Slow Start-up after installing new hard drive

Yay, this has worked now 🙂 Thanks Crumm. Let's hope I don't have Steven's problem where it reverts back to how it was.

For anyone who else who comes across this thread try reseting PRAM and VRAM:-

This is done by switching off the computer, then switching on the computer and immediately holding down [Command] (Apple key) [Option] (alt key) [P] and [R].

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

I had the same problem after switching to Hitachi 7K500 from stock Fujitsu. PRAM reset helps but it's not everything you need to do. After a HD swap you also need to select a new hard drive in Prefs->Startup Disk. I found this out here:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=8860501&postcount=15

Well, that was interesting. I tried selecting the hard drive as mentioned in the previous post to see if that might speed things along. I don't know if my new hard drive was already selected (I couldn't really tell) so I selected it, locked it, and restarted.

At first I thought it sped things up a bit but I wasn't sure so I shut down for a minute and started up again. And, start-up was definitely a bit faster. However, I just turned my MBP back on after being shut down for a little over an hour and start-up was considerably slower than it has ever been.

The conclusion. My problem, whatever it is, seems to be kind of periodic. I don't know how this can be exactly, but since I upgraded to Leopard (from Tiger) after the drive upgrade I think the OS may be the culprit.

I installed the exact same drive, with the same program, and am having the exact same problem as you; the Apple logo takes foreverr to show up. I also installed 2GB of Crucial RAM at the same time, so I thought that might be the issue, however, it seems the hard drive is the constant.

oops, wrong person, sorry!

Hey, I've just installed (and removed) a Western Digital Scorpio Black 320Gb in my MBP for exactly the same reasons. It takes twice as long as normal to boot up. I used CCC (latest version, free download) to transfer everything. Does anyone know of a large capacity drive to suit Macs that performs properly?

I'm having the same problem.I installed a wd scorpio 640hd using superduper.

Exactly the same problem here after installing WD Scorpio 500gb (which was cloned with CCC).
Problem solved as suggested above by opening System Preferences and Startup Disk, and choosing the operating system which is now on the new HD.
Now boots up just as fast as it used to.

I was having the same problem as everyone else on regarding slow start-up after hard drive upgrade. I stuck with a Hitachi hard drive (500 gb, 7200), same manufacturer as the original hard drive that came with the machine. I still has slow start ups. I was holding down the alt/option key at start up (before the grey screen) in order to locate the hard drive and boot faster.

I tried selecting the boot drive via System Preferences/Start Disk and seemed to speed the process up from gray screen to Apple logo. I also reset the PRAM at the same time. The combo increased the start up speed considerably, but it still takes a extra few seconds from blue screen to fully booted, but even that still very much acceptable compared to what it was before. I think selecting the boot drive was the real fix. Hope this helps. (PS: I only have 65 GB of memory used on my hard drive)

Hi to all.
I've been having the same problem for a while.
Solved it by resetting the PRAM.
Now it works like a charme.