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160 GB 7200 Seagate Hard Drive Question

G

geltab

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 18, 2007
53
0
Hi Guys,

I am new to this forum and had a few questions. I order the
160 GB 7200 Seagate Hard Drive for my Macbook Pro and it
is coming today. I just wanted to make sure before I installed
it if it would work in my computer. I noticed it has a 3 Gbps SATA
interface. That shouldn't pose a problem, should it? Are there any
hazards I should be aware of during the installation that would result
in me screwing up something?

Also, a few weeks ago I managed to drop my MBP face first on the
floor! Luckily no damage except that the monitor hinge loosened.
It closes fine, but when it gets close to closing it kind of just drops
loosely and slams shut. Since I am going to open this thing up today,
I was wondering if I could fix this (tighten the hinge or something)
easily and if the was some kind of tutorial for this.

Thanks a bunch!
 
Make sure you do some HDD benchmarks before and after. :)
Like boot up time and moving large files around. Or use something like Xbench.com
 
i do not think that the macbook pro hard drive is user replaceable. Get ready to void you warranty, are you sure you want to?
i think that it is a complicated procedure and you need nerves of steel to see your computer in pieces while upgrading.

as for the hinge, unless you know exactly what you are doing, i wouldn't mess with it any more.

my suggestion is to go to an authorized mac retailer, not the apple store, and see if they will install it for you and fix the hinge. they will know what they are doing.

and the hard drive should work fine.
 
Go for it, you've already dropped the MBP so replacing the hard drive isn't really going to be much of a concern as far as warranty-voiding goes (and I don't think it really voids the warranty anyway).

As far as tightening the hinge...I've heard from PowerBook and MBP owners that there is indeed a way to do this, so there must be some info about it out there somewhere.
 
anyone have tutorials on tightening that monitor hinge? I can't find any online.

thanks for the replies. I certainly am going to do the hard drive myself. a local place wanted $130 for 20 minutes worth of work.
 
geltab said:
anyone have tutorials on tightening that monitor hinge? I can't find any online.

thanks for the replies. I certainly am going to do the hard drive myself. a local place wanted $130 for 20 minutes worth of work.
Click to expand...


The chance are they'll just replace the hinge since most laptop hinges come as a single piece (ie you as an end user can't take it apart and "tighten it").

I've tried tightening the hinge on an old Compaq and it did not work.
 
geltab said:
anyone have tutorials on tightening that monitor hinge? I can't find any online.

thanks for the replies. I certainly am going to do the hard drive myself. a local place wanted $130 for 20 minutes worth of work.
Click to expand...

Look on the IFixIt.com web site. They have nice take-apart guides for all kinds of Macs. They'll also tell you what kinds of screwdrivers and other tool you'll need so you can be ready before you start (I don't know what a "spuder" is, though).

If you don't already have a system for this, get a couple ice cube trays to keep your screws organized as you work. Put the screws for each step in a separate bin. Fill them in a particular order. When putting it all back together, you can work backwards.

Don't let your cat/dog in the room where you are working.

Despite your best efforts to be careful, it is possible you could somehow break something, requiring and expensive fix.
 
Got it in!

Hi again,

So the install was very easy. No problems there. I am about to install OSX on it but wanted take make sure of something. I remember in the past when I updated my Macbook I installed the whole OSX and it even worked. Then once I started trying to put programs on it, it couldn't write to the drive. I seem to remember it had something to do with formatting it for a certain file type or something (fat32 or something). I was told that I would have to reformat using disk utilily.

Can anyone help me out on this? I know the hard drive came in some strange format and that is what caused the problems and once I reformatted it to the right setting, it worked.

Thanks
 
You want to reformat in HFS+ Journaled, using the Disk Utility on the install disc--you access it through the menu.

Even if the drive were properly formatted when it shipped (which it isn't--it's either totally blank or in a Microsoft format), I'd reformat it just to be sure--it only takes a minute anyway.

If you want to be paranoid, you can do the "write zeros" format if you want to catch any bad sectors in advance (in theory, the drive should mark any bad sectors it comes across and grab a spare to fill in during this process), but that's probably not necessary and takes a while.
 
isn't fat 32 windows?

I think you want to format to mac hfs+ but check the apple web site to be sure.

I upgraded my Powerbook hard drive recently using an ifixit tutorial. it went very smooth. But before I did that I put the new drive into an enclosure and copied my Powerbook hard drive and system to the new drive using Carbon Copy Cloner. So the disk I installed was ready to go as soon as it was installed. I then out my old drive into the enclosure and now use it for iTunes music storage.

Best

Tim
 
Thanks for the speedy replies. I just finished zeroing it out. So from here does it need to be formatted? I can't find out where to format it in the disk
utility. It says it is journaled. When I run verify disk it says passed and has 1 HFS volume checked above it. Is it good to go?

thanks again.
 
I was just about to install the osx and under options it says:

install mac osx- installs for the first time.

or

Erase and install- completely erases, etc.

then underneath these it says:

Format disk as: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

Does this mean that I still haven't formatted it?

thanks
 
I'm curious... where did you buy the drive?

It seems the only place I can find that has it is Other World Computing, and they want $240 for it. In a review I saw the price was more close to $200 =/
 
See - this is why you read your macrumors forums regularly... I had no idea that Seagate was selling a 7200rpm 160GB 2.5" sata drive. NICE!!!

OT: please post your performance impressions. Oh that puppy should fly!! Congrats. :D
 
whateverandever said:
I'm curious... where did you buy the drive?

It seems the only place I can find that has it is Other World Computing, and they want $240 for it. In a review I saw the price was more close to $200 =/
Click to expand...

Try MacConnection...

http://www.macconnection.com/Search?CatId=202919&Id=+21+2147481406+2147349450+203263&Offset=0&Sort=Most+Popular


As for the performance stuff, if you haven't seen it, check out Barefeats: http://www.barefeats.com/hard90.html. Looks pretty darn snazzy. I may be interesting in replacing the stock 60GB/5400rpm hard drive in my macbook, and I'm definitely thinking about this one if I do so.
 
Thanks for all the help everyone.

Anyhow, how do I perform tests? It seems to be a bit snappier than my
old drive.
 
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