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- Your Mac's Specs
- Macbook Pro 2.2GHz Intel i7 W/16GB Ram & 256GB SSD
I thought I would share my experience of replacing the hard drive in my wifes Macbook. Since I am a fairly recent switcher I hope this may help others that may be thinking of doing the same thing, switcher or veteran a like. Here goes:
First I bought a Segate 100GB 7200 RPM drive from OWC. When you buy one make sure it's a SATA drive.
I used Super Duper to create a backup of my internal drive to my external USB drive. I copied it as a partition and not a file (Super Duper gives you several different options). After the backup was done when i looked at my external USB drive it looked like my internal drive.
I then installed the new internal drive into the Macbook.
When i rebooted i held down the option key and booted off the USB drive. It was a little slow booting up but the hard drive had everything backed up from Super Duper and it was as if i booted from the old internal drive.
From here i used the Disk Utility, selected the internal drive partition (if you dont have one already on the new drive you will need to create one) selected restore and dragged the USB partition to the source area and then dragged the new internal drive to the target area. I selected Erase destination and selected copy.
After the copy was done i shut down, removed the external usb drive and then rebooted. Everything came up as if I always had that drive. It was a little slow at booting up the first time but after that it was normal.
A few things to note during this experience:
1. When i installed the new internal drive i used the restore DVD's to install a fresh copy of OS X. When i did this i used the disk utility to create the partition and then installed OS X.
2. I was hoping that all i had to do after i installed OS X fresh was to boot up, use Disk Utility to restore my backup image to the internal drive. The only problem with that is you can not select a drive that you booted from as the destination.
3. I then tried booting from the restore DVD's and use the Disk Utility from there to select the source and target drives but for some reason it didn't work. It didnt allow me to drag the drives.
4. Since i had Super Duper backup to my external usb drive as a partition i was able to boot from it and then do the steps i outlined above.
5. I noticed that when i tried opening Super Duper again after the copy from the external to the new internal it told me that i needed to attach or mount Macintosh HD. Even though the new drive was named Macintosh HD i think Super Duper knows the difference between the two and was looking for the external drive. All I had to do was re select the Macintosh HD from within the program and everything was fine.
I hope my experience will help some of you thinking of replacing your HD. Their may be an easier way than what i did but this worked for me and everything is working perfectly.
First I bought a Segate 100GB 7200 RPM drive from OWC. When you buy one make sure it's a SATA drive.
I used Super Duper to create a backup of my internal drive to my external USB drive. I copied it as a partition and not a file (Super Duper gives you several different options). After the backup was done when i looked at my external USB drive it looked like my internal drive.
I then installed the new internal drive into the Macbook.
When i rebooted i held down the option key and booted off the USB drive. It was a little slow booting up but the hard drive had everything backed up from Super Duper and it was as if i booted from the old internal drive.
From here i used the Disk Utility, selected the internal drive partition (if you dont have one already on the new drive you will need to create one) selected restore and dragged the USB partition to the source area and then dragged the new internal drive to the target area. I selected Erase destination and selected copy.
After the copy was done i shut down, removed the external usb drive and then rebooted. Everything came up as if I always had that drive. It was a little slow at booting up the first time but after that it was normal.
A few things to note during this experience:
1. When i installed the new internal drive i used the restore DVD's to install a fresh copy of OS X. When i did this i used the disk utility to create the partition and then installed OS X.
2. I was hoping that all i had to do after i installed OS X fresh was to boot up, use Disk Utility to restore my backup image to the internal drive. The only problem with that is you can not select a drive that you booted from as the destination.
3. I then tried booting from the restore DVD's and use the Disk Utility from there to select the source and target drives but for some reason it didn't work. It didnt allow me to drag the drives.
4. Since i had Super Duper backup to my external usb drive as a partition i was able to boot from it and then do the steps i outlined above.
5. I noticed that when i tried opening Super Duper again after the copy from the external to the new internal it told me that i needed to attach or mount Macintosh HD. Even though the new drive was named Macintosh HD i think Super Duper knows the difference between the two and was looking for the external drive. All I had to do was re select the Macintosh HD from within the program and everything was fine.
I hope my experience will help some of you thinking of replacing your HD. Their may be an easier way than what i did but this worked for me and everything is working perfectly.