[SOLVED] Customer Needs New HDD in MacBook Pro

[Appletax]

Today I received an email from a faculty member at my community college,
where I'm a student and employee. Below is the message he sent to me as well
as my response.

-----------------------------------------
Hey Appletax.

I’m having hard drive issues with my MacBook and Joe suggested contacting you (He said you do some computer work on the side). Any experience with installing new hard drives in a MacBook? Thanks!

-Doug

-------------------------------------------
Hi Doug,

While I have not replaced a hard drive in a MacBook, I have replaced quite a few hard drives in
Windows PCs, as it is the most common piece of hardware to fail first.

Couple of questions for you:
- Do you have your data backed up?
- What sort of issues are you having?
- What size hard drive do you have now? Interested in installing a higher capacity unit?
- Do you have the recovery discs to re-install the operating system? Would you want just the hard drive
replaced or for me to also install the operating system and restore your data?


Looking forward to hearing from you

---------------------------------------------

I have replaced 20+ hard drives, but never one in a Mac. In fact, I have never
worked on a Mac. I am confident that I could use Apple's do-it-yourself
hard drive replacement manual to successfully replace his hard drive. From there,I
can use his recovery discs to reinstall the OS, if he decides to have me do that.

Is there anything special I need to know about installing an HDD in a Mac laptop?
The manual's directions looked easy to follow.

 

[James_S]

It's not too difficult. iFixit has disassembly guides for just about every model of Mac. Some Macs have proprietary screws but a MacBook that is at least a few years old should just require a small Phillips to get to the hard drive.

If the drive is in not too bad a shape, you may be able to use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the old drive to a new one. That would be the preferable route if possible because then he will be all set to go. If a clone is not possible, then hopefully he has a time machine backup. Then you can just install OS X onto the new drive, and then restore the data from the backup.

If he doesn't have backups and the drive is not bootable but still accessible you could try to hook it up as a slave drive and pull the data off manually. You have to be careful if you hook it up to a Windows machine because it won't recognize the HFS file system natively, and if you let Windows initialize the drive it will wipe it. There are a couple utilities you can install that will let Windows access a Mac-formatted drive.

 

[Appletax]

If he doesn't have backups and the drive is not bootable but still accessible you could try to hook it up as a slave drive and pull the data off manually. You have to be careful if you hook it up to a Windows machine because it won't recognize the HFS file system natively, and if you let Windows initialize the drive it will wipe it. There are a couple utilities you can install that will let Windows access a Mac-formatted drive.

- By initialize, do you mean format? Can't imagine Windows just wiping the drive when it's trying to mount it to the filesystem.

- Which program do you recommend? Something like Explorer ++?

- Would you recommend using a Linux Live CD instead? Puppy, Fedora, Mint, Doesn't matter?

Thanks for the help

 

[James_S]

- By initialize, do you mean format? Can't imagine Windows just wiping the drive when it's trying to mount it to the filesystem.

- Which program do you recommend? Something like Explorer ++?

- Would you recommend using a Linux Live CD instead? Puppy, Fedora, Mint, Doesn't matter?

Thanks for the help

Windows doesn't recognize the HFS formatting so it considers the drive to be blank. If it initializes the drive it will wipe the HFS partition and that seems to make customers sad for some reason so be careful not to do that.

I've used the trial of HFS for Windows by Paragon before. Now we got a Mac mini at work so I just hook up drives with a USB dock.

It's been a long time since I tried accessing a HFS drive with Linux. If I remember, it has read access but requires a little work to get write access.

 

[FremontPC]

I've never tried ddrescue on a mac drive.

Maybe a good lead here:

http://www.sinfuliphone.com/showthread.php?t=87907

With ddrescue, just make sure you know which is your source and which is your destination drive, so you don't end up copying a blank drive over the one you're trying to save!

 

[kevinjhaag]

I use HFSExplorer. Works good for just getting a few files off a apple hard drive. Its opensource and free. If it was me, I'd try to clone it also. Your plan is good as well as long as the customer doesn't need any files.

 

[wtigger]

If you had another MAC you could boot it to Firewire Mode, and pull files that way to the "host" system via a Firewire cable.. best way in my experience if you have another MAC that is

Or if it will boot to OSX, use Time Machine to back it up, then do a bare metal restore using Time Machine and an OSX bootable install disc. Easiest and most reliable method of HDD replacement.

 

[Brand]

If you had another MAC you could boot it to Firewire Mode, and pull files that way to the "host" system via a Firewire cable.. best way in my experience if you have another MAC that is

Given that there is no such thing as "Firewire Mode" I am going to assume that you meant Target Disk Mode. Target Disk Mode can be used with either FireWire or Thunderbolt.

 

[smashedbotatos]

You can try this, but I don't know if it will work. Once the new HDD is in the MacBook. Start the OS installer from a DISK, ope drive utility and try and image the old drive to the new drive.

This is how I do it, but it depends on how bad the drive is.

 

[SAG]

This is how I do it, but it depends on how bad the drive is.

I've used this method numerous times in the past as well.
Pull old drive, install new drive, attach old drive to USB reader and image it onto the newly installed drive.

All but once has it served me well. At that time, some of the critical files were corrupt due to hardware failure and the new drive was rendered unbootable. No love loss though, a fresh filesystem is never a bad thing so long as important data is recoverable.

 

[Appletax]

I've got the laptop in my possession. It's a three year old white, plastic
MacPro.

I boot it and am taken to the Install OS X utility.
He said he went to an Apple Store and was told that the HDD needed to be
replaced. There's a utility that verifies the disk and it said the HDD's SMART
is Verified...

After awhile...

So why does it say the SMART is verified...

The customer has an external hard drive with TimeMachine backups. Looking at the contents I see that it even backed up
his programs. Should I order a new HDD, install, put OS X disc in, and reinstall the OS + data by only using the TimeMachine
backup? Is that possible? He has an older version of OS X on the discs and bought the upgrade to Mountain Lion.

 

[Appletax]

Update:

Used the Disk Utility to verify the drive:

The volume Macintosh HD could not be verified completely.
Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk.

Been there done that still doesnt work.

 

[James_S]

Sounds like the hard drive needs to be replaced. If it's a white, plastic MacBook it is either an A1181 or A1342. The model should be listed in small text on the bottom of the laptop and you can look it up on iFixit to see how to remove the drive.

 

[Appletax]

Sounds like the hard drive needs to be replaced. If it's a white, plastic MacBook it is either an A1181 or A1342. The model should be listed in small text on the bottom of the laptop and you can look it up on iFixit to see how to remove the drive.

No numbers listed. It is the white unibody MacBook

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Unibody+Model+A1342+Hard+Drive+Replacement/1670/1


So can I reinstall the OS using the Time Machine backup and the
installation discs?

 

[smashedbotatos]

No numbers listed. It is the white unibody MacBook

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Unibody+Model+A1342+Hard+Drive+Replacement/1670/1


So can I reinstall the OS using the Time Machine backup and the
installation discs?

Disk utility won't allow you to image the old drive to the new drive?

 

[Appletax]

Disk utility won't allow you to image the old drive to the new drive?

Disk utility allows restoring from time machine backup. This doesn't do
anything.

If I install a new HDD, Disk Utility will be gone because it's on another
partition, correct?

Does the OS X discs have the Disk Utility?

 

[smashedbotatos]

Disk utility allows restoring from time machine backup. This doesn't do
anything.

If I install a new HDD, Disk Utility will be gone because it's on another
partition, correct?

Does the OS X discs have the Disk Utility?

Disk Utility is on the OS install disk...kinda like equilavent to MS partition manager in Win PE.

If you open disk utility, it will give you the option to restore. image to disk. If you select the old dive as the source and the new drive as the destination it should work, unless it is completely unreadable.

 

[Appletax]

Disk Utility is on the OS install disk...kinda like equilavent to MS partition manager in Win PE.

If you open disk utility, it will give you the option to restore. image to disk. If you select the old dive as the source and the new drive as the destination it should work, unless it is completely unreadable.

I will have to get the discs from the customer. Will I be able to select
the Time Machine backup as the source and the new drive as the destination?
Essentially putting a clone of his old drive back onto the new drive?

 

[smashedbotatos]

I will have to get the discs from the customer. Will I be able to select
the Time Machine backup as the source and the new drive as the destination?
Essentially putting a clone of his old drive back onto the new drive?

Apple support says yes.

Restoring your entire system from a backup

If you are restoring a backup made by a Mac to the same Mac

With your backup drive connected, start up your Mac from the Recovery system (Command-R at startup) or Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc. Then use the "Restore From Time Machine Backup" utility.

Note: If "You can't restore this backup because it was created by a different model of Mac" appears when restoring a backup that was made on a different Mac, follow the onscreen instructions.

If you are restoring a backup made by one Mac to a completely different Mac

Important: If the backup you are about to restore is from a completely different Mac, use the Migration Assistant to transfer data from the backup, as described in the next section.


Migrating a Time Machine backup to a new Mac

When you buy a new Mac, you can transfer all of your applications, files, settings, and other information from a Time Machine backup you've already made.

You will be asked if you want to transfer files when you start up your new Mac for the first time. Or, you can use the Migration Assistant (located in Applications/Utilities).

After Migration Assistant completes the transfer and you select your existing Time Machine backup drive, you will be prompted with "Inherit Backup History". Once selected you will be able to continue to use your existing Time Machine backup on your new Mac.

So in essence, you could do it either way.
install the OS then do migration when you first boot in to the OS
or try and put the full back up on a disk

 

[Appletax]

I wonder if it would be best to reinstall the OS first so that he has
a brand new, fresh OS. Then, reinstall all his programs and data using the
TM backup.

Since he bought an upgrade to OS X MT Lion, how would I apply that update
if I installed the older OS X version that comes on his discs?