Novice needs help installing new hard drive

I have a macbook and purchased a new hard drive after my current hard drive failed. I can remove the battery, unscrew the 3 screws, install the new hd. What are the steps that follow to bring my machine up to being back to normal? Let's approach this with "color by numbers" type instruction. Thanks

Bama--
You score points for guts. Novice changing HDD is not one I see often. You also lose points for not getting directions first before starting. (I work in education, and thus grade a lot of work and exams.)
As this is an open book/open note exam for you, best you look here: http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/MacBook13inch_HardDriveDIY.pdf. If this is not your MacBook, then we'll need just a bit more info to steer you in the right direction.
There is no time limit on this exam.
Best of luck--
Doc

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Need help installing new hard drive and wiping the old one for Windows XP.

I’ve searched to try and figure out the answer to my question and haven’t been too successful, so hopefully someone can help me out. I have a new Mac Pro that I haven’t even turned it on yet because I’m waiting for some upgrades to show up. Here is what I plan to do, I’m unsure of what I need to do and what order to do it in:
It has a stock 250GB hard drive that I plan to wipe and install Windows XP on. I have a new 750GB drive coming that will run Leopard which will be my primary OS. Once I have this set up, I will probably try running VM Fusion which I assume I can install later on. Here are my questions:
When I put my new blank 750GB drive in to install Leopard, will OS X boot up off the Leopard install disc to then allow me to do the install?
When do I wipe the smaller drive to put Windows on it, before or after I’ve installed Leopard on the new drive? How should I wipe it, using the Bootcamp setup assistant or Disc Utility? If I wipe it after installing Leopard, will I be prompted for which drive to boot from?
Thanks in advance for any help.

I don't use Windows, but I think the proper order to do things would be this:
First, if your Mac Pro came with Tiger installed, when you start it up for the first time, you'll need to go through some initial setup, create an administrator account, etc. You can go ahead and do this.
Afterwards, you can install your 750 GB drive. Next, you can insert your Leopard disk, and go to System Preferences/Startup Disk to choose to start up from the disk. (Alternatively, if you just choose "Install Mac OS X" from the disk, it will instruct you to restart the mac.)
When the mac boots from the disc, install Leopard on your 750. Once you have that done, and have booted from that drive, you'll be able to erase your 250 in Disk Utility, and then install Windows on it.

Need help buying new hard drive

I have a macbook that needs a new hard drive and need help knowing what hard drives to buy that will be compatible with it. It is a macbook pro 17inch model no: A1297.
Any help would be appreciated, Thanks

Any 2.5" diameter, 9.5mm thick SATA drive will be compatible. Currently they come up to 1.5 TB in capacity. I have a 1 TB Seagate SSHD (hybrid) drive installed in my primary MBP. The cost is a modest premium over a conventional HDD of the same capacity. Boot and shutdown times are significantly faster when compared to a conventional HDD, I can recommend this as an option.
If the bank account permits, an SSD will produce the overall maximum performance gains. Boot, shutdown and resource hungry applications will be noticeably faster. Casualyll use such as e-mails and text editing will produce no meaningful performance differences compared to a conventional HDD.
I am of the opinion that the cost premium is still too high for the benefits that they afford. Other have different views.
Ciao.

New tech help install new hard drive

Installing a new drive in late 2007 MBP. Read about cloning drives et al. using carbon cloner.
Instructions for cloning to an already formatted external verbatim HD - by dividing an existing partition looks simple enough.
http://help.bombich.com/kb/overview/formatting-your-hard-drive-for-use-with-carb on-copy-cloner
I would do the clone just to see how it works and have a bootable copy of my existing drive...
But what I'd like to do is - Fresh Install - everything, and pull desired data over manually from time machine back up I have on external.
QUESTION - after I install the new "unformatted drive" into computer what happens when I start it up since there is no operating system? Will I just be able to restart and use my Snow Leopard disk - NOT ORIGINAL COMPUTER INSTALLATION DISKS - to format drive and install OS ?
If so, I would do software upgrades, then install applications and updates, then get my data from time machine back up.
Any advice appreciated. Thanks.
David Stamm

You will need to do this:
Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
7. When formatting is completed quit DU and return to the installer. Complete the OS X installation.
When done you will boot into the newly installed system on the newly installed drive. You can then restore what you want from your backup.

Help installing new hard drive

The original hard drive in my powerbook went out and I bought a Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD3200BEVE 320GB 5400 RPM 2.5" ATA-6 to replace it. However, when I boot from the OS X disk and run the disk utility to format the drive I am unable to locate it in the list of available dirves. Only my DVD drive is listed. Am I missing a step?

So I am assuming that you already have it installed into the Powerbook? If so then see if you can boo the mac into Firewire Target Disk Mode. This will help troubleshoot whether or not you have the drive installed correctly.
To boot the Mac into TDM:
Power-on the Mac and immediately press and hold the "t-key" until the firewire symbol appears. If you cannot boot into TDM then you may need to recheck the installation of the HDD.

Please help Installing new Hard Drive. PLEASE HELP

I know this topic has been posted before and I have read all the reviews but still nothing ..
I m trying to install a new hd. I put the screws where there needed to go, plugged in all appropriate SATA plugs into new HD, went to dicl utility and no new HD shows up to initialize or format. Please help me .. I have purchased a 500 gb Seagate HD from ramjet.
Item:
Seagate 500GB SATA II 7200rpm 16mb
Specifications:
Capacity: 500GB
Performance
Rotational Speed: 7200rpm
Buffer Size: 16mb
Transfer Rate
Serial ATA (G/s): 3.0G/sec
Average Seek: < 8.5ms
Average Latency: 4.16ms
I have installed and uninstalled the new HD about 5 times already. Please help me

On older ATA drives there are little plastic tabs that, depending on configuration, designate a drive as "Master" or "Slave." If both drives are configured as "master" it can sometimes cause one not to be seen by the computer.
I only mentioned it because:
A) I had it happen 2x with my old G4.
B) Most new drives are shipped with the jumpers in "master" position, I'm guessing because they assumed most people were replacing their primary drives, not adding them.
Check out these links for more about jumpers on drives.
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/ref/jumper_settings.html
http://www.pcmech.com/show/harddrive/43/
Good luck!
-K

Need Detailed instructions to install new hard drive & upgrade from Vista Home to Win7 Enterprise

Hi folks,
I have this laptop machine:
Lenovo 3000 G530 4446-23U Laptop Computer - Intel Pentium Dual-Core T3400, 2GB DDR2, 160GB HDD, DVDRW, 15.4" WXGA, Vista Home Basic
I need to install another hard drive and I also want to upgrade to Win7 Enterprise Edition while doing the rebuild.
I am very nervous about doing this as I upgraded a W530 from Win7 basic to Win7 Enterprise and ran into all kinds of drive issues. And I thought that would be about as straightforward as you could get, but it a far cry from that.
I do not want to have to go through that again - I still don't have everything working on it.
Can someone please tell me the precise steps to take to do this upgrade and how to ensure that I obtain ALL the drivers for EVERYTHING on the laptop and how to ensure that all those drivers are correct and exactly how to install them.
If there are other issues associated with upgrading from Vista Home to Win7 Enterprise, please advise of those and the solutions.
Thanks very much.....
Gus

hi gmercanti,
Welcome to the Lenovo Community.
The easiest way to upgrade Vista to Windows 7 is to run the Windows 7 Installer inside WIndows. Follow this guide for instructions. After upgrading, you will need to install the Windows 7 Drivers for Lenovo G530 4446 via http://support.lenovo.com.
Spoiler (Highlight to read)
Let me know if you get any errors.
Cheers
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HT4718 Installed new hard drive, click on restore from time machine, get to 'select a destination' but just keeps searching for disks.. any help please?

Installed new hard drive and want to restore from time machine.
Get as far as 'select a destination' then it goes no further - just keeps 'searching for disks'
Help anyone please?

1. Be sure your drive is attached and mounted.
2. If you have already written any data to the drive, back it up before proceeding to the next step.
3. In the Finder, choose Go > Utilities. The /Applications/Utilities folder will open.
4. Launch Disk Utility.
5. Click the icon for your external hard drive in the sidebar on the left.
6. Click the Erase tab along the top of the window.
7. From the Volume Format menu, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
8. Enter a name for the external hard drive in the Name field.
9. Click the Erase button.
Make Sure that you choose the correct drive

Installed new hard drive in a Toshiba satellite and now cant do windows upadates

installed new hard drive in a Toshiba satellite S500-02J . Used recovery stick purchased from Toshiba. Windows installed and everything up and running, but when I go to do a windows update. I received this message: "Windows update cannot currently check for updates, because the service is not running. You may need to restart your computer."
Toshiba help line said it was a problem because new hard drive was not exactly the same as the old hard drive. It was a minor fix but wanted a $100 to perform the fix remotely.
Any ideas on how to fix this problem?
Thanks.

satellite S500-02J
Maybe this one from the land down under?
Satellite A500/02J (PSAR9A-02J001)
The probloem occurs because the new drive has advanced-format technology. All the new ones do. See this message from three years ago.
The fix is to install a new storage driver.
Intel Rapid Storage Technology
If you've messed around with drivers, you'll probably need to repeat the restore. Introduce the storage driver as early as possible.
-Jerry

In need of a new hard drive for my old G5 computer

Hello there, I'm not as savvy as you are with computers but I am in need of a new hard drive for my old G5 computer that my husband uses. His crashed. If you did it all over again would you buy the same new hard drive? If so, where did you buy it? I don't even know where to start and was SO happy to find this recent post on installing new drives into the G5. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you!
<Title Edited by Host>

I actually just ran across this hard drive oddity for the first time myself just yesterday. It seems that some older Macs may not be able to use the newest SATA interfaces on some hard drives.
I an attempt to not get overly technical, SATA is the current interface type on computer hard drives. You can get some additional information from Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA. There are currently three revisions, SATA-1 (the oldest), SATA-2 (the current version), & SATA-3 (the latest and greatest).
So what happened was that my G5 could not use the SATA-3 drive I purchased because the computer could not support the SATA-3 standard. It was possible to "slow down" one of the other test SATA-3 drives to make it work like a SATA-2 and so it may be possible to do the same to other hard drives.
To answer your question, I would NOT purchase the saem hard drive for my Mac as it does not work for this older Mac.
My suggestion, if you can find one purchase the same hard drive that was in the computer. That way you know it is compatible. If you would like to upgrade, you will have to do some looking. Although I cannot recommend a specific drive, my two favorite companies are Seagate, www.seagate.com and Western Digitial, www.wdc.com. You most likely have a 3.5" drive, if you have a desktop, 2.5" for a laptop. WD has the Cavier line and Seagate has either Barrcuda or Momentus. What you are looking for is capacity.
So, both Seagate and Western Digital are good. You need a 3.5" drive for a desktop or 2.5" drive for a laptop. Stick with a SATA-2 drive also known as a SATA 3Gb/s drive for compatibility. Get a drive that is 7200 RPM or higher. Finally purchase the largest capacity at you can afford. Amazon is a good general place to been looking.
KWCitizen_Apple

What do I need to install second hard drive HP PAVILLION: p6633w

what do I need to install second hard drive HP PAVILLION: p6633w?
This question was solved.
View Solution.

donp815 wrote:
what do I need to install second hard drive HP PAVILLION: p6633w?
Hi,
You need two cables, one is a sata cable:
http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/30305659/706331346/StarTech-com-6in-SATA-to-Right-Angle-SATA-Serial-AT...
This cable is only for data and connects the hdd to the SATA connector on the motherboard.
The other cable is for power:
http://www.itpartsdirect.com/startech-15-24cm-4-pin-molex-to-sata-power-cable-adaptor.html
This connects the hdd to the PSU.
You can also buy a combo cable like this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00064GBT4/?tag=hydra0b-21&hvadid=9550951989&ref=asc_df_B00064GBT4
All you have to do now is to connect the hdd and that's it. Make sure that the primary drive with the operating system is connected to the primary SATA connector (I think there are numbers 1, 2, 3..)
Dv6-7000 /Full HD/Core i5-3360M/GF 650M/Corsair 8GB/Intel 7260AC/Samsung Pro 256GB
Testing - HP 15-p000
HP Touchpad provided by HP
Currently on Debian Wheeze
*Please, help other users with the same issue by marking your solved topics as "Accept as Solution"*

Bookmarks in version older than 8 - installed new hard drive - where is the bookmarks file?

installed new hard drive two months ago - just now reinstalling Firefox -- installed new version 8 -- need to know where my old bookmarks would be stored (what file and where)

Profile is a folder which store all your personal data in a safe place
* https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Profiles
* here explain how to backup profile https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Backing%20up%20your%20information
* here explain how to restore it
https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Recovering%20important%20data%20from%20an%20old%20profile

Hard drive on my mac died, installed new hard drive. When I try to sync my phone for the first time, will the computer wipe all the songs, photos, ibooks from my phone?

hard drive on my mac died, installed new hard drive. When I try to sync my phone for the first time, will the computer wipe all the songs, photos, ibooks from my phone?

Yes because that information is not located on the hard-drive of your new mac! If it is purchased content from the store, than this issue isn't as bad as it looks!
Here is a link explaining how to get your previously purchased content back:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519
You also want to authorize your Apple ID account on the computer by following these instructions as well:
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH1730
Basically this link explains to go to the top left corner of your screen where you will see file, edit, view etc! Click on Store in that section and click on authorize this computer, also you want to make sure that the computer will not automatically sync by going to iTunes in the top left corner, just to the right of the apple symbol if iTunes is selected, and go to prefrences, and here you will see back up! Right under the back-ups has an option explaining to prevent devices from automatically syncing which is good cause you may be able to transfer your purchases from there which will put your content into the computer, and if that happens than we don't lose anything
Hopefully I was of some help:)

I install new hard drive 500gb and i still have 400gb available but my macbook run very slow getting rainbow all the time on screen

i have install new hard drive 500gb and i still have 400gb available but my macbook run very slow getting rainbow all the time on screen.
need help

First boot into recovery and select Disk Utility>First Aid and repair the disk.
If there is no improvement, perform a Safe Boot:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1
If there is an improvement, then third party applications are probably the cause of the problem.
Ciao.

Installed new hard drive and windows 7 at the same time. Left old hard drives in computer but unable to get bookmarks from old drives to new.

Installed new hard drive and windows 7 at the same time. Left old hard drives in computer, installed firefox however I have no idea in which file the old bookmarks are located. I still have the old files for firefox in the old drives.

Your "Firefox personal data", like bookmarks, are stored in your Profile folder in Firefox. See this support article about how to recover that data from that old hard drive and transfer it your your new Profile.
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Recovering+important+data+from+an+old+profile

Novice needs help installing new hard drive

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