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Hard drive upgrade macbook pro

I bought a new seagate 7500 rpm drive as an upgrade, because my macbook ir running critical on memory. I have been reading a lot of instructions on the best way to install it; however, I still have not found the best explanation. I am ok withthe actual drive replacement, but not sure how to handle the O S data transfer the. Best way.


My setup:

Macbook mid 2009

Osx Lion( upgraded via app store)

Osx snow leopard & apps ( original cds)

Auto Back up on time capsule/ time machine wirelessly.



Help is greatly appreciated! Thanks

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Sep 10, 2012 9:39 AM

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Posted on Sep 10, 2012 11:07 AM

Once you put the new drive in your machine, you can Migration Assistant to either take data off your old drive (through an enclosure) or from your most recent TimeMachine backup. Once you install the OS, it will ask you if you want to move applications, data, settings, etc... Enjoy your bigger HD!

31 replies

Sep 10, 2012 12:09 PM in response to camonty83

If you're ok with what you currently have on the internal HDD and only need the extra room, the fastest way will be by cloning. You will have an identical copy of what's now in there, tried and tested, plus the extra room.


So get the drive, get the enclosure (buspowered IF you can get FireWire, else externally powered if USB), partition/format into GUID/Apple Extended (Journaled) with Disk Utility's Partition tab (click on the device to access), then Restore the internal Macintosh HD volume onto the newly created external volume. Wait awhile, a long while. Then test it out by booting from it: hold down Option before the chime and select the appropriate icon. When all is peachy, do the swap and keep your old drive to store stuff later on.

Sep 14, 2012 11:57 PM in response to camonty83

One good way of replacing the hard drive is by also purchasing an external hard drive enclosure. This way, you can slip the replacement drive into the enclosure and use it as a peripheral drive.


1. Open Disk Utility (before replacing the drive)

2. "Restore" new hard drive. You can do this by clicking on the "Restore" icon in disk utlity. Make the old drive the source, and the newer one the destination.

3. After it's finished, swap out the old hard drive and put in the new one.

Hard drive upgrade macbook pro

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