Macbook hard drive replacement

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Dumb question:



If you replace the hard drive on a Macbook



Don't you have to reinstall the OS?



If you buy a Macbook with Windows preinstalled--(like from MacMall) you lose Windows don't you?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    You will have to reinstall or somehow transfer the data and operating systems. I don't know what programs to suggest to do the transferring. On a Mac, I use Super Duper to do the backups, but I don't know if it can handle transferring the Windows stuff. On a PC, I use Norton Ghost, but I don't know if that would work on the Mac partitions or whether it would work on the Intel Macs because it boots into DOS to do the work.
  • Reply 2 of 9
    sandausandau Posts: 1,230member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by sammick

    Dumb question:



    If you replace the hard drive on a Macbook



    Don't you have to reinstall the OS?



    If you buy a Macbook with Windows preinstalled--(like from MacMall) you lose Windows don't you?




    they sell you a licensed copy and give you the license code. Of course your apple comes with the os x install disks too.
  • Reply 3 of 9
    You can copy the drives first using a program like drive genius. There is a free one called clone something, just google it.



    Just buy a 2.5" USB drive enclosure ($25 from compusa).
  • Reply 4 of 9
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by jpennington

    Just buy a 2.5" USB drive enclosure ($25 from compusa). [/B]



    Most of those are standard notebook IDE, you'll need a notebook SATA enclosure for this to work. They aren't common yet, I don't know if any retail store has them yet, nevermind that price. There aren't any notebook SATA enclosures on the CompUSA site.
  • Reply 5 of 9
    jpenningtonjpennington Posts: 476member
    Oh yeah I forgot they are SATA. I copy laptop drives all the time and most of them IDE, it just slipped my mind.



    When I did it on my MBP I connected it to my powermac and booted into target disk mode, copied it to a USB drive, switch the MBP harddrive, formated the drive with disk utility (from the install disk), booted back into TDM, and then recopied.
  • Reply 6 of 9
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Carbon Copy Cloner.
  • Reply 7 of 9
    sandausandau Posts: 1,230member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by JeffDM

    Most of those are standard notebook IDE, you'll need a notebook SATA enclosure for this to work. They aren't common yet, I don't know if any retail store has them yet, nevermind that price. There aren't any notebook SATA enclosures on the CompUSA site.



    any sata enclosure will work, you don't need a specific notebook version. the sata connector works for notebook and desktop hard drives.
  • Reply 8 of 9
    Anyone have a list of compatible hard drives that can be bought at Comp USA?



    I did a data transfer from my PowerBook and I only have 23GB left even after clearing out unneeded files.
  • Reply 9 of 9
    jpenningtonjpennington Posts: 476member
    Sata or ata (basically macbook or powerbook)?
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