How to erase a Macbook Pro Hard drive when the screen is dead

I have a Macbook Pro (2007) with a dead screen and a motherboard issue. Just bought a new macbook and i was planning on transfering the hard drive over and selling my pro on ebay for parts, Is there anyway i can securely delete my data from the computer without seeing it on the screen before i decide to sell it?

Be sure your dead Mac isn't covered by this program:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377
If it is, you can get a free repair, and it would be worth a lot more on EBay.
Good luck!

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Make sure that your old Mac will boot into disk mode then buy this Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter

Do all Macbook Pro hard drives have the apple sign on them?

Hi there,
November 2012 I bought a new Macbook Pro because my old one had beer spilled on it. I decided since I was getting a new computer I might as well as upgrade my hard drive. I bought a Seagate Momentous SSHD 750 GB. It is a hybird drive between SSD and HDD. I got my computer running on it with little effort and things were going well. 2 days ago My computer froze, which does not happen often. I held down the power button until the Macbok turned off. When I turned it back on it took me to recovery mode where I can pick between disc utility and reinstall the Operating System. I went into disc utility to verify and repair my hard drive. There were no issues. I decided re just restart my computer and move on.
When I restarted a second time it took me back to recovery mode with out me doing the *command R* prompt. I checked my disc again and this time it said that I needed to reformat my hard drive. I tried to back up all my data however every tool I used was unable to saying the HD was not accessible. I erased the hard drive and tried to do a clean reinstall of the OS. I was unable to do so. The computer just keep going into an infinite loop when downloading the OS. It would get down to 8 minutes remaining and then jump magically back to 1 hour 45 minutes. After about 8 hours of letting it do that I canceled the process.
I took the computer to a Mac Store and the guy there told me that because the hard drive was "third party" and not from apple, that Intel Macs running 1.8 had trouble talking to the firmware of those hard drives. I found this to be confusing because the hard drive worked well for 4 months with no issues. Also, I am not sure what he meant by third party seeing as apple does not make hard drives. He explained to me that "typically" the only hard drives I can use are the ones that have the apple sign on the label. They said that they could not honor my warranty because I didn't have the original hard drive with me. Once I get the original hard drive then they would fix it.
My question however now is if it is really true that only apple labeled hard drives are the only ones that will work with my Mac Book Pro. The apple store wanted 220 euros for a new 500 GB hard drive plus another 80 euros for labor. I am fully capable of installing a hard drive and I am a cheap student. I don't want to pay that kind of cash. I have looked online and there are several retailers who claim to be selling Mac Book Pro hard drives however the images do not contain an apple label. I am not sure if I am understanding the label thing correctly, the Apple guy were speaking German and English is my first language.
I appreciate any help and advice!

I have performed verify and repair on the hard drive from the disc utility and everything checks out on the hard drive. I am not getting any error messages. I am unable to load my operating system back on it however. Last night I finally was able to get past the download portion of the OS install and it restarted and brought me to a screen that shows it installing the OS. It never loads on the progress bar however. To me it seems as thought the hard drive is having trouble writing any data to itself. What do you think? I am not getting any clicks from the hard drive like it is struggling, I am not seeing any physical damage to the hard drive and disc utility says it checks out. Thank you for your help!

How to Optimize a MacBook Pro hard drive

I have Version 10.7.5 OS X Lion with a 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5. I would like to know where or how you could optimize the hard drive when needed.
On my old MacBook I used DiskWarrior, but do not see anything like this for the MacBook Pro.

You really do not need to do that. OSX is reasonably efficient and will do that for you.
Ciao.

How do I backup manually my macbook pro hard drive to the time capsule hard drive?

I am new with Mac and I am trying to move some files from my hard drive to the time capsule manually. I know it does automatically, but there some files I want to keep permanently.

When the drive is available in the Finder, drag the files to it.
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How to repair corrupted Macbook Pro hard disk when I don't have a startup disc provided by Apple

So my MBP was really making horrible clicking noise and I figured out that my start up Lion OSX disk partition is corrupted.
I have three partitions. One for Lion OS X, another for Documents and another for Movies and Downloads. When I run disk utility and verify other two partitions(documents and movies/downloads), they appear to be okay but when I do the same with Lion OS X then it says:
The volume Lion OS X was found corrupt and needs to be repaired.
Error: This disk needs to be repaired....then use Disk Utility to repair this disk.
Is my hard drive gonna die soon? Or will it be okay if I just format my 500gb hard drive completely and install the fresh copy of Lion OS X again? I don't have a recovery disc or what so ever provided by Apple anymore. I have a DMG installation file of Lion OS X and a USB flash drive(4 GB approx). How can I repair the disk partition without the recovery start up disc?
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Hmmm idk if it's the clicking noise or not but it is making a noise of course. Sounds like hmmm few old desktops that makes weird loud noise for the first 20 seconds they boot up.
I am still unsure if it needs to be changed because the other two volumes appear to be okay. Why only this one? I have already saved all of my data in an external hard drive but it's weird how my 10 year old desktop is running on a same hard drive and my 3 years old 3000$ laptop had it's optical drive replaced, dead pixels, trackpad problem and now hard drive when I take care of my laptops like my baby and more over I don't even travel with it, it is always sitting on my desk like a desktop.

Transferring files from MacBook Pro hard drive to Time Capsule

I recently bought a Time Capsule. I know I can use that as an external hard drive to save disc space on my MacBook Pro. How can I transfer files that are already on my MacBook Pro hard drive to the time capsule? For instance, I have videos of my daughter saved on MacBook Pro that I can view on iTunes or transfer them to either my iPhone or iPod Touch. Is there a way to either move individual files or the entire folder to Time Capsule?
Thank you!

Open the folder and drag the contents over.

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usamafrombeverly hills wrote:
when i start the macbook & press cmd+R it goes to the internet recovery
Well then when you erased your hard drive, your erased the Recovery partition, also.
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It will install the OS that shipped on that Mac. You can then upgrade via the App Store.

I believe my macbook pro hard drive is bad. I erased the drive and reinstalled the OS and the macbook still runs really slow. I dont know if the hard drive is the issue.

I believe my macbook pro hard drive is bad. I erased the drive and reinstalled the OS and the macbook still runs really slow. I dont know if the hard drive is the issue.

Did you try an SMC reset too? It's easily done and none of those resets to the best of my knowledge hurt anything. When I was fooling with my system, which at one point was a home made Fusion setup, I needed to reset the SMC sometimes to get the drives recognized. Reading the documentation the sudden motion sensor is drive related but that seems to be about it.
Some more specifics may be needed about the drive itself, the model number of your unit, and the OS version you're running.
At present, the problem seems sort of odd to me. FWIW cable problems can be quite intermittent. I used Scannerz to find some of the problems on my original system that I later converted to a new HD and SSD combo. It can find lots of problems if you learn how to use it right (HD problems, logic board system faults, and cable problems) but you need to get a system at least partially up and running to use it, and it doesn't sound to me like your there right now (in other words, don't go out and buy it because at this point I don't know how it could help you)
Another word of advice would be to not go out and start throwing parts at a problem unless you have a good idea what the source of the problem is. If you have a logic board problem, new drives and new cables won't make it go away, you'll just be wasting your money. Logic board problems, cable problems, and drive problems can all have very similar end user symptoms. The article that I linked above named "Hard Drive Problems" has a section on general symptoms of problems and if you read the article it becomes clear there's a lot of overlap associated with different types of problems.
I assume that your unit isn't under warranty. If, by chance it is I wouldn't even fool with it and I'd take it to Apple and let them deal with the problem. You also might want to check with whatever Apple sources you have available to test your system, like an Apple store, and see how much they'll charge (if anything) to evaluate the system.
I certainly hope this helps.

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And what happens if the OPs Mac is of a newer version that came with a version of Snow Leopard above the 10.6.3 version that is on that Retail, meant for Upgrade, disc? Like if it came with 10.6.4/.5/.6/.7? That disc you linked to would not work.
He needs to contact Apple and get a replacement set of Original System Reinstall Discs. That is the only way he can be assured it will work and he would also get the iLife apps which he wouldn't buying that DVD disc you linked to.
dwb wrote:
The Snow Leopard DVD is $20 from Apple. You'll just have to wait a few days. BTW this is a full installer that works with any model computer that can run SL. Apple used to ship recovery/installation disks that were tied to specific computer models so that a 15" MBP installer disk coudn't be used on a 13" MBP computer. So you need either full installer or the recovery disks for your specific model.
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suzannemacuser wrote:
Long story short: last time I backed up was 2 years ago, and it wasn't using Time Machine, but an external hard drive. That was also before I got my current iPhone, the iPad and made some additions to iTunes.
Two years ago??? Shame on you!!!
I found this the other day. It's old but still applies. This should be more than enough to help you get back on track. See the comments by Zevoneer
https://discussions.apple.com/message/7217190#7217190
You will have to check on each of these. Some of the links are outdated but there is more than enough to get you started. See this article about transferring purchases. The link is in the other thread as well.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1848?viewlocale=en_US
Backup! Backup! Backup!
Message was edited by: Demo

I erased my 2012 MacBook Pro hard drive, what version OSX do I need to reload ?

I erased my 2012 MacBook Pro hard drive, what version OSX do I need to reload ?

Mac OS X 10.7.5 or newer, or see below. Press the Command and R keys at startup to load the recovery partition, or the Option, Command, and R keys to reinstall the computer's original OS.
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How to erase a Macbook Pro Hard drive when the screen is dead

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