Is there a hard drive limit to mid-2009 MacBook Pro?

I currently have a 160GB HDD. I know the white MacBooks don't.

The limit is what you can buy. Right now that's 1 TB for a notebook SATA drive that will fit into your computer model.

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Samsung hard drive problems with mid 2009 Macbook Pro

Arghh, this is driving me mad.
I'd like to know if anyone has installed a Samsung HM641JI SATA II hard drive into a mid 2009 Macbook Pro (mine is a 2.8Ghz) and, if so, how they managed it. The drive is 640GB. These are the steps I've taken:
1. Swap out the stock drive for the Samsung
2. Boot from a USB drive which contains a mirror of my system
3. When the system identified the new disk, I formatted it with 2 partitions (GUID table, HFS journaled)
4. Reboot
5. System is very slow. Boots from USB but can't use keyboard to login
6. Switch off and try again
7. Remove Samsung drive
8. Reboot from USB (works perfectly)
9. Downgrade firmware to 1.6
10. Replace samsung drive and try again
11. System boots from USB
12. Verify that drive is running at 1.5Ghz
13. Disk utility and system profiler both crash
14. Disk unmounts by itself and other random weirdness
15. Remove Samsung drive
I've read endless reports about the firmware in this model of Macbook Pro and its issues with SATA II but struggling to find anything current and specific. Two questions:
a. Is there anythign I can do to get this drive to play nicely?
b. What drive should I get if the answer to a is no?
As a bit of background.. my system began playing up last week with lots of spinning beach balls resulting in forced switch offs. Booting from a mirror on a USB drive works perfectly so I concluded that the drive was on its way out. A drive test utility confirmed this. I'm now wondering if it really was the drive or the cable or the logic board.
Any advice appreciated.
Cheers
//A

I'm coming around to the idea that this might be a problem with the SATA cable rather than the drive.
I currently have the stock drive (Hitachi) back in the macbook. It mounted for a while and was then ejected when I tried writing data to it. System profiler reports that "There was an error while scanning for Serial-ATA devices."
I was able to mount the same drive in a USB enclosure this afternoon without any problems. Right now, I seem to be having issues with both the Samsung drive and the Hitachi drive - I wasn't suspicious of thr latter because I thought it was failing.
I found one or two accounts of other people having similar problems that were resolved with a new sata cable.
How does a cable fail? Could this be my problem?
Cheers
//A

Can I replace the hard drive on a mid 2012 MacBook Pro?

I just bought a new MacBook Pro. I had a 2010 MBP and kept the hard drive (Hitachi 500gb 7200 rpm) from that computer. It ws running 10.7 and worked fine. It still boots up perfectly on my MacPro so I know it works.
I tried to boot the new MacBook Pro using the old drive but I get a circle with a line through it. I have tried to boot using Firewire and even installed it into the new MacBook Pro. I then tried to re-install OS 10.7. I just downloaded it from the App Store for my MacPro so I tried to use it to re-install. It will not work on this new Macbook Pro. I had to download a version specific to this computer (using the "recover" disk). I takes 1.5 hours to download and then it still didn't work. When the computer reboots after the download and restarts I get the same **** circle with a line through it. The new "manual" is a joke. There is no reference to upgrading drives or memory. Did Apple decide to make their new laptops inaccessible to the owner? I can't find any info online and at the Apple store today they told me they knew of no reason that the drive wouldn't work.
Anyone else have any thoughts?

Have you considered Migration Assistant?
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4889
From Mac HELP:
Transferring information using Migration Assistant
You can use Migration Assistant to transfer important information, such as user accounts, applications, network and computer settings, and files, from one Mac computer to another. You can also transfer information to a Mac from an external disk. Your information can be transferred using a FireWire cable or over a wired or wireless network.
NOTE:If you’re transferring information over a wired or wireless network, make sure your computers are connected to the same network.
To transfer information from a Mac:
Open Migration Assistant (located in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder), and then follow the onscreen instructions.
When you’re asked how you want to transfer your information, select the “From another Mac” button, and then select the method by which you want to transfer.
To transfer files using a FireWire cable connected to your computers, click Use FireWire. Then, follow the onscreen instructions to restart your other Mac while holding down the T key.
To transfer files using a network, click Use Network. Then, follow the onscreen instructions to open Migration Assistant on your other computer. When you’re asked how you want to transfer your information, select the “To another Mac” button.
To transfer information to a Mac:
Open Migration Assistant (located in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder), and then follow the onscreen instructions.
When you’re asked how you want to transfer your information, select the “To another Mac” button.
On the other computer, open Migration Assistant, and then follow the onscreen instructions. When you’re asked how you want to transfer your information, select the “From another Mac” button.
Ciao.

Why does the hard drive keep crashing on 2009 MacBook Pro?

We are now on the third hard drive, the second in 5 months. The problem started after I dropped book on it, but no repairmen have suggested that has anything to do with it.

drop your books on it and you can crash your armature heads in the HD, ....HD are fragile.
I assume the first one died of age.....second from the book drop.......and the third?
endlightend
Hard drives don't fail often, but they do occasionally
They fail, and often, and new ones fail a LOT more than older ones (sounds silly, but logical)
Hard Drive Warning (all makes and models)
Ironically but logical, new hard drives are far more fragile than one that has been working for several months or a couple years. So beware in your thinking that a new hard drive translates into “extremely reliable”!
Hard drives suffer from high rates of what has been termed "infant mortality". Essentially this means new drives are highly prone to failing in the first few months of usage. This is because of very minor manufacturing defects or HD platter balancing, or head and armature geometry being less than perfect; and this is not immediately obvious and can quickly manifest itself once the drive is put to work.
Hard drives that survive the first few months of use without failing are likely to remain healthy for a number of years.
Generally HD are highly prone to death or corruption for a few months, then work fine for a few years, then spike in mortality starting at 3-4 years and certainly should be considered end-of-life at 5-7+ years.
The implication of this is that you should not trust a new hard drive completely (really never completely!) until it has been working perfectly for several months.
Given the second law of thermodynamics, any and all current mfg. HD will, under perfect storage conditions tend themselves to depolarization and a point will be reached, even if the HD mechanism is perfect, that the ferromagnetic read/write surface of the platter inside the HD will entropy to the point of no return for data extraction. HD life varies, but barring mechanical failure, 3-8 years typically.

Will a Seragate 500 GB SATA 7200RPM Hard Drive work in my 2009 Macbook Pro?

?

Yes, get a Toshiba (made by Hitachi) or Hitachi 1TB HD, a 1TB drive is only about $70 now even in retail. you CANNOT INSTALL a 1.5 TB drive, because thickness is 12.5mm thick
A macbook CANNOT accept anything thicker than a 9.5mm HD. (=1TB max)
7mm = 500GB max
9.5mm = 500GB or 1TB
12.5mm = 1.5TB
15.2mm = 2TB

My friends hard drive failed on his 2009 macbook pro and he bought a new hard drive. we installed the hard drive and now all we get is white screen.

the macbook will not boot to the boot disc, or into startup disk control menu. is there anything else possible that we can do? we are slightly experiencvecd when it comes to these types of repairs. but this is baffling us.

We have tried this and it still goes to the white screen. One time when we were trying to boot from the disc (by holding "c" directly after the boot sound) we got a folder icon with a question mark in it. But it will not boot from the boot disk or go to the boot menu when you hold the option key upon boot.

My mid-2009 MacBook Pro's hard drive is near death. I want to install a new SSD and work from scratch. Please help.

Recently, my mid-2009 MacBook Pro has been crashing when I close the screen ("it's having a problem recognizing when the screen is closed/open and deciding what to do, error overload etc."). It wasn't an SMC issue so I took it to an Apple Store, ran some tests, and decided my hard-drive is failing.
Not wanting to spend an insane amount of money on some "official apple hard-drive," I want to install a new 256GB SSD instead. Hoping to squeeze as much life out of this computer as possible (in January I upgraded from 4 GB RAM to 8 GB), I would like to try and start from scratch, i.e. back-up important folders, music, photos etc. and only take that to the new hard-drive. If someone could explain all the steps I need to take to safely complete this task (or point me in the direction of a guide) I'd appreciate it.
Potentially Important info:
     Model:                mid-2009 13'' MacBook Pro
     Processor:          2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
     Memory:             4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
     Software:            OS X 10.8.4
Some additional questions I have...
     Should I be concerned with making a fully bootable back-up (not sure what that is called) as well? If so, what program should I use to create it?
     How much more life should I try and push out of this computer? I'm an engineering student and really only use it for web-surfing, music, and
          word-processing. The batter was replaced in March, the RAM was upgraded to 8 GB in January. When the battery was swapped, the trackpad went           nuts so that's new too. Only other issues are a slightly loose audio jack and the left side of the screen being slightly wobbly (hinge is worn I'm told).

cwgonzalez1192
     Should I be concerned with making a fully bootable back-up (not sure what that is called) as well? If so, what program should I use to create it?
     How much more life should I try and push out of this computer? I'm an engineering student and really only use it for web-surfing, music, and
          word-processing.
Well there is no "official Apple HD / SSD" in any regard, no worries there.
If as you say youre only using same for surfing and word processing, why the need for a SSD? You would not notice any speed diff. in use on either of those,....in boot times yes, but in word or surfing, not.
You can push it likely a few more years, for mere surfing and word processing,...many many years.   Up TO the point that any major fixes become unrealistic relative to getting a new(ER) machine.
Concerned with a boot clone? yes and no. Its an ideal immediate recovery, since you cannot boot from Time Machine, ....in case of HD crash, recovery takes seconds from boot, or 20 mins or so from removing old and installing a clone. All the prosumers and pros have at least one updated clone of their prime machines.
You can do a "fresh install" if you choose, however if your current drive is FINE, why not merely clone it and save yourself some headache?...., but that is your prerogative of course.    Ideally 2 drives, one to backup your data (you need that regardless of installing a new drive for sake of a backup/archive,...ideally 2 actually, not merely one).
You could clone internal to NEW SSD/HD , ...then offload unnecessary files to an external to free up space and clutter and run off the clone, and this would only take a couple hours......the clone itself takes approx. 40+ mins.
CLONE Apps :
Superduper does not clone the recovery partition, but that is NOT necessary if you keep the original HD as a “backup clone”. Most don’t bother with the recovery partition in a clone, however that is your prerogative.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
(Free superduper APP above)
CCC App
http://www.bombich.com/

Only Apple Branded Hard Drives Work in My Mid-2009 MacBook Pro

My Mid-2009 MacBook Pro (actually, my wife's) experienced a hard-drive failure about a year ago. This was a 500GB 7200RPM drive that came BTO from Apple.
It's easy enough to replace HD's, so, I did it myself with a Seagate 7200RPM 500GB drive, the same model as the one from Apple, but I got this one from Seagate, not from Apple, so it didn't have the Apple logo (and firmware?) on it. The drive did not work. I was able to format the drive using Disk Utility, but when I tried to install Snow Leopard on it, it would fail. I placed the new drive in my other MBP (early 2008), and installed SL, no problems. Booted to it just fine.
I put it back in the 2009 MBP, and it would not boot - it would show the flashing folder with a question mark. I put the drive in a usb enclosure and the MBP booted from it just fine (well, a little slower because the usb speed, I presume).
I bought another Seagate and experienced the same problem. I bought a Hitachi and experienced the same problem. I took it to an authorized Apple repair facility who told me that the HD was bad (which was obviously false, since all 3 HD's I tried worked just fine in my other computer).
So, I took it into Apple and gave them the whole story and they ran overnight hardware diagnostics and were unable to find (or fix) a problem.
So, I played stupid and brought it back again, saying "uh, my hard drive broke, can you fix it?" hoping that they would try to replace the HD and fix the problem or at least diagnose it.
Well, they put an Apple branded HD back in, and it works just fine.
Seemingly, that would be problem solved, and life has been fine for the last year. But, now we bought an OptiBay to ditch the DVD drive and place a 750GB (non-apple) drive in the optical bay. To my surprise, the non-apple drive works, but, it is pretty slow (we put our iPhoto library on there, and it chokes very badly when you ask it to do anything, such as zoom on a picture, play a video, go to full screen, etc. It takes about 30 to 45 seconds of SBOD to perform those tasks.
I am wondering if there was any way we could have damaged the SATA connector or driver? Why would only Apple branded drives work in the main HD bay? I don't know if an Apple branded drive would preform better in the optical bay or not.

I recently saw a similar situation described in another forum and someone directed the OP to look for a jumper on the drive. I raised my eyebrows--that sounded like old PATA technology--but, sure enough, the OP found a jumper, changed it and everything worked. This apparently changed the timing on the drive to match Apple products. I'm leaving town and won't have much time to search myself, but try a forum search for "SATA jumper" and see if something rings a bell.

Hard Drive for a MID 2011 MACBOOK AIR 11 INCH

Do you have a recommendation for online purchase of a new Hard Drive for a MID 2011 MACBOOK AIR 11 INCH??
Thanks

Here is another vendor that sells MBA storage upgrades:
http://www.transcendusa.com/apple/jetdrive/
Ciao.

Mid 2009 MacBook Pro 13 Hard Drive Upgrade Questions

I bought an upgraded hard drive for my mid-2009 MBP 13. I've done some reading and it appears that my model of MBP shouldn't have drive issues, but I still have a few questions that I'm hoping someone will answer. Perhaps this will all boil down to a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. That is, I may be worried without good reason. If so, I apologize ahead of time.
MacBook Pro 5,5
2.26 GHz
4GB RAM
10.6.3
Firmware version is: EFI64
The stock drive is a TOSHIBA MK1655GSXF (160 GB):
The new hard drive is the Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500 GB 5400 RPM drive.
I noticed that the temperature seemed to spike after installing the new drive. I didn't get the temperature of the hard drive before I took it out, but the CPU was consistently around 170 degrees Fahrenheit and the fan was in the 2,800-2,900 RPM range.
After putting the stock drive back in the MBP, the temps are consistently 142-145 degrees F for the CPU and 95-97 degrees F for the hard drive. The fan is right around 2,000 RPM.
I've read a bit about outrageous load cycles and just wanted to check the numbers.
The WD Scorpio Blue around 4,055 after 27 power on hours.
The stock drive was at last count, at 206701 after 2215 power on hours.
The machine is doing comparable things, downloading podcasts, Time Machine backups, browsing, etc.
The general questions, I have are:
Is the temperature supposed to spike like that when handling a larger drive?
If so, what is a reasonable range? I know I don't have the temperature of the new drive, but if I knew what to expect, I guess I would be more confident putting the new drive back in and not returning it.
What's a normal/healthy/reasonable (don't really know the term I'm grasping for) load cycle to see? I divided the load cycles by the number of power on hours and get around 150 for the WD and 93 for the Toshiba. Are either of those outrageously good or bad? I haven't been able to tell in my reading.
The bottom-line questions are:
Am I just overreacting based on what I've read? Or, is something not kosher and should I return the new drive and get something else? Should I try hdapm or something? If I should return the drive, any recommendations?
I've talked your collective ear off, I'm sure.
Thank you in advance for your responses.
Cheers,
Rob

For what it's worth I've put aftermarket 7200 rpm hard drives in 2006 and 2008 15" MBP's and also a WD Scorpio Black 320GB in a 2009 13" MBP 2.53GHz and have had no changes in cpu temp or fan speed. Your fan speeds and cpu temp with the new drive sound too high. Something else is going on here. The temp is not supposed to spike when handling a larger drive. Maybe it's something like
Spotlight indexing the new drive? Have a look at your Activity Monitor for an active process drawing resources with the new drive.

Can I use a Self Encrypted ( hardware ) hard drive in my mid 2009 Mac?

I want to use a self encrypted (hardware encryption) hard drive in my mid 2009 13" MacBook Pro. Has anyone ever gotten this to work, or is it listed as "possible" by Apple somewhere? Thanks.

look here:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/22835243#22835243
As far as a list of compatible OPAL drives is concerned:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/22835243#22835243
or look for:
"SecureDoc Supported Self Encrypting Drives" - WinMagic
http://www.winmagic.com/login?return=aW5kZXgucGhwP29wdGlvbj1jb21fcGhvY2Fkb3dubG9 hZCZ2aWV3PWNhdGVnb3J5JmlkPTIwOmRhdGFzaGVldHMmSXRlbWlkPTMxMA==

Mid-2009 MacBook Pro sees internal SATA hard drive, but will not boot from or format

I inherited a Mid-2009 MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2.53 GHz model) with a very strange issue.
It first presented itself as not being able to boot from the internal SATA hard drive that came with the computer. Nothing I tried could get it to boot, so I assumed the file system was corrupted beyond repair and booted from a CD to try to format the drive. Disk Utility on the CD would not format the drive, giving me strange error messages like "Unable to write to the last block of the device".
At this point I figured the drive itself must be toast, so I pulled it out and put another known-good SATA hard drive in, booted from CD, and attempted to format. Again, same error messages and an unsuccesful format.
So I had the bright idea of formatting one of the drives in an external enclosure and then putting it in the MBP to see if OS X would even install. No dice. Get a cryptic error message before installation even begins.
So I installed OS X on the drive in the external enclosure and put it in the MBP, and it attempts to boot, but never goes anywhere.
So to sum up, the symptoms I'm seeing:
MacBook Pro CAN see internal SATA hard drives.
MacBook Pro WILL NOT boot from any internal SATA hard drive and cannot format or install OS X to any internal SATA hard drive.
MacBook Pro WILL boot from any CD or external device and seems to work properly otherwise.
At this point I'm thinking it's one of two things: the hard drive ribbon cable or the SATA controller on the logic board.
Since the MacBook Pro seems to work completely fine other than this one issue, and will boot properly from both external devices and the CD (also a SATA device), I'm thinking and hoping that it's just the hard drive ribbon cable. From my searches online, I've heard that this batch of MacBook Pros is known to have issues with the hard drive ribbon cable, but it seems in most cases this manifests itself by the Mac not being able to see a drive at all.
I've done quite a bit of troubleshooting to get to this point, but right now I'm just looking for any feedback at all. Specifically I'd love to know a way I can easily test to see whether it's the logic board or the cable.

UPDATE: An interesting development!
I just tried a third known-good SATA hard drive, one which I believe supports SATA I only (but I'm not sure), and unlike the other drives that the Mac sees but cannot properly interact with, the Mac can't even see this one when I put it inside.
Frustrating as this may be, I believe I'm actually getting closer to a solution since my symptoms now appear to be closely aligned with people having SATA ribbon cable issues.
Onward!

HT1661 My mid-2009 MacBook Pro has just died via a painful (for me) hard drive failure. I backed up a good percentage of files recently but not enough to keep me happy. I need to access the dead drive on the MBP via a 2008 iMac. Best options?

My mid-2009 MacBook Pro has just died via a painful (for me) hard drive failure. I backed up a good percentage of files recently but not enough to keep me happy. I need to access the dead drive on the MBP via a 2008 iMac. Best options?
I have ordered a 800 firewire to 800 firewire cable and am hoping to use the target mode option to copy files from the MBP.
Is this possible?
Hope so!
Any advice and or help would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks,
Neil

Thanks Ogelthorpe.
Just bought an enclosure to try that also.
Hoping the MBP isn't really dead but just feigning death
Fingers crossed.

My Mid 2009 Macbook pro (Just purchased) will not turn on after hard drive change and ram upgrade

So i purchased a mid 2009 Macbook Pro from a guy with 4 gb of ram and 250gb hard drive. It worked perfectly fine when i booted it with his hard drive and ram installed.
I spilled beer in my old computer (late 2009 15" 500gb hard drive and 8gb ram) but took the hard drive to get tested and it worked fine. i later found out it was from a 2010.
Like an idiot i assumed the pro i just purchased would be able to handle the same upgrades that were in my old computer so i threw in the 500gb hard drive (2010) and the 8gb of ram.
The thing booted up fine, just a bit slow which i chalked up to my hard drive sitting unplugged for a long time.
After about 3 minutes it crashed on me. Confused i replaced the 4gb of original ram back into it. (the 8gb ram was pny i bought from ebay so i thought it could be that) It decided not to turn on or show any lights on the front except for the battery meter.
After this i replaced the original hard drive and still NO LUCK!! im really mad because i am in desperate need of the information on my original 500gb hard drive and im afraid i have destroyed 2 computers and about $1K worth of cash out the window.
HELP please enlighten me on what i have done and if the situation can be fixed.

UPDATE: Problem solved with the old hard drive in it, Now the less pressing issue:
Will the computer run my 500gb hard drive with all my information on it? I need to forward a resume and it is on that hard drive.

How do I properly zero out or erase the hard drives in my early 2009 Mac Pro 4,1 tower?

How do I properly zero out or erase the hard drives in my early 2009 Mac Pro 4,1 tower?
I assume there are already instructions on Apple.com someplace but haven't seen them yet… I have to one terabyte drives one the operating system the other is blank I want to start fresh I want to zero out both drives but I didn't want to make any mistakes
I know I can use disk utility to 0 Out Dr., #2 that means I will have to take out the operating system hard drive out of my 2008 Mac Pro and put it into my 2009 Mac Pro to use the disk utility to zero out drive one the OS drive in my 2009 Mac Pro am my correct
I just need a little bit a help I want to go slow so I don't make any mistakes with the sleds or with the erasing process which journaled to choose encrypted or not etc. etc.
Furthermore is there instructions on the site on how to change the hard drive into a different sled because the sleds and my 2009 are different than my 2008 any advice
Thank you

I'm doing this because my friend told me that zeroing out the drive can nap bad sectors and also later for some kind of diagnostics usage of the drive or something like that he wasn't really clear
My friend was really specific he said choose the option that writes zero's once over the drive that is plenty good enough I was inclined to use the maximum seven write ...I just want to make sure the drive has no bad sectors and that's it's it's zeroed out for possible future diagnostics usage or something that he said was usable later
he also advised me to run a test on it but I don't have the software you mentioned or the software that he has… So I may have to take the drives over to his house unless you have some kind of free software that's easy to use that you could suggest that will not only zero out the drive but test the drive completely
I am completely new to Mac I'm no dummy but at the same time I'm not super technically capable I mean I can surprise myself I'm pretty good but I need a good teacher… How expensive is this lifeguard software?
Thank you

Is there a hard drive limit to mid-2009 MacBook Pro?

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