How to Replace the Harddrive in Your MacBook Pro
About a week ago my harddrive crashed. Bummer. Luckily I didn't lose much data (thanks to Time Machine) but I still had to go through the hassle of replacing the harddrive. Leaving it at the Apple store over a week to fix wasn't an option since I also use it for work. It looked like that was the only option; so I took it to the Apple store.
Once there the Apple tech (I think his name was Kevin) gave me two options: 1. Leave it there to replace the harddrive which would take a week and cost $260 or 2. Go to an electronics store; buy a 2.5 inch internal SATA, a couple computer tools and do it myself... Tough choice. I picked option 2. After finding all the necessary items (the new harddrive from BestBuy and tools I borrowed from Derek Gallo; thanks Derek!) I started the impossible: dissect my beautiful MacBook Pro and replace its heart! So here's the tutorial...with pictures!
First, what you'll need: a new 2.5 inch SATA harddrive (I went with a 500gb from BestBuy), a #0 Phillips screwdriver and a T6 Torque driver. Start by taking the back cover off your MacBook by pressing down on and flipping up the release which is on the bottom. You'll see the the harddrive on the left and battery on the right.
Pull the little plastic tab to pop out the battery. Before you can take out the hardrive you'll need your trusty #0 Phillips to loosen the screw that holds the top clamp in place (on the far side of the harddrive if you're perspective is like in the picture). Once the screw is loose, remove the clamp (see picture) and pull the plastic tab to pop up the drive, then just pull out the connector.
You should now be holding your busted drive free from your MacBook. Notice the four tiny nubs/hex screws by each corner of the drive? These are used for mounting the drive in place. Take them out with the T6 tool.
Your new drive should have identical matching holes where you can put those screws back into. Once you've added the screws to your new drive, repeat the same steps, just in reverse. Plug in the connector, put the drive in its bracket and screw the clamp back in.
Once you have the battery and cover back on you'll need to find your OSX disc to boot from. Power it on and pop in the disc for Snow Leopard (or Leopard if you're old school) and hold the Option key. After a couple minutes (be patient, it takes some time until you get feedback) you should see the option of where to boot from. Select your DVD drive and follow the steps accordingly. Once I got a couple steps in I hooked up my Time Machine drive and picked it to restore my new harddrive from. An important note: once you get to the screen of where you want to install your backup or a fresh install of OSX, you won't see your new hardrive in the list. From here, pick Disk Utility in the top menu and format the new drive. This tripped me up a bit. You must do this step even if its not in the normal path to get back up and running.
Once your backup starts copying it should take a couple hours to restore your system to its former glory. Hope you found this useful! If you have any advice of your own, pointers, or questions, let me know in the comments.
Note: After Derek lent me his tools I bought my own set at Sears. You can easily find them there instead of any electronics store.
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