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Hi Folks!
I would like to switch the original drive in the laptop that i passed along to my Father with a new SSD one, and before I begin I would like to know if anyone else already did it before.
Feedback appreciated!
Ciao,
Gio
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Ciao - Gio Love Italy!
Yes, you can swap the HD out to a SSD with little effort. The tricky part is installing the OS. Do you still have the OS-9 CD/DVD's that came with the system or have the bought OS-X DVD's? Any will do. If not you'll need to find a way to link your system to an external drive (see below) or another Mac to prep the SSD (target mode).
You'll need an ESD mat & wrist strap plus the needed screw drivers (Straight, Philips & Torx).
You may want to consider getting a FireWire (getting hard to find) or USB HD case to put your old HD in. Or a USB to SATA cable so you can copy over the apps you have on your HD.
One other option is taking out the optical drive and with a optical to HD carrier swapping out the optical drive for your HD. That way you have the SSD as the boot drive and the HD as a data drive (no internal optical drive anymore). If you want you could still put the optical drive into a FW/USB case so you have it when you need it.
Follow these guides:
Guide
Difficulty:
Moderate
—
45 minutes - 2 hours
Guide
Difficulty:
Moderate
—
25 minutes - 2 hours
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Hi Dan,
thank you!
I´ll do the job later this week, fingers crossed...
I had a bit of cold feet on this one, since it is not so easy as the other three I have already done-they were all unibody.
About the OS I have external drives and all the original DVD, but you may have an advice: should I start with the original 10.5 and climb up to the 10.8? or I can skip the intermediate steps?
One more thing (ok, that is mean but catch the eye...) I already replaced my main laptop optical drive to a second SSD: are you aware of a solution to make the original Apple DVD player work again? short of rewriting a the library, I mean. So far I am using VLC, but, you know....
Ok, now I owe you: let me know if I can help on something Italian. ;)
You can install the latest OS directly no need to install the older versions. Some people prefer the older iTunes so you may want to re-install it before running the newer version (find the older one on Apples web site). In the case of Lion/M Lion you'll need to have a bootable ext drive (any OS) to install it or you will need to install Snow Leopard first.
The drivers for Apples optical drive are always installed so you don't need to do anything with the software, only put the drive into a case FireWire or USB. Or you can buy Apples external drive (or other). VLC is a file format of some video files. You'll need an app that can play VLC files.
Have fond memories of my travels there, hope to retire in Tuscany some day.
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Yes. Any computer can use an SSD. Some computers may not get as much of a speed benefit, though, but this one should get a big boost.
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