Upgrading a Hard Drive

Hello all...
I know my questions may have been asked before and I have been searching for quite some time but have not found a response. I finally purchased a new hard drive to replace the original Maxtor 250 gb drive I have. My question is can someone please guide me in a how to format where I can place my Macintosh HD someplace else, then take out my hard drive, and replace it with the new one and then put back all the items I currently have safely back where they belong. I'm using Leopard 10.5.4 and I'm nervous about my music programs and plug ins being lost in the exchange of hard drives.
I found this thread and is this a way to proceed with what I'm trying to accomplish?
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1281419
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
thanks...

Your Power PC G5 should be able to hold more than one HD. Simplest is to just add the HD to your machine and use something like Carbon Copy Cloner to clone Macintosh HD to it, then you can boot with it and see if it acts like the original. If so, then erase the Macintosh HD. BTW, you need to be a bit more specific about your computer and its configuration. The linked topic is probably the best way to go.

Similar Messages

I upgraded my hard drive and my ipod no longer recognizes my computer. It will not sync. What should I do?

I upgraded my hard drive and my ipod no longer recognizes my computer. It will not sync. What should I do?

- First get iTunes to see the iPod:
iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch: Device not recognized in iTunes for Windows
- The transfer iTunes purchases to the computer:
iTunes Store: Transferring purchases from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to a computer
- For non-iTunes purchased music you need a third-party program like one of those discussed here:
Copy music from Ipod to new computer...: Apple Support Communities
- Connect the iPOd to the computer and make a backup by right clicking on the iPod under Devices in iTunes and select Back Up
- Restore the iPod from that backup.

I'm installing windows 7 64-bit on my imac which I've done before but I get a message that the partition is GPT even after I format the bootcamp partition. I just upgraded my hard drive to a 3tb and I'm allocating 1tb for windows. How can I fix this?

I'm installing windows 7 64-bit on my imac which I've done before but I get a message that the partition is GPT even after I format the bootcamp partition. I just upgraded my hard drive to a 3tb and I'm allocating 1tb for windows. How can I fix this?

No easy fix for a few reasons:
1) Bootcamp requires a hybrid MBR for the partition table. That is: both an MBR and a GPT partition table at the same time with the GPT one having all partitions and the MBR one having only the ones that are relevant, but at most 4 of them (including the protective partition and the Macintosh HD one). Which leads us to:
2) The MBR part of the hybrid partition table cannot work with 3TB hard drives. MBR is limited to 2TB.
I am working on a small EFI app that can boot Windows in EFI mode on a Mac and that would mean that you can go GPT only on your system. The progress of the app is slow due to the nature of EFI and for now requires that you do an unattended Windows install with slipstreamed graphics drivers, but we are adding VGA loading on top of EFI quite soon after the rest of the app stabilises. The status of the app is documented at:
Win7 x64 booting natively via EFI (no bios emulation)
Windows does actually successfully boot in EFI mode on most Macs (anything with a 64bit EFI should work), but does not have graphics support even if you load the driver due to the VGA pci registers not being set by the firmware. Furthermore, in Setup and Safe Mode, Windows uses VGA instead of GOP which is a failure by design since VGA is a BIOS standard and not really compatible without hacks with EFI. Other EFI implementations also add VGA compatibility at a high cost to the firmware complexity for the VGA cards available on the market that don't actually contain anything in their ROM except the VGA BIOS.
My recomendations:
1) Install on a second smaller hard-drive; or
2) Wait for the EFI app to come out officially and use that to boot Windows Vista SP1 x64 and Windows 7 x64 (RTM and SP1) in the native EFI mode.
3) Wait for Windows 8 which supports VGA-less booting acording to the AMD presentation at UEFI Plugfest.

I want to upgrade my Hard Drive to 1TB and more. What is the maximun Hard Drive I can install for a MacBook Pro 2009 Yesterday, I tried a SEAGATE SSHD but my screen was always a showing a QUESTION MARK (?). It's not the cable because when I put back

I want to upgrade my Hard Drive to 1TB and more.
What is the maximun Hard Drive I can install for a MacBook Pro 2009
Yesterday, I tried a SEAGATE SSHD but my screen was always a showing a QUESTION MARK (?). It's not the cable because when I put back the old original version, everything works...Any sugestion of brabnding or procédure to upgrade my hard drive?

The largest 2.5" dia SATA drives available are 2 TB in capacity.
Have you tried the Seagate SSHD connected externally to the MBP via USB? The drive itself may be faulty.
Ciao.
Here is a good place to start looking for a replacement drive:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/2.5-Notebook/

HI, I HAVE A MacBook Pro 2.3GHz dual-core Intel i5 AND I WAN'T TO UPGRADE THE HARD DRIVE UP TO 750GB AND ALSO THE RAM MEMORY TO 8GB. WHAT SPECIFIC MODEL OF HARD DRIVE AND RAM MEMORY SHOULD I BUY??? THANKS

HI, I HAVE A MacBook Pro 2.3GHz dual-core Intel i5 AND I WAN'T TO UPGRADE THE HARD DRIVE UP TO 750GB AND ALSO THE RAM MEMORY TO 8GB. WHAT SPECIFIC MODEL OF HARD DRIVE AND RAM MEMORY SHOULD I BUY??? THANKS

No need to type in all caps - we HEAR you!
I would take a look at the internal drives offered by both Crucial (click the link "Internal Hard Drives Now Available") and OWC. I would stay away from Western Digital drives as they seem to have problems on a number of Mac models.
You can also shop for RAM at Crucial and OWC - just select the System Scanner tab at the Crucial website to find out which memory is right for your machine.
Good luck,
Clinton

Upgrade MacBook Hard Drive

While it is obvious that I can upgrade a hard drive, I would like to do so without reinstalling software and, as importantly, changing an identifier (such as a serial number) so that my online backup software will not balk when trying to back up. I hope that this is clearer than it sounds but essentially, I want the new, larger hard drive that I install, to be identified as the same as the smaller that I had after the upgrade. (Do not want iTunes to consider this a new device, don't want Carbonite to think its a different drive and make me reupload everything, etc.) How would this work?

Ahsley is correct. Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper are two most common and most recommended options. You put your new drive in an external enclosure and clone your internal drive to the external one. Reboot the machine holding down the Option key and select the external drive just to make sure it is working properly (it will be much slower as it will be running over the firewire or USB port... both of which are slower than the internal SATA). After you're convinced everything is working properly, just swap the drives.
To the best of my knowledge, nothing is based off of a drive serial number... but rather the logic board serial. Using a drive serial number for any sort of verification would be a bad idea considering how often they fail or are upgraded.

Upgrade MacBook Hard Drive - Restore System from Time Machine Backup?

I have a MacBook that I want to upgrade the hard drive of. Am I right in thinking, all I need to do is:
Run Time Machine one last time, to make a recent backup of the MacBook
Install the new hard drive in the MacBook
Insert the Snow Leopard DVD, and start a clean installation
During installation, select the option to Restore System From Backup...
Will this copy across ALL of the contents of the old MacBook's hard drive, to the new MacBook's hard drive? A perfect clone? Because that's what I want to do.

I performed the installation, restoring a Time Machine backup from the external hard drive to the new blank internal one I put inside the MacBook. Everything went fine, except for one problem.
Now, whenever I try to open Safari, it immediately crashes with the error message:
"Safari quit unexpectedly
Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)"
What's going on? How can I stop Safari from doing this? I've repaired permissions using Disk Utility, and Spotlight has finished re-indexing everything.

How thow to upgrade a hard drive in an mac mini 1.7

what hard drive does the mac mini take 1.7 model of feb 2006 and how to you upgrade the hard drive if you can? and also replace the optical DVD copy drive?
thanks
rich

To replace HD
http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/mac_mini_06-08/
Google did not find anything about replacing the optical drive with a HD in your model Mini

I want to upgrade my hard drive. Need suggestions.

I have a MacBook (white-early 2009). I am looking into upgrading my hard drive. I want at least 500GB. My budget is $120. I will be doing photo and video editing (not sure if that matters). I saw this one on Amazon and am wondering if it would be compatible: http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Scorpio-Black-Mobile/dp/B004LR1RPK/ref=wl_ it_dp_o_pC?ie=UTF8&coliid=I1JJHTKGSKBWXY&colid=2DDV99QO43MAY
Any suggestions/advice would be appreciated. Thanks

Check newegg.com at http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007605%2060000345 9&IsNodeId=1&name=SATA%203.0Gb%2fs . Their prices are good, fast shipping, and perhaps most importantly, many user comments on the drives. And you can search the comments for 'mac' or 'apple' of 'macbook' comments.
I also lean towards drives that offer a 5 year warranty. Ignore those that only have 2 years or less. 3 years is ok, but 5 is of course better. I like, and use a, Western Digital Scorpio Black drive which comes in various sizes witha 5 year warranty.

I want to upgrade my hard drive

I want to upgrade my hard drive. At the moment it is 160gb in a 2009 MacBook Pro.
Do I just need a standard 2.5" sata hard drive?
I was looking at this one 500GB Hitachi 2.5” Travelstar HDD, SATA, 5400rpm, 8MB Cache.
Is this suitable.
Cheers,
Jeff

Hi keepsy,
I found one, WD Scorpio Black 7200 RPM SATA 2.5-inch that claims not to impede the batter life. Amazon (US)Or if you are in the UK, then Amazon UK. Hope that helps, although I don't know if Western Digital's claim is correct (you may wish to phone Apple to find out).
Another one Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB Internal hard drive - 300 MBps - 7200 rpm , but the emphasis is more on performance.

I am trying to upgrade my hard drive in my mac book pro using the disk utility in an attempt to clone my old hard drive. I can only get so far, just before cloning may start and receive an "error 254" and can go no further. Any idea what this error is?

I am trying to upgrad the hard drive in my mac book pro using the disk utility in an attempt to clone my old hard drive. I can only get so far throughj the process where its about to start cloing when I get a message " error 254". Any idea what that means and how do I get around this issue so I can use my new hard drive? Thanks for your input.
Vince

Connect the HDD to your MBP. Open Disk Utility>Erase and drag the HDD icon inrt the Name field. The format should be Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Click on the Erase button.
Then try the clone process again. You may use Disk Utility>Restore or a third party cloning application such as Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper.
Ciao.

Upgrade my hard drive

I have a Macbook that I need to upgrade my hard drive to the maximun size and speed possible. Is it something that I can do or only Apple? And if so, how difficult is it.

Putting in a new hard drive is easy. For a new hard drive try Newegg.com http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=380&name=Laptop-Hard-Dr ives&Order=PRICE
Or OWC http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/2.5-Notebook/
Here are instructions on replacing the hard drive in a MacBook with a removable battery. http://creativemac.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=45088
Here are video instructions on replacing the hard drive on the Aluminum Unibody http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/macbookpro_13_unibody_hd/
Here are video instructions on replacing the hard drive on the White Unibody http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/macbook_13_09_unibody_hd/
To transfer your current hard drive I like the free application Carbon Copy Cloner. It makes a bootable copy of everything on your hard drive http://www.bombich.com/index.html You'll need a cheap SATA external hard drive case. Put the new drive in the case then partition and format the new drive and clone your old drive to the new one. Check that it's set up right by booting up from the external drive. Then replace your old hard drive with the new one and put your old one in the external case.
Here's a cheap SATA external hard drive case on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Vantec-NexStar-2-5-Inch-External-Enclosure/dp/B002JQNXZC/r ef=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332118549&sr=8-1
If you don’t have the tools to open up the MacBook OWC has a set for $5
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TOOLKITMHD/

Do I need an OS Disc to restore my macbook after I upgrade the hard drive?

I need to upgrade the hard drive in my 2009 macbook. I have a Time Capsule. I'm not clear on whether I need to install OS on the new drive using a disc, or whether I can do that from the Time Capsule? The issue is that my disc drive is broken, and I don't really want to replace it as I never use discs in it anyway. But i don't want to get stuck with a new hard drive and be unable to get an operating system on it.

I prefer this process:
How to replace or upgrade a drive in a laptop
Step One: Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
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 Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger, Leopard or Snow Leopard.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
Step Two: Remove the old drive and install the new drive. Place the old drive in an external USB enclosure. You can buy one at OWC who is also a good vendor for drives.
Step Three: Boot from the external drive. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears. Select the icon for the external drive then click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Step Four: New Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your new 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. 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.
Step Five: Clone the old drive to the new drive
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the
      Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the
      Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the new internal drive. Source means the old external drive.
Step Six: Open the Startup Disk preferences and select the new internal volume. Click on the Restart button. You should boot from the new drive. Eject the external drive and disconnect it from the computer.
However, you could simply reinstall OS X on the new drive after prepping it, the restore all your files from your Time Machine backup.
Hard to say what if any other options there may be since you haven't told us what version of OS X is in use and backed up to your Time Capsule (and if it is a full system backup.)

What do I need to do after I upgrade the hard drive on my macbook pro?

I just bought a new 13" Macbook pro i5 on May/03/13 but I need more space and I want to upgrade my Hard Drive from the 500GB it come's with to a 750GB. So I just want to know the steps I need to take after I do the upgrade and start up my Macbook, Someone told me that the Macbook won't work right away because I have to do something to it, I just dont know what. Can anybody plz tell me what I have to do after I do the upgrade step by stpe? Thank You!
Oh and my Macbook pro is on OSX 10.8.3

Correct. After installing the new hard drive, your Mac won't have any operating system, so you will have to reinstall OS X using Internet Recovery > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718
To start in Internet Recovery, hold Command, Option (Alt) and R keys while your Mac is starting. Then, open Disk Utility and create a partition formatted with "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)", if it hasn't been already created. Finally, close Disk Utility and reinstall OS X.
If you want to copy all the data you had on the old hard drive into the new one, use Disk Utility's Restore feature > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU7.html Note that you will have to buy an enclosure to put the old hard drive

I just got my MacBook Pro a month ago. However I am realizing I need more hard drive space due to aps and programs. I use am external but am concerned about the space. Is there a way to upgrade my hard drive from apple and keep my warranty valid?

I just got my MacBook Pro a month ago. However I am realizing I need more hard drive space due to aps and programs. I use am external but am concerned about the space. Is there a way to upgrade my hard drive from apple and keep my warranty valid?

That would depend on whether your model actually has a hard drive. If you have the new 2013 Retina model, then you have a fixed storage device built-in that cannot be modified after purchase.

I have a rather old iMac 20" (mid 2007) and I want to upgrade the Hard drive. How do I change it? How do I transfer all my applications? May I just copy the old hd into the new one? Thanks.

I have a rather old iMac 20" (mid 2007) and I want to upgrade the Hard drive. How do I change it? How do I transfer all my applications? May I just copy the old hd into the new one? Thanks.

There are many online tutorials on how to change out the HD on a mid 2007 iMac. One of the originals is from 2007 and is Upgrade your iMac 20" or iMac 24" aluminum (mid 2007) to 1TB Hard Drive and 4 GB RAM - DIY Guide. As far as migrating your system Apple helps out with that in Setup Assistant which automatically starts when you turn on a new Mac for the first time. After you have installed the new HD you will have to format the new HD to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and then you will have to install OS X. The first time you turn it on Setup Assistant will start. Follow the directions and you will be fine. In order to restore your information you will need to backup what is on the current internal HD first. I'd recommend using Time Machine (Assuming you are using Leopard or later) AND also creating a bootable clone using either SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner.
Please complete your profile so at the very least we know what version of OS X your machine has installed.

Upgrading a Hard Drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for