Help Regarding Hard Drive Upgrade (Method, Model, Raid)

Hello,
I have a W520 with two 500GB drives in stripped RAID configuration. One of the two drives has been making a crunching noise, followed by a beep.
I called tech support, and it was not very helpful. I have the next business day at your door warranty, and they are sending me a new hard drive to install myself, in about 5 business days (not sure how this is, given the warranty I've had, and never used until now...).
In any event, my drives are nearly full, and if I'm going to go through the trouble of changing one anyway, I'd rather just replace them both with larger drives.
My goal is to have the largest drives possible, and do the upgrade as easily as possible. I don't really care if RAID is in effect or not, as I don't feel I've noticed any real performence increase anyway.
I have in the past upgraded Thinkpad drives to larger drives, but these were in single drive systems. I'm "handy" with computers, in a do it yourself kind of way, but really just an amateur with this stuff. I'm concered about the dual drive aspect and the RAID aspect with this one. The tech support guy said they have no information to share about how to do a drive upgrade, that they just ship the drive (which I'm probably not going to use now anyway).
So these are my questions, and thanks to anyone who takes the time to share any advice...
1) What is the best, largest compatible replacement drives to get? I don't care about speed of the drive as much as size.
2) What is the best way to copy off/clone/mirror the existing content on my existing drives? I bought a device off Amazon to do this a few times - one of the times, the device literally started smoking... I'm not sure where I put the last one I used (where you connect to the new, bare drive).
3) Can I just disable RAID in the bios once I've copied the old drives to the new drives (or to an external backp-up drive)? If it is easier to just disable it and have two separate drives on my system, I'm fine with that.
Again, thanks for any help with this.
Jason

Hi, Denny.
...and when I took it apart and proceeded to
load in the new hard drive I noticed that the new one
did not have connector pins to hook up to the flex
cable on the hard drive.
So you removed the old drive, you detached the short flex cable from it, and now you find nothing on the new drive to connect the cable to? Am I understanding correctly?
If so, is it possible that the connector on the new drive is covered with some sort of temporary shield to protect it during packing, shipping and handling? If it is, the shield should come off if you pull it in the same direction you pulled the flex cable to detach it from your old drive.
I'm tempted to say you are surely missing something. For Hitachi to have shipped a drive that has no cable connector seems about as likely as for Toyota to have shipped a car with no tires installed, but I suppose anything is (barely) possible.

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Hello all,
Can anyone PLEASE help?
I have just had my hard drive upgraded/changed from the original 640GB drive to a new 2TB drive. I've also had an additional 4GB of RAM added to now give me 8GB RAM.
Absolutely everything else seems to be working fine (unusual for me and I'm often at the end of bad luck in such circumstances). The only thing I'm having problems with is syncing my iPod Classic with iTunes. Incidentally, I have the latest version of iTunes and my iPod software was up to date the last time I checked.
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First things first the spinning beach ball is usually an indication that Search is going nuts.
Turn off Search entire Library by clicking on the downward pointing arrow to the right of the Magnisying glass and untick Search entire library.
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If the music is only on the ipod connect up as above click on the device and Drag all the music from your device to the library. then you can uncheck manually manage music and sync as normal

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~Lyssa

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I recently upgraded my 128gb ssd to a 512gb ssd drive. I cloned the drive to new drive and ever since then, I get the spinning beach ball very often whereas I never got it prior to the hard drive upgrade. Is there anything I can check or do to eliminate the freeze ups? It is VERY annoying. Or do I just need to do a fresh install on the new hard drive.
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Did you properly prep the drive first:
Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your OS X 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.
If you are preparing an external or a non-startup drive, then open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
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.
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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.
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This procedure was used on an IBM ThinkPad T60p with 90 gig SATA HD.Machine was upgraded with a Western Digital 320 gig BEKT SATA drive (Scorpio Black).
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Save and exit
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Have a copy of Windows Vista on CD; the version does not matter, you will use this only to boot from CD.
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It needs to be large enough to back up your existing drive.
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Select the “Back-up files or your entire computer” option
Select “Back up computer
”Windows displays “Where do you want to save the backup”
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Windows displays hard drives available,
Select the drive you just plugged in
Click “Next”
Review the screen “Confirm your backup settings”
Windows displays “Local Disk (C) (System)” in the bottom window.
Click “Start backup”.
Backup will take 1-2 hours.
When completed, you have a complete image of your drive created by Windows Vista on the external HD
Install new Hard Drive
Shut down the machine.
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http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-62826
Boot the computer using the Vista CD.
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Click “Next”
Click “Repair Your Computer”
Windows displays a window showing operating systems available, the window will be blank.
Click “Next”
Windows displays “Choose a Recovery Option”
Select “Windows Complete PC Restore”
Windows displays the saved image from your external drive
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Click “Finish”
Remove the Windows CD
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Set up the new drive
After restoration, the system will reboot and you should be at the Vista Log In screen.
Log in normally and check to be sure your programs work.
You now need to tell Vista you have a new drive, and resize the partition to the capacity of the new drive.
Tell Windows to recognize the new drive
Start Menu, L click “Computer”
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R click on drive C => properties
Select the “Hardware” tab
Highlight drive C
Select the “Properties” tab, bottom right
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Click the “Populate” tab
Windows will now populate the table with the settings for the new drive.
Save the settings and Reboot the computer.
Windows will now recognize the new higher capacity drive.
After reboot
Start Menu, R click “Computer”
Select “Manage”
In the L window, select “Storage” => “Disk Management”
Disk “0” is your new drive
Select Drive C
R click Drive C, select “Extend Volume”
The Extend Volume Wizard will open
Click “Next”
Click “Finish”
The new drive capacity is now operational.
You will now have two partitions, one for Windows, one for programs and data.

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Dear Ralph, and All
My MBP is indeed non-retina.
I also have Apple care support for 3 years
I was in touch with Apple suport since last week. Response I got on Phone was pretty astounding (waiting email confirmation). They say following
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- None of authorised delars will provide such a service
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Really appreaciate the quick responses i have recieved from you and others on this forum.
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