How to swap hard drives?

I currently have a mid-2007 white Macbook with Tiger OS. I'm thinking of purchasing a 13" Macbook Pro, but would like to swap hard drives since my current one is 320gb 7200rpm.
What's the best way to do this? Can I just swap the drives out, and then reformat them with the installation discs? I don't mind reformatting the hard drives because I have all of my data backed up to an external already.

Yes, you can swap, reinstall the OS from the DVDs that come with the new MBP, then use Migration Assistant to transfer the data form your external backup.

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Swapping hard drives .... how does lightroom handle this ?

My photography is done on a separate computer to my online machine and the photo system never goes online ( so virus-proof ).
I use " Laser " brand hard drive racks which allow me to swap hard drives on each machine, and also to swap them between the two computers.
So I have several HDD's with different photo projects on each drive and some backups on HDD's as well.
Lightroom is a database system rather than a browser, so how will it be able to handle swapping HDD's in and out like this ? What happens if lightroom points to a file which is on another HDD not currently installed in the machine ? Will it be able to show all the thumbnails and tell me which HDD holds them ( as I believe programs like Imatch can )? Will lightroom be confused by this. Or will it set up its database on each HDD so each disc is a self-contained library with its own lightroom index ?
I know I can't be the only one with more photos than fit onto just one HDD. Can anyone please tell me how lightroom's library system deals with this situation ?

Thankyou very much for the responses so far ....
I see a potential problem because my HDD's are not permanently connected in the computer. Each HDD as it is swapped in and out is assigned the same identifier, say " drive D " or suchlike by windows. So my drive D might be any one of several HDDs .... with very different content to the previous drive D I had in the machine. If Lightroom stores its library for each of my drive D's on drive D itself, then I suspect there will not be problem because each HDD will be its own self-contained libary and Lightroom which resides on drive C will be able to operate on each one in turn. I will then have a series of HDD's dedicated to specific tasks, and can use Lightroom on all of them.
Windows works this way, where it resides on my drive C and performs operations on each drive D. It has no problem in " picking up " each new drive D at startup. I do not attempt to hot-swap.
But I do not know if this is how Lightroom operates. If Lightroom stores any of this information on drive C will it be able to differentiate between the different drive D's it is confronted with ?
Geoff's reply suggests that Lightroom might store some or all of its database/library with itself on drive C. Even this might work if the missing files are shown in red. I would just need to select the right HDD to put into the machine for the project I want to work on. Hopefully this will work like the external drive situation Andrew has described. I am using sticky labels to identify each HDD with the projects it holds at the moment ....
Sounds encouraging .... Thanks for the help.

How come my hard drive is not showing up on the desktop?

How come my hard drive is not showing up on the desktop?

Those are preferences you speify from INSIDE The Finder:
Finder > Preferences:

Swapping hard drives between PXI-8115 and PXI-8105 won't boot up

I have a test system running Windows XP on PXI-8105. I've upgraded the entire test system for another project and need to upgrade my existing systems; the upgrade runs on Windows 7 and PXI-8115. I have new hard drives with Windows 7 and the new test software which were loaded/configured/tested on a PXI-8115, but I need to retrofit the PXI-8105 with them. This doesn't work. Windows begins to boot but fails and tries over and over again. In an effort to take the PXI-8105 off-line to troubleshoot, I replaced it with one of the PXI-8115 and the old (WinXP) drive. This didn't boot up, either.
Here's a summary of my situation:
An old system has PXI-8105 running WinXP
A new system has PXI -8115 running Win7
A hard drive (with Win7) from the PXI-8115 won't boot on the PXI-8105
A hard drive (with WinXP) from the PXI-8105 won't boot on the PXI-8115
What is different between the two PXI controllers that keeps me from swapping hard drives?
Jim
You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are. ~ Alice
Solved!
Go to Solution.

A couple thoughts:
1. Windows 7 probably works fine on a PXI-8105. Although NI never officially supported or shipped that configuration, I suspect that the default Windows 7 installation contains enough of the driver support needed to boot up.
2. In general, Windows is not very tolerant of swapping hard drives between completely different systems, especially with Windows XP and prior. Consider whether just installing fresh and copying over what you need is faster than trying to do this, but if you must, I would suspect that Windows 7 would be more tolerant of the swap.
3. As a debugging step, try pressing 'F8' during the boot process to launch the Windows boot menu and try safe mode or some of the other options. More information here.
4. If all else fails, Google is your friend here as there's nothing particularly specific about this being an NI product that you need to know when attempting this operation. Any information you find online about swapping hard drives between PCs should be relevant to your situation. Searching for 'swap hard drive to new computer windows 7' gave some useful hits on the first page. Beyond that, you can also look into using the 'sysprep' utility to try and clean the system and prepare for swapping to a new PC.

How do I find how large my Hard Drive is? Please help!

Recently been getting messages saying that my startup disk is full. And I'm thinking about getting a Time Capsule. But the thing is, I can't find out how big my hard drive is. I clicked the apple, then About this mac, and I could only find "Memory", which was only 1 GB. I know that can't be it, because my iTunes is over 90 GB. But I can't find the hard drive. Either I'm blind, or it's not there.
Please help
Thanks

Click more info in the about this mac pop up. Then under Serial-ATA. This will give you the size.
You can also click on your drive in finder and choose Get Info. This will also let you see the size.

How to replace hard drive in macbook pro?

How to replace hard drive in macbook pro?

Hi S,
If you have the newer unibody style, it's very easy. If it's one of the earlier models, it's considerably more difficult. Go to Apple Menu > About This Mac > More Info > Hardware and find your Model Identifier. Then go to ifixit.com, or powerbookmedic.com or macsales.com or youtube or others and there are illustrated, detailed directions. Good luck to you and post back if you have further questions.

How to wipe hard drive bc selling computer and want all passwords/personal info gone? etc

how to wipe hard drive bc selling computer and want all passwords/personal info gone?

You need to boot the computer from another source, e.g. a CD or an external drive. Then run Disk Utility, select the drive you want cleaned up, and run Erase. Note the security options: "write zeroes" will erase the drive completely.

How to install hard drive into mac pro

how to install hard drive into mac pro

I recently bought a new 2TB internal sata drive for my Macpro.
The installation was easy, but I'm not sure what to do next.
For one, should I partition the drive?
My purpose for buying the drive was to use it as my go to drive for Parallels. I used to run my music studio on Windows based machines, and my older project files require a windows OS to recover. I installed Parallels so I can have my studio running Mac and Windows programs which will enable me to access my old project files and take them into my newer Protools system.
So now, I've installed my new hard drive, but I'm not sure if I should partition it....And!? I'm not sure how to designate that drive for my virtual pc on Parallels. I was able to allocate enough disk space to parallels in order to load my music software, but at this point, I'm not sure if I've just promised it disk space from my original partitioned drive (which only has about 350 GB left on it).
I would love to be able to make one internal drive available for Parallels, and the other available for the rest of my OSX. When I use Parallels, I still would like to save some extra information on the 2TB drive as well from my dekstop running OSX.
I hope this makes sense! Your help is much appreciated!

Swapped hard drive boot problem

Swapped hard drives between 6530b and 6535b, neither boots. What did I miss? (Toshiba MK3255GSX and Hitachi HTS543223L9A300)

Disk Utility - Erase (drive, not volume) and make sure it is now GPT/GUID and not old Apple Partition Table format.
Even though it is data only, there can and are some problems (the older it was last formatted the more so perhaps).
Just pull the data off if needed. Handy to have a FW drive case for SATA laying around.
Migrating OS and apps from G5 to Intel is full of potential pitfalls.
Depending on the drive age, size, performance, I'd probably go for a WD Caviar 640GB $75 to transfer files onto, and then wipe the Maxtor and use it for an emergency backup drive off which you can run Disk Warrior and such.

Swapping Hard Drive problem

Hello, I have a 2008 model Macbook pro. I recently pulled the hard drive from a windows pc and replaced that drive with a SSD. The windows drive was not reformatted, I figured I could do it through Disk Utility. However, the drive does not show up. I'm assuming it's currently formatted as ntfs or fat32.
The existing drive is bootable, but the machine is put back together and it's a pain to take apart. Wondering if I can boot into something like terminal and choose to reformat the drive.
The only drive that shows up is my bootable flash drive. I do have the ability to hook up the old drive through a USB to SATA adapter, and possibly boot that way. If I can get it to boot from that external drive, is there a way to format the newly installed drive without having to rip the whole thing a part?
I had a hard time with the * shaped screws getting them in and out, so I'm trying to avoid having to remove the drive again....
Any tips would be appreciated!

More info: I think there is something wrong on the motherboard side all of a sudden. Now when I put the original drive in it doesn't boot up anymore. I wonder if while removing the old drive, I damaged the Hard Drive Connector? I just ordered a replacement on ebay (only 9 bucks). What is odd is I'm pretty careful about removing things, since I have replaced many laptop components over the years, so I don't think I did anything damaging when swapping hard drives.
The laptop did work fine, but since it is a 5400 RPM drive, I wanted speed, so I wanted to just put a 7200 RPM or SSD. What I ended up doing this morning was to hook up the SSD externally and choose to install Mavericks to that drive through my bootable USB. Than, once I booted successfully, I re-took the laptop apart, and put the SSD drive into the laptop. I didn't put the rail screws on this, I was just testing if it booted, so I just set it in the area it will reside. I booted and it wouldn't boot up at all, never saw Apple logo, just showed a blinking folder with quesiton mark on the screen.
If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd appreciate it, but now the internal drive connections don't seem to work, but I can boot externally for now. I figured I'd order the Hard Drive connector kit from ebay and see if that fixed it, since that is a 9 dollar part....
Thanks.

How to check hard drive health

My mac pro starts up and shuts down very slow. Anyone know how to check hard drive health?

Normally if you have a hard drive problem it manifests itself with delays, periodic locks-ups, I/O errors, etc.during notrmal use, not just start ups and slow downs.
Never the less, you asked how you check the health of a drive, so I'll answer.
You can check the SMART status of your drive with Disk Utility or a free tool like smartctl in the smartmontools package. Disk Utility will typically report the SMART status of your drive as "verified" or a message associated with a type of failure right in the Disk Utility window. SMART status will be reported on most internal drives and Thunderbolt drives. More elaborate SMART information can often be obtained with newer OS versions by clicking on the "info" button. SMART is a reporting technology and will only report on errors after they occur. Many in the industry are highly critical of SMART, with a recent study by Google on hard drive problems indicating that it did a poor job indicating impending problems.
Other tools such as Scannerz (http://scsc-online.com/Scannerz.html), TechTool Pro (http://www.micromat.com/products/techtool-pro) and Drive Genius (http://www.prosofteng.com/products/drive_genius.php) do, IMHO, a better job of testing because surface scans can detect errors not detected by SMART yet, and all three of them do those tests. Personally I like Scannerz myself because it's to the point, hardware testing oriented, and can expose other system problems like cable problems, whereas the others are more like swiss army knife tools with a lot of features that may or may not be of use to end users. Some of the people on this site will swear by these tools, whereas others will swear at them. All three of these also monitor SMART status in one way or another.
With software tools out of the way, I'd have to agree with all previous posts, because it doesn't sound like it's probably a hard drive problem. Yes, it possibly could be, it's just that slow start ups and shutdowns are usually caused by too many apps being saved in an "on" state. Any time the system starts, it has to re-load them and resume them as best as it can, and then any time it gets shut down it must save all that information and this all takes time. (I'm assuming Lion or newer operating system is in use). This is often the most likely cause in Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks.
There are other possibilities, but you should probably ellaborate on the problem a bit more.

Can I swap hard drives between 2007 and 2011 iMacs?

I have a 2007 iMac that I want to replace with a refurbished 2011 model. I had upgraded my 2007 iMac with a 1.5T hard drive and the 2011 model only comes with a 1T hard drive. And you can't do any upgrade at the Apple store on refurb units. SoI am just wanting to swap hard drives. The 2007 has 10.7 and it appears that the 2011 model has the same. (says elegible for 10.8 upgrade on Apple Store site.) I have replaced the hard drive myself, so I am familiar with the process.
Thanks.

The drives themselves are compatible, yes. However, the OS might not be. In any case, if you have a Time Machine backup (or some other backup) of the older iMac, it's best to wipe the drive and reinstall the OS once installed in the new Mac. Then you can just transfer your data, apps, and settings from the backup.
One important thing to note, though: the 2011 iMacs have temperature sensors built in on the hard drive, so if you use a drive other than one supplied by Apple specifically for that system, the fans will run at full speed all the time. Probably the easiest workaround: use something like smcFanControl to regulate the speed of the fans. Hope this helps!

How to find hard drives connected to router on my mac

how to find hard drives connected to router on my mac

Hello Thatguy1233,
It sounds like you have a Time Machine back up of your computer that you would like to restore. You may be able to use the following article to restore that backup:
OS X Lion: Recover your entire system
http://support.apple.com/kb/ph4351
Make sure your Time Machine backup disk is connected and turned on. If your backup disk is on a network, make sure your computer is on the same network.
Choose Apple menu > Restart, and then hold down the Command (⌘) and R keys while the computer restarts.
Select “Restore from a Time Machine Backup,” and then click Continue.
Depending on your type of backup disk, do one of the following:
If you use an external disk, select it and click Continue.
If you use a Time Capsule, choose your AirPort network from the AirPort menu on the right side of the menu bar, and then select your Time Capsule and click “Connect to Remote Disk.”
If you use a network disk, select it and click “Connect to Remote Disk.”
If necessary, enter the name and password you use to connect to your backup disk, and then click Connect.
Select the date and time of the backup you want to restore, and then follow the onscreen instructions.
After you restore your system from a Time Machine backup, Time Machine may perform a full backup at the next scheduled backup time. This is normal. Time Machine resumes incremental backups after the full backup is completed.
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Take care,
Sterling

Can I swap hard drives?

Hi.
I have a T400 with T9400 chipset. All (3) USB's have broken over the years and I recently purchased a used T400 on ebay with T9600 chipset to replace the older computer.
My question is can I simply swap hard drive from old computer to the new one and have everything work? The current computer is 64-bit Windows 7 and newer one is 32-bit...
Thanks for help!

>>> The current computer is 64-bit Windows 7 and newer one is 32-bit...
That statement is irrelevant. Either computer can run either Windows 7 version, no problem -- 4GB RAM addressability being the main limitation of the 32-bit version.
I would give it a try. Unless there are significant device differences (which I doubt), Windows 7 system loaded from the "old" HDD will work fine on the "new" ThinkPad.
In any event, I would rather use this opportunity to do a clean installation of Windows 7 64-bit, for which you have a COA key.

Swapping hard drive between MacBook and MacBook Pro ?

Hi
I'm about to receive a new MBP and would like to spend as little time as possible making the transition from my current MacBook (non-Pro). The MacBook is slightly old (mid-2006) but running the latest Leopard.
Would swapping the hard drives allow the MBP to boot properly?
Could it potentially cause any side effects?
How could I reduce or eliminate these?
I'm reluctant to use Time Machine restoration since I've already been traumatized once by the incompleteness of the TM backup, causing me to lose many hours to manual, tedious restoration.
Thanks for any info!

Hi Guychi;
As I said earlier, since the hardware is different I would not use the operating system from the old hardware on the new hardware.
Are you doing the work or have someone else do it?
If you are taking it in to have it do, I would suggest that you ask them to move the operating system for you.
If you are doing it yourself get an external enclosure and clone the operating system over then install the larger drive with the new operating system.
Allan

How to swap hard drives?

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