New hard drive question

Question

Level 1

0 points

New hard drive question

Hey I'm kinda new to the MacBook world and have a stupid question. I am getting a late 2009 MacBook unibody (white polycarbonate, model MacBook 6.1... I believe) I am switching the original 250gb 5400 rpm hard drive out for a Seagate Momentus XT 750gb 7400 rpm hybrid hard drive. I want to keep everything on the original hard drive and just pop the new hard drive and start fresh with Snow Leopard. I'm going to purchase the SL cd from apple but I do not have the original grey start up cd that came with it (my girlfriends little sister lost it). Do I need to call apple for that cd in order to start fresh on my new hard drive or is everything I need on the SL cd?

Also how do I go about wiping the whole computer when I put the hard drive in and use SL? I want to essentially have a completely clean laptop with a new hard drive.

Thanks for your help in advance.

MacBook

Posted on Jan 6, 2013 1:33 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Jan 11, 2013 6:41 PM in response to Beckerjr92

My son has the same MacBook you have and I'm considering installing the same drive. I heard the second generation of the Momentus XT (750GB version) is greatly improved over the first generation, so I'm curious to see how you make out.

Everything should be on the SL disk. Insert the SL CD into the drive, reboot the computer and hold down the "C" key when it's rebooting. When the install menu comes up look for disk utility in the menu at the top. After you've erased and reformatted the drive you can proceed with the install.

BTW, I just read in another forum that you may have to set a jumper on the Momentus XT to reduce the bit rate from 6Gb/s to 3Gb/s so that it's compatible with your MacBook 6,1. Let us know how everything goes. 🙂

Reply