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Replacing SSD in MacBook Pro Retina- HELP PLEASE.

I just ordered a new OWC 480gb SSD for my MBPR mid 2012 15". I am replacing the original SSD which failed. I have a few questions about how to go about using the new SSD, once installed.


here is some background.


1) the drive will be blank and unformatted with no OS.


2) I have a time machine back up on my time capsule. The original disk is completely dead.


3) In addition to Mavericks I also run Windows 8.1


Questions- once I replace the old drive with the new one:


A) how will I format my new SSD? I am guessing disk utility will come up when I turn the commuter on?


B) how do I get Mavericks Mac OS on the new drive? Do I need to pay? How will I get my time machine back up on the new drive?


C) should I format the new SSD a special way because I will be running windows on the machine? I ran windows with Parallels on the machine prior to my original SSD dyeing, was planning on doing the same with the new one.


D) what, if anything, can be done to avoid killing this new SSD like the last one? I am happy OWC has 3 yr warrantee on it!


Thanks in advance for help and guidance. I am a relatively novice user, so basic explanations will be appreciated.

Thanks,

Dave

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X Mavericks (10.9.2), SSD broke

Posted on Apr 17, 2014 1:55 AM

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Posted on Apr 17, 2014 4:52 AM

Boot with Command Option R held down. That should bring you to Internet Recovery, which will walk you through everything as well as giving you the option to restore from your TM backup. No special formatting for Windows is required, since Parallels is a Mac program. There are no other partitions. You shouldn't need to do anything special to your SSD. Follow any installation instructions from OWC and you should be good to go.

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Apr 17, 2014 4:52 AM in response to DaveG303

Boot with Command Option R held down. That should bring you to Internet Recovery, which will walk you through everything as well as giving you the option to restore from your TM backup. No special formatting for Windows is required, since Parallels is a Mac program. There are no other partitions. You shouldn't need to do anything special to your SSD. Follow any installation instructions from OWC and you should be good to go.

Apr 17, 2014 9:51 AM in response to DaveG303

DaveG303 wrote:


here is some background.


1) the drive will be blank and unformatted with no OS.


2) I have a time machine back up on my time capsule. The original disk is completely dead.


3) In addition to Mavericks I also run Windows 8.1


Questions- once I replace the old drive with the new one:


A) how will I format my new SSD? I am guessing disk utility will come up when I turn the commuter on?


B) how do I get Mavericks Mac OS on the new drive? Do I need to pay? How will I get my time machine back up on the new drive?


C) should I format the new SSD a special way because I will be running windows on the machine? I ran windows with Parallels on the machine prior to my original SSD dyeing, was planning on doing the same with the new one.


D) what, if anything, can be done to avoid killing this new SSD like the last one? I am happy OWC has 3 yr warrantee on it!


Thanks in advance for help and guidance. I am a relatively novice user, so basic explanations will be appreciated.

Thanks,

Dave

You should be able to boot from your Time Machine back up and do everything Internet Recovery and Recovery Mode allows. If not, restarting with Command+R will search your drive for the Recovery HD and if not found envoke Internet Recovery. Or you can just boot with Command+Option+R to start Internet Recovery directly.


A. After you install the new drive and IF it is pre-formated, you don't have to reformat it. If it's not, you can use Disk Utility from the OS X Utilities menu to format it.


B. You can install OS X Mavericks from the OS X Utilities menu and during setup plug in your TM back up to restore your user account(s), apps and data.


C. Nothing different for running Windows since you use Parallels instead of BootCamp. I have not used Parallels, but i would assume after restoring your apps you would restore your Parallels virtual machine image for Windows and open it.


D. Do you know what killed your original flash storage drive? If you do, don't do it! If you don't, I personally don't know of anything that would prevent a computer component from failing.

Apr 17, 2014 10:48 AM in response to keg55

Thank you very much Keg55. My time machine back up is saved on my time capsule drive. I connect to it either with WiFi or thunderbolt=ethernet adapter and network cable. It sounds like i can connect to the TM with the cable or Wifi?


I dont know what killed my original SSD... Dont know what can kill an SSD so not sure where to start to ensure the same issue does not reoccur.

Apr 17, 2014 10:53 AM in response to DaveG303

Yes, you should be able to get to your Time Capsule/TM back up via ethernet or WiFi assuming it's on your Local Area Network (LAN).


I have the same model/year rMBP as you and so far so good with the flash storage drive (SSD). I haven't done anything from a maintenance standpoint that would make it last longer. I wouldn't know WHAT would need to be done! 🙂

Apr 17, 2014 10:56 AM in response to keg55

I have read that Boot Camp and Parallels can be used together. From the Parallels website:


"Use the Boot Camp partition as a bootable volume disk in Parallels Desktop to run high-performance PC-only software at full speed in a Mac’s native hardware environment, access all of your system settings, peripheral devices, files and folders in your Parallels Desktop virtual machine.

You can even add the Boot Camp partition as a data disk for any Parallels Desktop virtual machine. Already using Boot Camp? Using that same Windows partition to take your Windows + Mac environment further by utilizing the integration features in Parallels Desktop."


I think that I do want to create a partition for Windows (Boot Camp) as I have suspicions that the SSD problem may have been due to running Windows as a VM.


That being said, how do I format my new SSD to use Boot Camp?


Thanks again for everything.

Apr 17, 2014 11:02 AM in response to DaveG303

Run the BootCamp Assistant. There's an option to print instructions. Do so and read them carefully, you can erase the Mac OS when installing BootCamp when you mean to format the Windows partition.


Having said that, I seriously doubt virtualization had anything to do with it. If it did my wife and I (and many of my colleages) would have experienced problems long ago. We own 2011 MBAs and we both run Parallels everyday. In my wife's case 24/7.

Apr 17, 2014 11:11 AM in response to dwb

Thanks dwb. Bootcamp + Parallels sound like the best way to run windows. The MacStore "Genius" suggested that virtualization was the problem with my original SSD.


Do I run bootcamp assistant to initially format my new SSD? Or format it with Disk Utility initially then later run Boot Camp Assistant to creat the partition?

Replacing SSD in MacBook Pro Retina- HELP PLEASE.

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