one great way to breathe new life into
an aging MacBook Pro is the upgrade it's
hard drive when I upgraded my old
MacBook Pros 80 gigabyte 5200 rpm our
drive to a 500 gigabyte 7200 rpm hard
drive not only did I get a ton more
space but it ran noticeably faster and
that gave me two more years with that
computer that I wouldn't have had
otherwise hi I'm MJ with iFixit and
today I'm going to show you how to
replace the hard drive in a non unibody
MacBook Pro there were several
iterations of the MacBook Pro between
2006 and 2008 so while this video is a
great overview of the process you'll
still want to look up the step-by-step
instructions for your specific model of
computer on our site before you get
started if you need to know where your
model number is go ahead and flip your
computer over and take a look at the
underside if it's rubbed off that's okay
you can head to the ID or Mac page on
our site and look it up that way before
I dig in I'm going to get all of my
parts and tools together which really
isn't all that much all I'm going to
need is a spudger a phillips double zero
screwdriver a t6 Torx driver both of
which I got from our 26 piece bit driver
kit and of course my replacement
harddrive I'm going to use a 750
gigabyte 7200 rpm hard drive I'm also
going to have a screw tray handy which
you probably know is my very favorite
thing because even though it's an easy
repair there are lots of screws of
varying sizes involved and I want to
make sure to keep them all organized now
that I've got all of my parts and tools
together I can get started by flipping
the computer over and removing the
battery once the battery is out we're
going to get to work on removing the top
case and in order to do that we have to
remove the memory cover once the memory
covers out we'll be able to see all the
screws on the bottom that we have to
take out in order to get the top case
off
with the last of the bottom screws
removed I can get started removing the
ones on the sides you really want to
make sure to consult the repair guide at
this point because they tend to blend in
and you want to make sure you remove all
the necessary screws before you start
pulling the case off
now that all the screws are on the
perimeter removed the next step is to
take off the top case so you're going to
flip the computer over and open it up
and begin to pry the top case off near
the screen of the computer rotating it
back towards the front of the computer
when you get to the front there's going
to be some latches that you need to
release and that's when the spudger
comes in handy okay when you get that
last clip release don't go pulling the
whole thing off just yet because it's
still attached to the logic board via a
ribbon cable so what you want to do is
lift it up gently and disconnect that
ribbon cable with your sponger and with
that cable disconnected this whole piece
should just come right off and the
majority of the repair is done at this
point we can actually see the hard drive
right here and it is attached to the
logic board with the cable and a bracket
the first thing we're going to do is
detach the cable and I'm just going to
use my spudger and kind of slide it
underneath and rotate it up until it
pops off not that hard the cable is
adhered to the hard drive with some
adhesive so I'm going to use my spudger
again and kind of go along the underside
of the cable and gently pry it up and
away from the hard drive
now we can take care of the bracket
which is kind of hard to see it's it's
wedged down in here between the hard
drive in the case it's held in place
with a couple of screws but before we
can get to those screws I've got to
remove this blue tooth board this is a
core duo model so the blue tooth board
is kind of wedged in here on the core 2
duo models and later you won't see this
blue tooth board in here so don't be
surprised if it's not there to remove it
I'm just going to use the pointy end of
my spudger and just kind of pry it up
and away shouldn't be that difficult and
once it's out I can go ahead and take
out the screws for the bracket those
screws out the whole hard drive should
come out pretty easily and the very last
thing that I have to do is transfer the
bracket the bumpers and the screws to my
new hard drive so I'll go ahead and take
those off now once I transfer the
bracket bumpers and screws to my new
hard drive all I've got to do is install
it and reassemble my computer one
question we get frequently is how do I
transfer my data from my old hard drive
to my new hard drive if you're wondering
about that I would recommend checking
out our hard drive upgrade kit it comes
with the 750 gigabyte hard drive all the
tools you need to complete the swap and
an external enclosure to transfer the
data from the old hard drive to the new
hard drive if all that sounds
intimidating we made a video for you
that will walk you through the process
and we will link to it right here of
course you can find all the parts and
tools for this and many other repairs at
ifixit.com and if you run into any
problems during your repairs there are
lots of solutions and the macbook pro
repair guide on our site for all the
latest tear downs and repair videos
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check us out on twitter at
twitter.com/randymckown thanks