Hey MacRumors! Hard Drive Failure & Upgrade Questions.

[hillbilly181]

So recently my hard drive failed in my macbook. It was the stock 80gb hard drive (which I had been meaning to upgrade - so no biggie). I read the link at the top, but still have a few questions.

Anyways, now I need to buy a new hard drive!

- What specifications must the Hard Drive match? I know that when I upgraded the RAM the last time, it had several criteria it had to fit.

- Any sweet deals out at the moment? I'm trying to stay cheap, so I'm looking to stay in the 5400 RPM/100-120 GB range. I couldn't find anything neat on NewEgg or TigerDirect.

- How long does the install take? How hard is it? The ram was no problem for me, so is it anything similar to that upgrade?


Thank you, MacRumors, for the help I recieve. Love <3.

 

[djejrejk]

MacSales.com has a good selection of drives at reasonable prices and they offer a simple "select your model" mac store. You will find all of the specs on their page. If you look up those same model numbers on ZipZoomFly.com, you might even find a better price. I purchased a drive enclosure from MacSales and it arrived in 2 days even thought I selected the cheap shipping option. Couldn't recommend them enough.

 

[hillbilly181]

Thanks for the link.
Generally, which brands would be better than the others?

Which ones suck? Or does it not really matter?
Any specific deals which are eye-catching?

 

[Tshapi]

First of all, get apple to replace the 80gb it's a free HDD.

 

[Dammit Cubs]

First of all, get apple to replace the 80gb it's a free HDD.

i couldn't agree more. Make apple replace it so that when you do get a new hard drive, you have a back up drive just in case.

 

[hillbilly181]

My 1 Year warranty has expired already, so no replacing for me.

 

[Jim82]

Time Machine

After the replacement of a new hard drive and the re-formated with disk utility and the fresh install of leopard, can I use Time Machine to just put over all of the information from my time machine hard drive?

 

[djejrejk]

Thanks for the link.
Generally, which brands would be better than the others?

Which ones suck? Or does it not really matter?
Any specific deals which are eye-catching?

Personally, I have always been a Seagate person. More recently, I have purchased Western Digital and Hitachi and I love them both. For notebooks, Hitachi's are pretty highly regarded (and would be my 1st choice), however I can't speak for their customer service, as my drive works flawlessly. Look at the 160 & 200gb TravelStar models.

 

[djejrejk]

After the replacement of a new hard drive and the re-formated with disk utility and the fresh install of leopard, can I use Time Machine to just put over all of the information from my time machine hard drive?

Theoretically, yes! There should be a "time machine" option during the reinstall process.