This is an unsolicited endorsement–it just worked out that I used a MyMac advertiser’s products to satisfy a need. I just wanted to share with readers just how easy this task was.
Last week, I decided it was time to upgrade the hard drive in my 2.0 GHz Black MacBook. The installed 120 GB drive was starting to crimp my style, because my employer’s SSL VPN remote access system really works the best with Microsoft Windows XP, and they will be distributing specially-configured Windows XP Pro disk images for use with VMWare‘s Fusion Desktop product, so I needed to have two separate Windows installations: one for work with work-authorized application and security software installed, and the other for play, along with a Linux installation, using Ubuntu already pre-configured as a virtual appliance from VMWare’s website–I only had to drag one file into the startup window in VMWare Fusion to be completely up and running with a load of preconfigured software. All of this takes a lot of disk space. But I digress…
I went to MyMac advertiser Other World Computing and picked up a Seagate Momentus.4 5400 RPM 250 GB 2.5 inch form factor drive for around $108 plus shipping. Seagates carry a five year warranty, and certainly their professional Barracuda line has a deserved good reputation–almost as good as OWC’s–I figured if their Barracudas are that good, their laptop drives should be, too–the five year warranty tells volumes. I already had OWC’s Universal Drive Adapter connects bare hard drives (SATA or PATA) to a USB 2.0 connector. adapter, which I connected to the new drive. I erased and formatted it with Apple’s Disk Utility. I then downloaded and installed SuperDuper (the free version). Then, with everything connected, I launched SuperDuper before I went to bed using the default settings and started the data transfer.
The next morning, it was done. To make sure all was OK, I set up the new drive, still connected to the USB adapter, to be the boot drive, and other than things being pretty slow over the USB connection, it booted right up and everything just worked.
Finally, after shutting down, I removed the battery, unscrewed three screws that hold a plate that covers the hard drive and RAM, pulled out the old drive, swapped out the shield to the new drive with four screws, popped the new drive in, buttoned things up, and hit the power button. Like it did on the USB to SATA adapter, it just booted.
It was so incredibly easy and trouble-free. All the serial numbers still worked. Everything was located right where I put it. Anyone with even minimal technical skills can do this.
The only glitch in the whole process was having to revalidate my Windows XP Professional installation because it sensed a “major hardware change,” a painful process because I had “used up” the total number of allowed validations. It required a combination of online stuff and a phone call at 2 in the morning to an automated service. That was it–and the only problem child was Windows. Figures…
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