Looking for confirmation for my plan...

Alright, I've done lots of research (yes, I'm a nerd), but being a Mac newbie (MBP just came today), I'd like to hear if this would work as it surely would with a Windows laptop.

My MBP has the 250GB hard drive in it. I'm planning on buying a 750GB internal drive (already have it picked out) and would like to put the 250GB hard drive in an external case for backups. Based on what I've read, all I will basically need to do when I install the new drive is boot from the OSX CD and follow the prompts? From there the computer should boot up just like it did for the first time for me earlier today? I build and service PCs so this all seems very logical to me, but I just got my first Mac today!!

Thanks for the input!!

The only thing you'll need to do that is not prompted for is initialize the drive so it is recognized by the installer. When you boot from the install dvd, you will eventually get to a screen with a the menu bar at the top, click the utilities menu and run disk utility and create a single partition as hfs+ journaled and apply that. It shouldn't take long and then the drive will be ready for OS install.

Nethfel said:

The only thing you'll need to do that is not prompted for is initialize the drive so it is recognized by the installer. When you boot from the install dvd, you will eventually get to a screen with a the menu bar at the top, click the utilities menu and run disk utility and create a single partition as hfs+ journaled and apply that. It shouldn't take long and then the drive will be ready for OS install.

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Excellent! This is exactly the information I was looking for!

This sounds similar to Windows' blue screen where you can format any available drives.

Thank you very much!!

Um ... I hate to (possibly) rain on the parade, but I believe I read somewhere that the 750GBs are too thick for the MBPs. Those drives are 12.5mm and the MBP will only take 9.5mm ... hopefully I'm mistaken but that's what I've read ...

chas_m said:

Um ... I hate to (possibly) rain on the parade, but I believe I read somewhere that the 750GBs are too thick for the MBPs. Those drives are 12.5mm and the MBP will only take 9.5mm ... hopefully I'm mistaken but that's what I've read ...

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Yep, verify the height of that drive. If it is one of the new 12.5mm drives, do some googling to see if anyone has had success in using one of them before you buy.

I couldn't find a positive answer to whether or not the 12.5mm drive would work (although it seemed like it would). I ordered a 9.5mm 750GB drive last night. Thanks for the concern.

Newegg.com - Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD7500BPVT 750GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive