Which hard drive do you recommend macbook pro mid 2009

Which hard drive does Apple recommend as a replacement for the MacBook Pro Mid 2009??

I have a MacBook Pro (2009):
Model Identifier MacBookPro5,4
I tried severa Hard Drives, and none of them works, apparently there is a problem with the EFI firmware of the controler. This is what one of the support guys from Hitachi told me.
Apparently, the controler only handle STA I and it does not support SATA II, although the last firmware fore this MacBook pro (EFI Firmware update 1.7) says that it support SATA II. I am not sure if all of this is correct. But I will like some advice which Hard Drive will work whith this computer.
Thanks

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What are the steps to follow after you install a new Hard Drive on a 17in Macbook Pro mid 2009

I plan on installing a larger Hard Drive..the physical part is simple..but what are the steps after you close it up and hit the power button? Is there softwre on the mother board that will start the unit running??

A new Hard drive will not be Mac-formatted, so you will have to do that first. A copy of Disk Utility to do the job is also on the 10.6 Installer/Utilities DVD.
Boot to the installer DVD, but do not Install. Answer only the "what language" question, and wait a quarter minute for the menuBar to be drawn. Choose Disk Utility from the Utilities menu that appears.
Select the Hardware_name of the new Drive. Partition, one partition, ( Options ), GUID partition table. Name the partition: MacIntosh HD and choose Format: Mac OS X Extended (journaled). It will complete in a minute or two, as it only rewrite the Directory area.
If you wish to shake out your drive, you can erase it and Security Erase, Zero all data, one pass. But this takes HOURS.

Help me with a Hard Drive upgrade on a macbook Pro (mid 2009)

I have a 500gb drive that i want to upgrade. I see lots of choices at OWC and wonder how to select a good reliable 750 gb or 1 TB internal hard drive. I dont do a lot of imovie video editing so i think 5400 would be ok but would like some guidance.
7200 vs 5400 and 750 vs 1TB, pros and cons. I would love to go to a 1 TB if it is reliable.
Also, OWC recommends restoring the drive prior to the swap out. Is that the best way to do it?
What manufacturer do you recommend?
any help would be appreciated
Thanks
Ross

You have received good advice from both conran and Network 23. I have 4 Seagate 750 GB 7200 RPM HDDs, one in my primary MBP and the others in enclosures for Time machine and redundant backup. I have a 500 GB 5400 RPM Hitachi in my older MBP which originally came in my primary MBP. And I have a 500 GB 7200 RPM Seagate and 3 Toshibas. All of them are STILL spinning. As mentioned by conran, that can always change.
There are HDD aficionados of certain brands of which I am not. If it works its good, if not its bad. This is an anecdotal observation on my part, but there seem to be more problems with Western Digital HDDs than others. (I may be accosted now by Western Digital fans)
There is a phenomenon that I came across the other day that I found most interesting. A HDD with higher disk density (more capacity) at 5400 RPM may outperform a HDD with less disk density (Less GB capacity) at 7200 RPM. In other words, disk speed alone is a determinant to HDD efficiency.
OWCs recommendation about restoring is a good one.
For what its worth, here is how I have swapped HDDs in the past with 100% success:
INSTALLING A NEW HDD IN A MBP
1. Make certain that you have backed up all of your important data.
2. You will need a HDD enclosure. One with a USB connection will do. A 9 pin Firewire is better.
3. Install your new drive in the enclosure and connect it to your MBP.
4. Open DISK UTILITY>ERASE. From the left hand column drag the new drive into the 'Name' field. Make sure that the format is 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)'. Click on the 'Erase' button.
5. Click on the 'Restore' button (on top). Drag the old drive into the 'Source' field and the new drive into the 'Destination' field. Click on the 'Restore' button on the bottom right hand corner.
Depending upon the amount of data you are transferring, this may take a couple hours or more. A Firewire will speed up the transfer. This will result in both drives having identical information on them.
6. After the data transfer has completed, you may swap the drives. Start the MBP and you have finished the installation. The initial boot may take a bit longer than you are accustomed to, but that is normal.
7. When you are satisfied that the new hard drive if functioning properly, you can erase the old drive and use it for any needs that you may have.
Ciao.

External Hard Drive not appearing on Macbook Pro or 2009 Macbook

Hello,
I have a G Technology G-DRIVE External Hard Drive, that until now has worked perfectly.
I plugged it in today to try and back up my macbooks through Time Machine, like I have done for the last year - and on ether of the computers, the Hard Drive is not appearing in Time Machine or Finder. Having browsed online, I found that it is showing in Disk Utility and in System Information - but other than that I cannot do anthing with it. I even tried to Repair the drive, by erasing it and reformatting it - and I cant do it - I keep getting the messgae 'Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.'
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as I use this hard drive as a Time Machine Backup, and I'm unable to do so.

At best, it sounds like this HD is flakey so even if you were able to get it working again, I would not trust it.
PlotinusVeritas gives some great suggestions for purchasing external hard drives in this thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5602141?tstart=0

What external hard drive to you recommend to free up space on an old Macbook Pro?

My Macbook Pro is approx. 5 years old. I have since gotten an imac, however would like to use my old Creative Suite 2 on the macbook. When I updated it to "Lion" - it denied access to my creative suite apps. I have since contacted Adobe, and they have given me a solution to get it up and running again, however, my startup disk is just about FULL. Therefore I can't upgrade or really even open more than one app without getting the warning pop up about getting rid of some files asap or risk malfunction of the laptop.
What external hard drive do you recommend to get the most bang for my buck in terms of offloading a massive amount of photos to in order to be able to use the laptop again?

Your picture folder would have to be 10 times larger and then it would be close to 1 TB in size. I have an aphorism, 'one cannot have too much storage'. If the bank account can afford it, follow Ralph's advice and do go for the larger storage drive. Given enough time, you might just grow into it..
Now there is an issue that you should consider. Since these pictures will no longer be on your MBP, do you want to have them backed up? If so, you then are going to need an additional HDD to store the backups. All HDDs will eventually fail, you just do not know when.
Ciao.

Hello! Help please! Best external hard drive preferably 1TB for macbook pro 2011. thank you!!!

Hello! Help please! Best external hard drive preferably 1TB for macbook pro 2011. thank you!!!

You can pickup any 1TB USB powered drive for about $100 at just about any local office supply store.
It comes formatted FAT32 (MSDOS) for reading by OS X and Windows PC's.
However if your files sizes are going to be larger than 4GB in size (like video tends to be) then your going to need to select the drive in OS X's Disk utility (in the Applicaitons > Utilities folder) and format the drive exFAT instead.
exFAT is a drive format that 10.6.5 and later Mac's, Windows Vista and 7 machines can read just fine. XP machines need a free exFAT drive install from Microsoft.
Do backup the 1TB to another 1TB drive using Carbon Copy Cloner or another backkup utility because 1TB is a lot of data to lose on a $100 drive.
I don't advise the "port powered" USB drive as these tend to have power issues and with 1TB of data on it, very risky. Use a powered drive if you can all help it.

I erased my hard drive and now my Macbook pro won't boot

I bought a new macbook pro the other day, so I decided to erase the hard drive on my 2010 Macbook pro and reinstall my OS cleanly. I erased the hard drive and tried an internet recovery. It downloaded the recovery and would not boot. Tried resetting everything you could name of and it doesn't help. Can't get anywhere with command R, it just freezes. Safe mode won't boot. Command V, eventually ends with an error saying to return to old smc. I pulled the hard drive out and put it in another mac from about the same year and through internet recovery, actually loaded OS Lion back on it. I put it back in the problem mac, and it just freezes at the apple logo and spinning wheel. Can't understand why erasing the hard drive would effect any hardware, but maybe it messed with logic board somehow? I've now tried using the Recovery partition, since OS Lion was loaded on the drive, but it freezes there as well. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Are you sure it came with Lion?
Check out the support page for what build shipped with which OS.
PJRS

Is it possible to increase the hard drive capacity on my Macbook Pro?

is it possible to increase the hard drive capacity on my Macbook Pro?

If you feel confident, you can do it yourself.
If not, Apple can do it for the small matter of money.
If you go to http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/
Find you Mac on this page it has videos that show you how to replace the disk drive.
After you view the video then you can make your mind up as to which is the correct way for you to go.
Alllan

My hard drive crashed on my MacBook Pro crashed and I need to get my CS5 up and running on the new hard drive. I copied what I could onto an external hard drive but when I drag and drop I get directions to uninstall but the uninstall folder I have does sa

my hard drive crashed on my MacBook Pro crashed and I need to get my CS5 up and running on the new hard drive. I copied what I could onto an external hard drive but when I drag and drop I get directions to uninstall but the uninstall folder I have does says it is an alias that is no longer present. I get error 6. I would like to get my software up and running on the laptop again please

If you subscribed to iTunes match the songs are kept in icloud. If you didn't but you did save the actual iTunes library folder which should include the music, video, etc. you should be able to just drag this file back to your machine in the same place and when you open iTunes it will give you a chance to identify the iTunes library folder.
You can test this to find out if you saved the media files or not and don't need to attach your nano to do it.
You are correct that once you connect the nano it will clear the existing files from it and sync it with the new iTunes library.
If you don't have the media files i'm not sure if/how to get them back on a windows ipod. I have everything backed up regularly because of the horror stories I have seen & heard.

My hard drive crashed on my macbook pro and I had a new one installed and they were unable to get my pictures off of it. Is there anyone who could help? I'm going to lose all my memories of my kids! I got my old hard drive

My hard drive crashed on my macbook pro so i had a new one installed and they couldn't get my pictures off. I dont want to lose all my memories! They gave me back my old hard drive. Is there anyone that could help me?

I think how you understand the value of having backups. All you can do is:
General File Recovery
If you stop using the drive it's possible to recover deleted files that have not been overwritten by using recovery software such as MAC Data Recovery, Data Rescue II, File Salvage or TechTool Pro. Each of the preceding come on bootable CDs to enable usage without risk of writing more data to the hard drive. Two free alternatives are Disk Drill and TestDisk. Look for them and demos at MacUpdate or CNET Downloads. Recovery software usually provide trial versions that enable you to determine if the software would help before actually paying for it. Beyond this or if the drive has completely failed, then you would need to send the drive to a recovery service which is very expensive.
The longer the hard drive remains in use and data are written to it, the greater the risk your deleted files will be overwritten.
Also visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.
You will need an external enclosure for the old drive so you can connect it to the computer in order to try the recovery software before you buy it. But if they don't work then you will need to send the drive to a recovery service such as Drive Savers.

Transferring data from external hard drive to new replacement Macbook Pro...

Hello,
Apple have arranged to give me a replacement Macbook Pro due to faults with hardware on the one I am currently using. I will be going to pick up the replacement Macbook Pro tomorrow morning.
As a complete novice I just wanted to check that I have backed up the data from my current laptop onto my Iomega external hard drive properly, as I am slightly nervous about losing all my work and not being able to transfer all my files onto my new Macbook Pro tomorrow.
I did a back up using time machine earlier today which took quite a long time and seemed to go successfully. Is this the right thing to have done to save all data from my current laptop onto the external hard drive?
Will transferring data from the external hard drive onto my new Macbook Pro be a simple task?
Will I have to reinstall all my software such as Logic and Pro Tools? Also will my preferences and settings for music software be changed?
I'd greatly appreciate any advice.
Thanks,
Deena

Well it's like this.
If your problem on the Mac didn't affect the software or the TimeMachine backup, then restoring from that using SetupAssistant (when you first set up a new Mac it will ask you to restore) should go fine.
HOWEVER, if there are software issues on the Mac that also transferred to the TimeMachine drive, that will only transfer them back onto your new computer.
You can't very easily just pick out the things you want to restore from TimeMachine with, it doesn't give that fine detail of control, and if it's really messed up, it might not restore anything at all.
The golden rule of backups is to maintain two separate and easily accessible hardware copies of your data off the machine at all times.
Since you don't know for sure if the TimeMachine restore is going to work as intended, and your only other source is going to disappear, I'd advise a additional backup of your Music, Documents, Pictures and Movie folders etc., to another regular external drive via regular drag and drop copy methods.
The operating system and programs can all be reinstalled from fresh sources on the new machine, provided you have the AppleID and password, license codes for your programs, email passwords and any other necessary information to re-establish the license on the new machine.
(In some cases licensed software HAS NOT transferred to a new machine with a TimeMachine restore and had to be reinstalled)
Some times you have to contact the developer or "uninstall" the licensed program so it sends a signal to their servers that the program has been removed, else your license code may not work on the new machine.
You might decide the new machine would be better off with a fresh install of your programs that you know are 100% compatible with Lion etc., leaving a lot of older stuff you installed over the years off the new machine, if you restore from TimeMachine, you don't have this option. You pretty much get all the crap along for the ride,
If your new machine gets all crapped up, then restoring Lion is going to going to be a tough challenge, as you need a strong reliable Internet connection to download a fresh copy of Lion from Apple servers (no more disks). Once you do that, then somehow you have to use third party software ($$) to cherry pick your files out of TimeMachines trap. More headaches than you anticpated, and likely a charge by a specialist.
So I'd advise another hard drive with a copy of just your files, just in case a crap-up occurs
You can restore Lion yourself if it craps up, install programs from fresh sources as you know how to do, use the old license codes and then return your files manually exactly back into their same Music, Pictures, Documents, and Movies (etc, not Library) folders as before.
The key to this manual method is to make sure to use the same user name as before, so all your file location data pathnames retained by program files like iTunes to where the songs are located on the drive, are matched. Once you open these programs and restablish the links in OS X, then you can move them around.
Some tricks, if you use iPhoto, you can right click "show package contents" and inside is a folder with your Originals, copy that out and you can reimport your pictures into the new iPhoto Library on the new machine.
So use TM if you dare, but prepared to do things manually is my opinion.
TM restores have not been all that reliable or dependable, the more messed up your machine is, the worst the restore seems to be.
Good Luck

Can anyone enlighten me as to how I can transfer data from an extracted hard drive off of a Macbook Pro onto a new Retina model? No SATA port!!!

Hello,
I'm trying to transfer data from my old hard drive (taken out of Macbook Pro 2009) onto a new Macbook Pro Retina. My ignorance is vast and I purchased an eSATA device to do so, not thinking that there is no SATA port on this new computer. Is there a special cable or anything anyone can recommend? I'd be very grateful for some help here.

I would just get a cheap USB enclosure from OWC, put your old drive in it, and use it it transfer the data to your new rMBP. Cheap and simple. The one I spec'ed is for a USB 3.0 enclosure as you have USB 3.0 ports on your computer - much faster than USB 2.0.
Clinton

I just bought a MBA and I need to move my photos and itunes to an external hard drive (from my old MacBook Pro) because they won't fit on the Air. I got the photos moved fine and I followed an online tutorial to move the necessary files for itunes, but i

I just bought a MBA and I need to move my photos and itunes to an external hard drive (from my old MacBook Pro) because they won't fit on the Air. I got the photos moved fine and I followed an online tutorial to move the necessary files for itunes, but it didn't work. The files copied fine, but when I tell iTunes on the Air to look at the external drive for the library, it doesn't find anything. What I copied was the entire iTunes Media folder. So, how do I move the necessary iTunes files from my old Pro to a external drive so I can access them from my new Air? Whew!

iTunes- How to move the library to an EHD
After you move the library you need to open iTunes by first depressing the OPTION key then launching iTunes. You will be given a choice of which library to use. This can then be made a permanent change, if you wish, in the Advanced section of iTunes preferences.

Change Hard Drive MacBook Pro mid 2009

My hard drive is dying (the beach ball appears, concurrent with a sound that can only be described as a squeak, coming from, I assume, the hard drive. Then, the beach ball freezes and the machine can only be revived by a hard restart)
My Question; can I put a Seagate Momentus XT ST750LX003, 750GB, Bulk 2.5 ", 8GB Flash, SLC, 32MB Cache, 7200 U / min • SATA III 6.0Gb / s in a Macbook pro Mid-2009 15"?
Would be very grateful for a reply

Ask as many questions as you like, OK.
Basically yes they are all backward compatible except for the drives and or firmware on the drives that refuse to be backward compatible. Which drive they are I have no idea but mostly they are SSDs and not spinning HDD. The transfer rate on any spinning HDD is slow enough, even on the XT series, that if you have a SATA II bus the drive can't really fill it up, IE can't go over its theoretical Rated transfer speed and or the actual data rate it can handle.
The problem occurred on 2009 MBPs because some of the original cables used could not handle the extra data rate the XT series drive could deliver, both reading and writing to the drive.

All photos in Faces gone after external hard drive transfer to new MacBook Pro

Hello all,
I had a upto date 6 year old Macbook G4 that I regularly backed up onto a external hard drive.
I recently purchased a new Macbook Pro OS 10.8.3 with iPhoto version 9.4.3.
I imported all info from the external hard drive to the new MacBook Pro. Seems most all data transferred ok.
With the following exception with iPhoto application, I have over 17,000 photos in the iPhoto library.
On opening iPhoto on my new MacBook after import all the iPhoto seems to be working ok, Places, library, folders, editing etc.
The one problem seems to be with Faces. When opening faces it loads and the individual recognised face folders are there, with perforated outline
but no photos. No phots in any individual Faces folders.
All Faces folders are greyed out, the number of each of the faces in each folder is correct with names and are again all grey out with a perforated outline.
Help and information on how to get the pictures of the photos back into the indivudual folders which are still in the Faces page but are blank.
Thank you, signed "Faceless Faces"

I imported all info from the external hard drive to the new MacBook Pro. Seems most all data transferred ok.
Exactly what did you do? With iPhoto there is no "importing" involved - you simply drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the pictures folder of the new machine and launch iPhoto letting it convert as needed
With the following exception with iPhoto application,
You would do nothing with the iPhoto application - you use the new iPhoto application installed on yoru new system - you only move the iPhoto library as noted above
You can try Back up your iPhoto library, Depress and hold the option (alt) and command keys and launch iPhoto - rebuild your iPhoto library
LN

Which hard drive do you recommend macbook pro mid 2009

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