MacBook Pro HDD Upgrade

I just recently upgraded my MacBook Pro’s 100Gb HD to a 200Gb Segate drive. I managed to find a nice guide on Extreme Tech and also a helpful video.

One thing I did have issue with was the subsequent guide to getting Mac Os X onto the new drive. Extreme Tech’s article suggests that you install Os X into the new drive with a clean install… I don’t recommend this…

Before you fit your new drive, Invest a few $$$’s in a 2.5” SATA enclosure and use Disk Utility to prepare the drive for OS X. Disk Utility has a Partitioning option which lets you setup the disk and then Erase to format it as Mac OS X ready.

Then, use the Disk Utility Restore tool … drag the current drive to the Source entry and the New drive to the Destination entry…

When the copy is complete, replace the current drive with your new HDD (go with the 7200rpm 200Gb Momentus by Segate, if you vaguely trust me.) and it will boot right up and your system will be in the same state as you left it. You’re free to use the old drive however you see fit, perhaps you should put it to use as an external drive in your new SATA enclosure?

For full details of the hardware upgrade I recommend you read the ExtremeTech article …

can you Digg it? is it del.icio.us?

Category: General