Advice Needed

I'm relatively new to the Mac game and my HDD on my Mid '09 Macbook Pro has gone kaput. I am wondering which HDD to buy to replace it. Do I need one that is already formatted for use with OS X? Or can I literally just buy any SATA 2.5" HDD and throw it in?

I would be extremely grateful for any help on this matter. Thanks in advance.

Matt J said:

Or can I literally just buy any SATA 2.5" HDD and throw it in?

Click to expand...

This is pretty much all you have to do:

- buy an HD from a reputable manufacturer
- install it
- format the HD for use on a Mac (if it is not already formatted)
- then install the Mac OS (10.6 or 10.7 I would assume for you)

Check these guys out:

OWC

...they're pretty good.

- Nick

How do I go about formatting it for Mac? Where can I find "Mac Ready" internal HDDs?

Matt J said:

How do I go about formatting it for Mac? Where can I find "Mac Ready" internal HDDs?

Click to expand...

You don't really find "Mac-Ready" hard drives...they're just about all "Mac-Ready"...you just have to format it to use in a Mac. To do this you need:

- A bootable disk (DVD) such as an OS install disk (which you "boot" the computer from)
- Then you open "Disk Utility" to format the HD to "Mac OS Extended-Journeled".
- Then you quit Disk Utility & proceed with the OS install

- Nick

If, for one reason or another, you plan on upgrading to Lion, you'll need a copy of the InstallESD.dmg burnt to a cd. Otherwise they'll just try to get you to upgrade OTA or using a flash drive from one of their Apple stores. Just as a heads up.
I had to pop a new HDD in my 2011 Macbook Pro about a month ago.

pigoo3 said:

You don't really find "Mac-Ready" hard drives...they're just about all "Mac-Ready"...you just have to format it to use in a Mac. To do this you need:

- A bootable disk (DVD) such as an OS install disk (which you "boot" the computer from)
- Then you open "Disk Utility" to format the HD to "Mac OS Extended-Journeled".
- Then you quit Disk Utility & proceed with the OS install

- Nick

Click to expand...

Thanks, this seems pretty straightforward. One more thing though; I placed my PS3 HDD into my MBP, just to make sure it was my original HDD that was the problem. When I installed the HDD from the PS3, I couldn't even get it to boot.

Is this because the drive is in a format my MBP isn't recognizing? Now, I'm thinking maybe I have a different hardware problem...

Matt J said:

Is this because the drive is in a format my MBP isn't recognizing?

Click to expand...

Exactly! In most cases you can't just swap HD's from one device to another like that...there are hard drive format issues to deal with.

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

Exactly! In most cases you can't just swap HD's from one device to another like that...there are hard drive format issues to deal with.

- Nick

Click to expand...

Sweet! Thanks again Nick. I really hope to be back online with my Mac soon

Did you have the OSX DVD in the drive and hold C till it started to boot? Macs do not boot from Sony PS3 OS!

What were the symptoms of the hard drive dying?

Matt J said:

Sweet! Thanks again Nick. I really hope to be back online with my Mac soon

Click to expand...

If you had an extra 2.5" working HD laying around...and you had the proper Mac OS install disk to boot from to do the HD formatting...then this would be a great way to troubleshoot the problem.

Otherwise...you have to purchase an HD (and have the proper OS disk) to create a bootable HD to insure the old HD is bad. Using the PS3 HD was a great idea...except I'm thinking that you don't want to reformat it for your Mac...otherwise it won't work in your PS3.

- Nick

dtravis7 said:

Did you have the OSX DVD in the drive and hold C till it started to boot? Macs do not boot from Sony PS3 OS!

What were the symptoms of the hard drive dying?

Click to expand...

When I tried starting up my MBP, I came to a grey screen with a "?" folder. I tried running Disk Utility to verify and repair but I received an improper node error on b tree. Or...something to that effect.

dtravis7 said:

Did you have the OSX DVD in the drive and hold C till it started to boot? Macs do not boot from Sony PS3 OS!

What were the symptoms of the hard drive dying?

Click to expand...

Oh, and no I didn't hold C, or if I did, nothing happened.

You just need your install disks and you'll be fine with almost any HDD. I took the Seagate Momentus HDD from my dad's ThinkPad, installed it, and after booting the OSX install disks had it running my OS in no time. Just hold the C key when trying to boot so it boots from the disk.

Well, I finally bought a new drive, installed it, and now more trouble. When I come to the screen to "Select a Destination" to install OS X on my new drive, my drive isn't listed. If I run disk utility, it recognizes the drive. What am I doing wrong here?

run Disk Utility and Partition or Erase the Drive! Mac OSX Extended Journalized. I do a partition and select one then under advanced be SURE GUID is selected of OSX will not boot.

Then it should show up in the installer.