Introduction: Upgrade Your Apple MacBook: Data Backup and Preservation.
My Mac hard disk got really fat and full, it was disgusting. This problem is happening to many people who have bought the original MacBooks. They are feeling the distinctly tight pinch of a small hard drive. I bought my macbook ~2 years ago and it came with a 60Gig hard disk, clearly not enough for our information-dense age. I quickly filled up and had to erase and re-erase old information. I lost an entire instructable after erasing a folder of pictures to make room for more.
Here's how I upgraded my hard drive to 320 Gigs while upgrading to Mac OS X Leopard and installing Time Machine. All while keeping all my old applications and data safe.
If you follow these instructions:
Your past work will be fossilized .
Your present work will be preserved..
And your mac will become a spacious palace to contain all your work.
Step 1: Gather Materials
Here's what you'll need and the links show you where you can find them:
- Sata Disk Enclosure ~$13
- 250 Hard Drive ~$115
- A few hours to spend with your computer
- Mac OS X - Leopard
- 500 Gig Drive ~$99
Step 2: Prepare the Newbie
Open up the package your new hard drive came in. Cute isn't it? It's like a newborn beast of burden, ready to do your bidding. Now you must put on its harness.
Now open up the hard disk enclosure and insert the hard disk into it, it should just plug in pretty simply. When everything is closed back up well screw in the two screws and you should be ready to plug it in. Or is it....
Step 3: Test and Repair Drive Virginity
What you need to do is completely Zero your drive, which will completely erase everything on it and find the locations that may be damaged and demarcate them as such.
You should first plug in the new hard drive enclosure with the new disk in it . Now you should open the Disk Utility. You can find it in Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility. You should see the new hard drive icon up on the right.
- Click on it and then select the Erase tab.
- Click the Security Options button
- Select Zero Out Data and click OK
- Now press Erase
Step 4: Clone Your MacBook
- Download & Install Super Duper
- Open the program
- Select your current hard drive on the left, and the USB external new drive on the right
- Select Backup - all files
- Click Copy Now
Step 5: Gut Your Book
Here's the how goes, and as always, the images will show you each step.
- Gather your jewelry screw driver set, computer and external hard disk
- Remove the battery.
- Unscrew the two screws that hold the memory and hard disk. These face the back of the laptop, check image three.
- Remove the metal bracket.
- Pull on the plastic tab on the left to extract the hard disk.
Now we need to install the new disk:
Step 6: Awaken the Beast - Insert the New Drive
What you should do though is:
- Take old drive; unscrew it from its casing.
- Screw the casing onto the new drive.
- Reinsert into the hard drive bay and push till it doesn't go any further.
- Rescrew the metal bracket.
- Reinstall the battery.
- Flip the laptop, open it and push the ON button.
This is 3/4th's of the backup procedure. I promised you more though. To truly fossilize your mac you need time machine to create an image of your mac at the current time. This will prevent problems with losing data in the future.
Step 7: To Infinity and BEYOND! - Installing Leopard
First you will need to have the DVD and some time. Other than that it's a fairly straightforward process which involves putting the DVD into the bay and following the directions.
- Restart the computer
- Select archive and install. Don't fresh install.
- Select your language you prefer.
- Then select the drive you just installed.
Step 8: Be a Time Traveler.
$99 500 Gig Drive
Once you have this drive the setup for Time Machine is very simple:
- Plug in your portable drive
- Select the drive in the pop-up window as your backup disk.
- If the window doesn't pop up, plug in your disk and click the clock on the upper bar near the wifi icon.
- Toggle the switch to on and it will start to back up your entire disk.
Step 9: Celebrate Data Safekeeping
If you completed both steps your data is now living in a nice large house and you have an old version of your computer that you can boot from at any time.
Booting your old drive:
Plug your old hard drive in the enclosure into your USB drive and restart your computer. When you see the gray screen hold the alt/option button down and it will give you the option to boot from the other disk.
So your past is preserved forever.
Your present is constantly being backed up.
And you have loads of space for future projects.
:. Go crazy and make stuff!
-BG
59 Comments
6 years ago on Introduction
Wow!! This is the great information of MacBook updation.
6 years ago on Introduction
Nice guidance on upgradation of Apple Macbook.
11 years ago on Introduction
Great Instructable !!!…
The problem is the comments from other instructablers : they get me all confused and I'm stuck where I was !…
12 years ago on Introduction
I would eat my virtual cement hat then wear the apple logo.
13 years ago on Introduction
You can also get Nero 8 and back-up your information by burning it on several Dvd's.
Reply 13 years ago on Introduction
True, but this hard disk approach has the advantage of editting data. The burned DVDs are read only. Plus this means less stuff to carry around, and for a laptop that can be a real help.
Reply 13 years ago on Introduction
DVDRW?
Reply 13 years ago on Introduction
"Plus this means less stuff to carry around, and for a laptop that can be a real help."
Reply 12 years ago on Introduction
You can leave your backup discs at home...
Reply 13 years ago on Introduction
DVDRW doesn't mean you can use it like a hard drive, it just means you can erase it and reuse the disc. They are usually a waste of time because by the time you use the disc more than 5 times they are scratched to hell already...
Reply 13 years ago on Introduction
i know that..
13 years ago on Introduction
That is disgusting... I mean, the poor guy has to wear the Apple logo!!!
Reply 12 years ago on Introduction
i know right, i would rather eat a rubber waffle
12 years ago on Introduction
one thing you forgot: how to install windows
13 years ago on Step 3
There is no need whatever to zero the data - but what you DO have to do is repartition the disk. This is because if the disk has the wrong partition type, your Mac will not be able to boot from it. You can repartition as a single partition; that will erase the disk and ensure bootability, and it only takes a second or two. Assuming that this MacBook is Intel-based, you need to ensure that it is partitioned using GUID. See http://db.tidbits.com/article/8405 for more info.
Reply 13 years ago on Step 3
GUID is vital since the Instructable also does a Leopard upgrade at the end. I did the whole thing (hours of work!!) just to have it fail at the end since the drive was not partitioned correctly. GUID is necessary for Leopard to install.
It is ridiculous that this guy mentions zero'ing the HD (a process that took 6+ hours on my 500gb drive), which is totally unnecessary, and yet omits the REQUIRED step of selecting GUID.
This instructable should be fixed or better yet, see this web page, which is far better:
http://obscuredclarity.blogspot.com/2008/10/500gb-macbook-harddrive-upgrade-for.htmlhttp://obscuredclarity.blogspot.com/2008/10/500gb-macbook-harddrive-upgrade-for.html
Reply 13 years ago on Step 3
Indeed! Partition type is key. I had done a very similar project on my Intel iMac: bought a new disk, put it in an external enclosure, formatted the disk, backed up the current HD to the new one (I used Carbon Copy Cloner), then attempted to boot from it and it wouldn't. Had to re-partition to get the right partition type (not something you can change after the fact!) and run the backup all over again. Then everything was fine, though getting to the HD in a 20" iMac was a challenge. You might want to amend the instructions to mention partition type.
13 years ago on Introduction
I have a 160 now and it is totaly full.I can't free more than two gigs on it,no matter how many stuff I erase.
Reply 13 years ago on Introduction
Also,I like Macs.I never used one,but I would like to.
13 years ago on Introduction
Great instructions. 80GB for video editing is a joke. Quick question, is it possible to use the old HD in the enclosure as the external backup drive for Time Machine? It's a perfectly good drive, no need to waste it, right? Is the space too small? I presume TM uses some sort of compression during backup.