Hard drive replacement question

All right, question time. First off, I am loving my MacBook, had it since February now and I just adore the little thing.

I will be going off to grad school next year and going from a big house to a 300 sq. foot apartment (going back to school as an adult is scary). This is forcing me to simplify. The PC desktop/gaming computer won't be coming. However that computer is my file server due to its huge hard disk. My MacBook has a 60GB drive, this is not big enough if its the only machine I have (and it will be). So, I need to upgrade that hard drive.

My questions:
1. Am I correct that standard laptop hard drives will work? I don't have to buy the hard drive through apple?
2. What's the best way to do the transfer. I really don't want to change all my settings, download and install all my apps, transfer my files, etc all over again. Is there a way to make a disk image of the old drive and drop it onto the new? What is the easiest way to manage this upgrade without spending days getting my precious little MacBook setup again?

Thanks all
Tandaina

1. Yes.
2. Best way is to make an image using Disk Utility (via booting from the install DVD) or using CarbonCloner. Not sure if it will restore to a larger HDD though (it should, but just someone else say confirm).

Shortest route is, Backup old HDD using Disk Utility (make sure you burn your really important docs on a separate disk as separate files just in case). Then remove the HDD, plug in the new one (I'm not sure if this voids warranty, I think it does) and then restore the image using the disk utility via booting from install disk again

get an external enclosure with your new HD. Put the new HD in the enclosure, use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your old HD to the new one, then swap the HDs. Worked beautifully for me.

visualpurple said:

get an external enclosure with your new HD. Put the new HD in the enclosure, use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your old HD to the new one, then swap the HDs. Worked beautifully for me.

Click to expand...

can you post a link of the enclosure you bought?
would this one work?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156102

Any external enclosure would work... as long as it recognises as an external disk in OS X...

goobimama said:

(I'm not sure if this voids warranty, I think it does)

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From what I heard,

they don't implicitly state you can't open it up

but they don't encourage it as well

goobimama said:

Any external enclosure would work... as long as it recognises as an external disk in OS X...

Click to expand...

OS X will recognize (i.e. READ) NTSC or FAT32 in the PC formats, BUT (and this is important) you can't WRITE to the hard drive unless it's in the FAT32 format

most HDDs are not, so you'll probably have to reformat it

reko said:

From what I heard,

they don't implicitly state you can't open it up

but they don't encourage it as well

Click to expand...

Yes they do. They even provide step-by-step instructions
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/MacBook_13inch_HardDrive_DIY.pdf

Of course, if you break it while doing so, the warranty doesn't apply.

Well he's talking about enclosures...so it won't make a difference in that case...

technologist said:

Yes they do. They even provide step-by-step instructions
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/MacBook_13inch_HardDrive_DIY.pdf

Of course, if you break it while doing so, the warranty doesn't apply.

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thank you for clearing that up.

FYI: keep your OEM hard drive stashed away somewhere. If you must send your Mac in to Apple, they will refuse to do warranty work on it if the drive (or any other component) was not installed by them or one of their certified service partners. I keep mine around and use SuperDuper (freeware) to make bit-to-bit copies every couple of months.

technologist is correct as always.

I just went from a 40GB 2.5" Hard Drive in my ibook G4 to a new 120GB. What I did was install the new drive, (Not an easy task on an iBook), put in the Install DVD and install the OS and programs like it was new, then put the 40GB drive in an external FW400 case, booted the iBook and opened the Migration Assistant and told it to migrate from the 40GB drive. All is back to like it was except there is around 100GB free now!

By the way, on an iBook you CAN NOT put in a drive yourself. My Apple Care was gone and I know what I am doing, so I went for it. Not one issue.

Just a couple of ideas for you to consider here.

80-120GB drives will only run you about $80 or less from newegg - so not bad.

The newer 160-250GB drives will be more in the $150-200 range.

For about $130, you can get a 500GB external drive, $30 for SuperDuper! - Create 2 partitions on the external - one small partition for a bootable backup; now if your internal crashes, you merely boot from the backup and keep going; and a larger partition for data storage, of course this data would not be backed up.

Thanks for the information all.

tandaina said:

Thanks for the information all.

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What drives are allowable on the macbook? Any 7200 rpm SATA will do fine?