I replaced both the optical drive and hard disk on my 17" Macbook Pro the other day. The iFixit guides were terrific. The tip from one of the others on the board to use a cupcake tin was right on!

After the drives were replaced, I used Time Machine and the OS X install CD with it's utilities to format the new hard disk and restore from the Time Machine store on an external 2.5" external fire wire drive.

Piece of cake. Left it run while I went to bed. In the morning it was done and I re-booted to eject the install CD and everything was as it was before. Sweet! Mail had to re-index the mail on my machine which took a few moments and is not necessarily a bad thing.

I have worked on desktop Mac's and PC's since the old Apple II days. This is my first go at the insides

of a laptop. Not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. The non-metalic spluge tool and the Torx driver from iFixit and my set of small Phillips drivers and a few minutes time was all it took.

Thank you iFixit, with your help I fixed it!