Posted on April 25, 2009 - by Dr. Div
How to Replace Your MacBook Pro Hard Drive & Restore Your Files From the Old Hard Drive
I’ve recently upgraded the hard drive of my MacBook Pro and it was a lot easier than thought. Here’s how I did it:
A Brand-New Hard Drive
I definitely recommend purchasing your new hard drive from NewEgg. I didn’t know what hard drive I was supposed to get, so I selected a highly rated hard drive with a good price and read the reviews about it. I looked for the MacBook Pro keyword on the reviews just to make sure that someone else already installed it on their MacBook Pro. I made the order (free shipping) and received the hard drive in 3 days.
Tools
- Phillips Screw Driver (#00) -- $4 at Sears
- Torx T6 -- $4 at Sears
Preparation
- I backed up everything to my external hard drive via Time Machine (Only available on Mac OSX Leopard).
- Cleaned up my desk to make room for my working space and placed a soft mat to lay the laptop on.
- Designated an empty area on the desk to place the tiny screws orderly so I can follow the screw path backwards while assembling the computer back.
Hardware Installation
I watched this video tutorial provided by MacOSC on another computer while I was
Software Installation
After I finished assembling my MacBook Pro:
- I inserted my Mac OSX Leopard DVD. Turned it on and held “c” button to boot from the DVD.
- When the main screen loaded, the installer didn’t know where to install the OS. From the top menu, I went to the Disk Utility tool and partitioned my new 320GB hard drive into two partitions and named each partition properly (this is necessary for next step).
- Now that I created and named the partitions, the main installation screen show both new partitions on the list.
- I selected the partition that I want my information transferred.
- I was asked to select if I wanted to transfer my information from another source.
- I connected my external hard drive via USB and selected “from a Time Machine backup”.
- After selecting this, it located my Time Machine backup on the external hard drive.
Outcome
The copying process was completed in about 20 minutes. Everything was back to normal as if I still have my old drive. Everything, including my activated Adobe products, keychain passwords, etc.. were intact and ready to use.
What to Do With The Old Hard Drive
Got a PS3? May I interest you in upgrading your PS3 Hard Drive?
If you found this post helpful, or if you have any questions, please submit a comment below.
Sincerely,
Dr.Div
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July 27, 2009
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Great tutorial. Before I begin, can you tell me the purpose of partitioning your new drive into 2 partitions? was this personal preference or the way Mac OS X needs it to be? Thanks.
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July 27, 2009
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Hi Nate — it’s a personal preference. However, it’s usually recommended for large drives. I tend to think that if something goes wrong with one partition, I won’t be losing the entire harddisk. If you like to find out more on disk partition, you can visit apple support site: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh14.html
Best,
DrDiv
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October 14, 2009
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Hi DrDiv, I am about to replace the hdd on my iBook but dont have OS Cd’s for my 10.4. Can I just create a boot disk after I backup and use restore to copy the old system to the new HDD?
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October 14, 2009
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I have not tried this, but I think it should work. I recommend that you don’t format your original drive until you make sure this works. When you open up the mac and insert the new HD, before you put all the screws back, you can plug your external drive and try your theory. If it fails, you didn’t lose anything. If you succeed or fail, please share how it went. Good luck.
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January 9, 2010
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Cheers for the tutorial, I am buying a new hdd for my macbook pro. Will it work if I put the new hdd in and then when installing mac osx and it asks “do you already own a mac”, can I just hook up my old hdd via usb and then click “from another mac” or “from a time machine backup”? Thanks
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February 3, 2010
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Sorry for the delayed response. Yes, if you can connect your old drive via USB, you can definitely migrate your old machine. You might have done this by now.