Store. >_>"

thats what i thought. they said they bought the HD with os x already installed. it was a propper apple retailer they only sell macs etc

To save time, the shop may pre-format bare drives and then put them in their stock room, with the expectation that 99% of the customer's will ask for an OS install when they buy a new HD. This can save a lot of time in a high volume shop as the formatting & OS install can easily add a lot of time to an HD upgrade.

With practice, 15 min to R&R a HD is doable. If you do 2 or 3 machines a day, you get pretty good at it.

As I understand Mac OS licensing, they aren't doing anything wrong as long as the new HD OS is the same version as your old HD OS. Not an upgrade, and you already own the license.

Effectively, they saved you a lot of time by pre-formating the HD - but they didn't get paid for it.

ok thats great tice thanks. Is there any way of knowing that the old HD they gave me is definitely mine as I did a fresh instal on it and wiped everything before I took it in like.