Upgraded from Macbook to Macbook Pro and swapped the drives. Missing something?

[B0zza]

I've just upgraded from my c3 year old white plastic Macbook to one of the aluminium Macbook Pros (brought from the general classifieds on here, as it happens).

My Macbook had a 250gb Snow Leopard drive in it, full of my music, photos etc etc.

The Macbook Pro had a virginal Snow Leopard 160gb drive in it.

I'll probably sell the old Macbook so thought I'd just swap the drives over - saves hassle in copying over apps, data and reconfiguring etc.

I've done that now and am using the Macbook Pro but am now wondering if this is the correct approach. Are there features of the Macbook Pro that the O/S won't know about because it was installed on another machine? Should I re-install Snow Leopard afresh on here regardless?

One thing I've noticed, for example, is the battery life seems to be reported as per the Macbook, ie a life of 2.5-3 hours, not the 7 or so hours I'd expect.

[Guest 53380]

Swap the internal hard-drives that they were shipped with? If we were talking PC's here this would cause problems because drivers etc would have been installed specifically for the hardware (chip type, graphics card, memory etc) available on the original machine. As this is a Mac, the hardware is more standardised but you're still dealing with two different generations with different spec hardware. Then again, don't know much about Macs!

Incidentally we have an old white Macbook I think the same as yours - the internal HD has died and we have as a temporary solution got the OS installed on an external drive. Is it easy enough to buy and install a new internal HD to start again from scratch? I asked at the Apple store and they of course said it would be a big job for them to do and I should book an appointment.

Will any of these 2.5 ones be up to the job?

[B0zza]

It's very easy and takes about 5 minutes. All you need is a Philips Ph0 screwdriver to undo 3 screws. The rest, including the removal and re-insertion of the drive requires no tools.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2CxS...ayer_embedded#

Yep - any 2.5" SATA drive should do the job.

[Guest 53380]

Fantastic - thanks for the info. Does that screwdriver have a special head or is it just basically a Phillips one with a longer shaft good for Macs?

I'm a bit perplexed with the Apple staff I talked to - I have found them all totally honest in the past even with recommendations from them for stuff they don't actually sell in their shop. But this guy gave me the impression that it's a big job and it wouldn't be cheap - and he couldn't even give a rough quote because 'it depends on how damaged the HD was' - but I just wanted it swapping regardless! oh well.

[KAC]

Originally Posted by B0zza

I've just upgraded from my c3 year old white plastic Macbook to one of the aluminium Macbook Pros (brought from the general classifieds on here, as it happens).

My Macbook had a 250gb Snow Leopard drive in it, full of my music, photos etc etc.

The Macbook Pro had a virginal Snow Leopard 160gb drive in it.

I'll probably sell the old Macbook so thought I'd just swap the drives over - saves hassle in copying over apps, data and reconfiguring etc.

I've done that now and am using the Macbook Pro but am now wondering if this is the correct approach. Are there features of the Macbook Pro that the O/S won't know about because it was installed on another machine? Should I re-install Snow Leopard afresh on here regardless?

One thing I've noticed, for example, is the battery life seems to be reported as per the Macbook, ie a life of 2.5-3 hours, not the 7 or so hours I'd expect.

There haven't been any new MBP models released since Snow Leopard arrived, so your MacBook install should work just fine in the new machine. Try recalibrating your battery to see if that helps. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490