Replacing a Macbook Pro Hard Drive

[Timaphillips]

My friends MBP's hard drive died and is now having to shell out the usual hefty dollar amounts necessary to fix a mac. I recommended buying the HDD and either doing it himself or giving it to a technician someplace else to install. Either way just seems more logical than an apple care tech. doing it. The only thing I am not sure about is what type of hard drive the MBP uses. I'm 99% sure you can buy your own HDD, but I wanted to make sure you didn't have to buy some "apple approved," product. I also recommended he take the opportunity to ditch the 5400 RPM drive for a 7200 RPM drive. Advice???

 

[KSoD]

From what i know it is jsut a regular HDD just like the ones used in a PC. I would suggest a 7200 RPM HDD as well.

But hte thing comes down to does he needs SATA or IDE?

 

[Alvin.C]

Hello,

You'll need a 2.5" SATA hard drive.

If he wants to go from 5400 RPM to 7200 RPM, that's alright, but keep in mind that the faster the hard drive, the higher the power consumption of the drive (albeit not drastically higher).

 

[Timaphillips]

Ok, so I need to get a 7200 SATA HDD. Here's the gameplan. He wants to upgrade to Leopard and just ditch the old HDD. How do I go about installing Leopard on the HDD after the old HDD is removed??? I guess I'm not understanding how to install the OS when there is no OS present.

 

[KSoD]

You will need the Leopard DVD from Apple. It should be available for him to download after purchase and burn. From there you should just be able to boot with it in and install it.

 

[Timaphillips]

This is gonna be fun.

 

[Timaphillips]

Just a final update. Installation went smoothly with some directions from the net. I wasn't too keen on taking the ribbon off the hard drive that was sort of glued on, but once it started to budge it was ok. Restarted after installation with Leopard in the CD drive, stalled at 7 minutes left, restarted, re-installed Leopard and it completed with no hitches. Very happy with new HDD. Thanks all.

 

[KSoD]

Glad all is well.

 

[bla!!]

Watch the heat output of the laptop as well.

Mac book pro's run notoriously hot because of the aluminum case. Adding a 7200 RPM drive ups the heat output of the system.

 

[Timaphillips]

We ended up putting in a 5400 drive. Also installed leopard instead of tiger. He says that it runs a little slower than before the old drive failed but I attribute that to the new OS. And yes, the MBP runs ridiculously hot.