Picked up a new Fujistsu hard drive from Micro Center earlier this week. 120GB, 5400 RPM. Not the fastest, but the price was right (less than $100).
Tonight, I set aside an hour or so to replace the 80GB drive in the MacBook with the new 120GB drive, in preparation to install Windows via Parallels on it.
Before I go any further, just so it is known, I am a professional computer technitian. I get paid to replace parts in desktop, laptop and servers. I have built, as my job, desktops and servers. I can completely disassemble any computer to the main boards. The only thing I don’t do is any work at the circuit level, and I don’t design my own parts. Not only can I do all of this, but I have been for at least 15 years.
So, I go to do the upgrade on the MB. Remove the RAM door as I have done before, no sweat*. Find the tab on the hard drive and it slides right out. So far so good.
Go to remove the remove the OEM drive from it’s enclosure and it requires, what looks like, the smallest TORX driver I have ever seen. I don’t have any that small, so I used pliers. Screws out, drive out, new drive in it’s place and reinstalled. Put the RAM door back and reinstall the battery. Done and done.
Flip it over, put the OSX installer disc in the drive and it boots to the first install screen. I partition the drive like I’m supposed to (thanks again Josh!) and then everything pretty much went pear shaped.
I tried to exit the disk utility and I was beach ball’d. Let it run for about 15 minutes, thinking it was doing something important. Nothing. So I powered down and tried again. Disc in, MB boots and about 45 seconds later, it ejects the disc. I’m just going to say that it was another hour of this. Finally, I put in an Ubuntu live CD I had laying around and it booted right up. Great. I have bad installation media. Lovely. No worries, I’ll reinstall the old drive.
New drive out, old drive into the enclosure and I’m sliding it back in but it won’t go. It’s like there is something in the way. Get a flash light and sure enough, the rubber track that goes down one side of the drive bay has come detached from the side. Great. I try to put it back, but no dice. So, I figure I’ll just take the bottom off the unit and get in there.
The term over-engineered comes readily to mind. There are no less than 15 screws that appear to hold this together. Actually, I think it’s closer to 20, but didn’t really count. As soon as I removed about 10 of them and nothing was really coming loose, I discovered an addition 10 (in the battery bay) that I knew were small and I would loose half of them.
So I put all of the screws back in, thought I had the rubber strip back in place, reinstalled the drive and RAM door and turned the MB back on. Nothing. Obviously the drive wasn’t all the way connected. Great. So I again take everything apart, remove the drive again and look down into the enclosure, only to see the rubber track in the way. So I removed it. Once done, the drive went right back in and I booted right up.
Now, here’s the thing. If there were a Dell, the whole hard drive swap would have taken me 20 minutes, tops. I just spent the better part of 3 hours doing what I just described above. Say what you want about windows and the machines they run on, but conducting routine repairs and upgrades and infintely easier than on this device. Rubber tracks? Double you tee eff? I’m sure it helps to cushion the drive and all that, but why not glue them in place, instead of making it a piece that essentially has to snap in?
So anyway, I’m back to the 80gb drive for the time being. At least until I can get a replacement Install disc. I’m sure that will be easy [insert ginormous eye roll here].
One Response to “Hard drive upgrade – part 1”
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August 16th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
I have always found MacSales.com to be a good source of drives, memory and helpful info including installation videos.