Jun 8th, 2008
Frugality in Practice: Notebook Hard Drive Replacement
(Note: the author’s performing of the hard drive swap detailed in this article definitely voids the warranty on the external drive and could result in damaging or at least voiding the warranty on the MacBook; if you are not comfortable doing such a procedure, then consult a professional! Of course, if you have some do-it-yourself ingenuity and you want to save a few dollars, proceed with caution…)
I was planning to get a MacBook to replace my aging iBook this year, although not quite when I actually got it. One of the areas where I wanted to upgrade the MacBook was in the storage area–the 160 gigabyte hard drive was decently large, but a 320 gigabyte hard drive is (obviously) twice as big and a bit faster. There apparently was only one model of drive of this capacity–the largest capacity drive that physically fits in my MacBook–available, the Western Digital Scorpio 320 GB SATA, model WD3200BEVT. I noticed that this past week the 320 was on sale at Best Buy, with a catch–it was in an external case as a USB drive!
In doing my research, I discovered that it appears this drive mechanism is used in several different external hard drives by both Western Digital and Simpletech. I also found out through my research how to open both of these external cases to get the drive mechanism out, and how to replace the drive on the MacBook. I am not a novice to these types of operations, so if you are, proceed with caution if at all!
You’ll need a few tools, a couple that are hardware and a couple that are software:
A #1 mini-Phillips screwdriver–your typical “large” screwdriver in a jeweler’s screwdriver set, which is typically available for a buck (the whole kit) at a 99 cent store;
A Torx T-8 driver (which is -not- mentioned in the Apple instructions for the hard drive–you can make do with an appropriately sized straight blade jeweler’s screwdriver, but it is not an ideal solution);
Disk Utility (included with Mac OS X) to format the new drive;
A disk cloning program–two candidates on the Mac are Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper!. For this, I used SuperDuper!, which offered the drive cloning functionality at no cost.
After plugging the external drive into the MacBook’s USB ports (it took both ports to power the drive), I used Disk Utility to format the drive. When partitioning–choose the partition button when hilighting the external drive, even if you only want to have a single partition–click the options button and make sure to choose “GUID Partition Table”. After that, start up your disk cloning program and clone the internal drive to the 320 gig external drive; this will take some time. When this is done, I’d go ahead and start up from the external drive just to make sure this actually works–if it doesn’t , start over; it’s likely you’re failing to choose “GUID Partition Table” when partitioning.
Once you have a bootable external drive, it’s time for the surgery. This GearHack article shows how to open the case (while it’s a different model of drive, the instructions are perfect, except the interface board is way smaller and only attached to the drive by friction–no need to use the screwdriver there, just pull off the interface board) You can also peel off (at least I could) the sticker, although not without a small amount of damage to it rather than poke holes through it to get to the concealed Phillips screws. This Acrobat file from Apple shows how to get the internal drive out of the MacBook, but it fails to discuss how to remove the drive from the sled. You’ll need the above mentioned Torx driver or you can make due with an appropriately sized flat bladed jeweler’s screwdriver. After that, simply reverse the instructions after swapping drives; I ended up with a 320 gig internal drive in my MacBook and a 160 gig external drive (that has the bonus of only using one of my USB ports for power!).
And there you have it; yet another example of how to spend a few bucks less with some do it yourself ingenuity. If I wanted to recoup a few more dollars, I could sell the external now 160 gig drive for maybe $50 to $70, which would drastically reduce the cost of the upgrade. Be careful with this one and have fun!
Very nice write up. I am in a worse situation than you though. I still use my 7 year old Powerbook Pismo 400 ghz. The battery give me only 5% usage, RAM is at 320MB, HD at 10GB. It would cost too much to start replacing things and the system us sadly slow running 10.4. I am going to have to bite the bullet and upgrade, but want to stay with a MAC. Prices are a bit too high for me at the moment.