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Depending on what your second Mac is and the OS it has you might find this a bit quicker.
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If you have access to a second Mac system this could be faster as you could use a FireWire case to temporally hold your new HD and connect it to the other Mac (if it has a FireWire port) then using this system directly (or into Target Mode and then via a Ethernet connection to your system) prep and install a fresh copy of OS onto your new HD. At this point you will need to have your new HD in hand and you will need a means to connect your new drive to your system. Once your system is stable with the new RAM & OS make a fresh backup onto your external HD. I do recommend first upgrading your RAM and the OS as the first step if you haven't done this yet. Be careful with updates as sometimes they are only 64bit versions now. Also note you can't run any higher OS-X as you are limited to 32bit mode on this system and when you do buy apps you do need to make sure you get 32bit or 32/64bit combo apps. If you are thinking about going to Lion You will need to up the RAM to a minimum of 2GB (I strongly recommend going to at least 4 GB) the max is 6 GB using one 2 GB and one 4 GB memory module. If you are still running any OS-9 apps then you will need to stay with OS-X 10.5.x (Leopard). One issue here is the amount of RAM needed and also the versions of your current Apps.
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If you are using an older version of OS-X you may want to think about upgrading to the newest version your system can support. OK lets review the needed steps to save your current data and transferring it over to your new HD:įirst you should get an external USB HD so you can backup your drive as an option you could also get an external case to house your current HD in (more on this later). Here's a vid on the process Apple MacBook Hard Drive Install And follow this IFIXIT guide on how to replace your HD MacBook Core 2 Duo Hard Drive Replacement. Before doing anything follow this Apple TN on updating EFI & SMC firmware updates for Intel-based Macs. But you do need to make sure the EFI firmware is up to date. Seagate makes one that should work for you as it has SATA I/O speed auto sense. If you really want some zip I would recommend a hybrid HD (typical HD with a SSD cache). Many HD's today are SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) or SATA II (3.0 Gb/s). You must make sure what ever drive you get can run at this lower I/O speed. With that said you do have one issue you must watch out for as your system uses the older SATA I (1.5 Gb/s) interface. So your options here on what to get is not limited to a 500GB drive. First you can upgrade to almost any size (GB/TB) HD that is 2.5" and only 9.5mm high.
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