Best Buy offer educational discount and does Apple upgrade hard drives?

So as of right now I'm about 3/4 the way to the entry level MBP cash wise. The only major problem is that over $400 of that is a best buy gift card from returning my xbox 360 and I'm also looking to get a 160GB hard drive. I'm wondering if Best buy does the same educational discount as Apple as this would help quite a bit and also if they offer any customized systems. I know I've seen systems with different size hard drive on macmall. If not would Apple be willing to upgrade the hard drive for a small fee if I brought it in brand new. Thanks for any feedback.

I believe the educational discount is only threw Apple. My suggestion is the buy the computer directly from Apple (to cut out any middleman) and then find a compatible hard drive at Best Buy to buy with your gift card. There's no need to have Apple install it (i don't think they would anyways) because it's not hard to do yourself.

Yeh I just heard it would void your warranty to replace in the hard drive in the MBP's plus I saw a video on youtube and man you seriously have to take every screw out and remove the keyboard just to get to it. I guess I was being a little impatient since Macworld is next week and with a semester of school I won't have the money until during/after the summer when I can work. If I could use that giftcard I could possibly borrow a little cash from the folks and just repay them but o well. Thought I would check. Thanks for your quick response!

Hope for Chaos said:

Yeh I just heard it would void your warranty to replace in the hard drive in the MBP's...

Click to expand...

Not sure about that. I believe the hard drive is a user serviceable item. Meaning the user can upgrade and remove as they wish.

Before you pick up the computer from Best Buy (and they do offer the educational discount if they have one of the Apple kiosks in their store), go into the Apple Store and ask about the MBP and the hard disk. Talk to a genius real quick. They'll know.

I've been told by Apple that they will not upgrade a hard drive after the fact. An authorized Apple Service Center can (these can be found on Apple's website at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304398) and you should utilize this for a HD upgrade in the MBP. As you said, installing one yourself can void your Applecare. I have called two of the service centers here in the Seattle area and have been quoted between $60-90 to perform the installation (I am having a WD 320gb drive installed later this week) and told anywhere from 48-72 hours without my laptop. This is for the hardware portion only. They'll charge you significantly more if you want them to transfer your data. A cheaper alternative is a $30 external USB SATA case. I'm right now using one I picked up at Fry's to perform a carbon copy of my stock internal drive to my new 320gb drive, so that when it is installed, I'll be able to boot from it immediately.

Also, Apple's discounts are not offered by third parties. You'd be better off using Apple's Educational Discount (which will probably drop the cost of your new MBP by at least $200) and saving the $400 gift card for software and an external drive for backups.

That sounds pretty good djames. I actually looked the service centers up and found two apple stores listed. Will they do the work if they are listed as a Service Provider? I definitely think I'll have to wait a while longer and just get the money and do this thing right. I already plan to upgrade the ram to 4GB just because of how cheap it is after market and if any capacity hard drive can be installed for less than $100 why risk going too small right? I am curious though if I get a brand new MBP and take it in and get a bigger hard drive put in can I just use the leopard disk that comes with it and install leopard when I get the computer back? I wouldn't do anything serious before I got the hard drive in since this will be over the summer before I head back to school. Thanks a lot for all your guys' help. I didn't think I would get this much help for being a little impatient.

your right, changing the hard drive in the mbp is not user changeable and indeed voids the warranty. best bet is to buy directly from apple and keep it safe.

kkelly122 said:

your right, changing the hard drive in the mbp is not user changeable and indeed voids the warranty. best bet is to buy directly from apple and keep it safe.

Click to expand...

Or again, buying it from Apple and paying an authorised agent to upgrade it later. You're not likely going to save any money this way though -- I see Apple is charging $225 for a 250gb upgrade. The drives can be found on newegg for about $150. Add $90 for the install and you're over the top already. Since the OP gets a student discount, the upgrade would be closer to $130 anyway...

Hope for Chaos said:

That sounds pretty good djames. I actually looked the service centers up and found two apple stores listed. Will they do the work if they are listed as a Service Provider? I definitely think I'll have to wait a while longer and just get the money and do this thing right. I already plan to upgrade the ram to 4GB just because of how cheap it is after market and if any capacity hard drive can be installed for less than $100 why risk going too small right? I am curious though if I get a brand new MBP and take it in and get a bigger hard drive put in can I just use the leopard disk that comes with it and install leopard when I get the computer back? I wouldn't do anything serious before I got the hard drive in since this will be over the summer before I head back to school. Thanks a lot for all your guys' help. I didn't think I would get this much help for being a little impatient.

Click to expand...

They should do the work, but obviously I'd call first. The two shops here said they'd take it on a drop-in basis, but some shops might want you to schedule it.

As for reinstalling the OS, your MBP will come with a hardware-depending install disk. You boot off it and can reinstall the OS and iLife apps and your system will look the way it came from Apple (only with more free space). You can also install the optional components such as X11 and xcode.

Another alternative however; this is what I have done. Because I intended on keeping my old 7200rpm 100gb drive as an external anyway, I bought a USB-powered SATA 2.5" drive case. When my 320gb drive showed yesterday, I installed it into the external case. I then used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my internal drive to the new 320gb drive. Now when I have the shop move the 320gb drive into my MBP, I'll simply be able to boot right off it.

If you've not installed applications and set up your work environment however, then performing a clean install will be faster (and you can save some space by selectively choosing not to install printer drivers and international fonts you don't need).

Thanks for all your guys' again I really appreciate it. I did some looking on newegg and a good number of people talk about hard drives crapping out and while this happens I really don't wana pay $90 to install a bad hard drive and have to pay again to replace it. I think for the next little bit I'll wait and see what MAC World has in store for upgrades and possibly the cheaper after market parts will play some part in Apple's pricing. I'm hoping for bigger hard drives in the current models at the same price. Fingers crossed right. But thanks again for all your feedback and I'm sure I'll be back in the near future.

the upgrade would be closer to $130 anyway

Click to expand...

I doubt you'd get discount on a drive and install.
The only discount I got was on the actual mac itself at 5%