Apple :: Spare Hard Drives - Home Replacement - And Full Disk Imaging
Jan 12, 2010
I currently have everything I ever need on one laptop -- a mid-2009 15" MBP. Having had a slew of hard drive problems over the past few years, and given that such disks are regularly the source of problems (before, say, a logic board), I'm considering purchasing a spare hard drive and keeping it, or the one in my machine, as a backup disk for the day when my current drive dies. The closest Apple store is ~45 minutes away, and I'm perfectly capable of doing my own computer surgery. An inoperable laptop would be a pretty significant problem for me.
So basically, my questions are twofold:
- From perusing the hard drive threads a few months back here in the Apple forum, it seems like WD's Scorpio Blue (500 GB, 5400 RPM) is the popular choice. Given the time that's elapsed since its release (and the thinning of hard drive threads after the last "big one" I found), are there any other drives, SSD or standard, that can beat it in terms of power usage / noise / performance overall without gouging the bill too much?
- I use Time Machine with a Time Capsule to keep everything nice and backed up, but an HD/SSD swap would be best done with an image of my entire drive. Is Carbon Copy Cloner still the go-to for that?
I have a Lenovo Thinkpad X201. Due to the nature of my work I am frequently required to boot up from a variety of operating systems. Recently, to protect integrity of the OSes, I moved out Ubuntu onto a spare HDD so now I have two hard disks - one that boots into Windows 7 and another that boots into Ubuntu. The problem is that if I connect the Ubuntu hard disk via USB for bootup, it is death slow and I have had instances where the hard disk developed bad sectors because the USB cable came loose and disconnected the drive. The only other option I am using currently is to manually swap the internal HDDs every time I need to change OSes. I was wondering if I can purchase a spare hard disk tray with its rubber mounts so that all I need to do is unscrew the hard disk bay cover (one screw) and swap the drives rather than have to unscrew the entire assembly and then screw it onto the other HDD repeatedly.
Looking for FRU number for the entire SATA HDD assembly (minus the HDD itself of course but including the rubber rails).
I have a SSD/HDD setup in my 13" MBP, 60GB and 500GB respectively, that being said, I want to make the link to "Movies, Torrent, and Applications" go there.
For Torrent and Applications it's easy, move the folders, delete the original, set an alias in the home folder. Done. (My application folder is for storing Games, and other Apps that are either OSX or WIndows apps, not the actual App folder that OSX uses for programs.)
Anyways, I create a Movies folder on my other HDD, and go to delete the old Movies folder on the SSD/OSX Drive, and OSX tells me, "You cannot delete because this folder is required by OSX."
OK, but how do I get it to link to the new drive?
In Win 7 I remember just opening properties, and clicking 'set target folder' and bam it's done. I did this a lot back then.
ALSO, If I UNMOUNT my second HDD, does it 'shut off' and 'stop consuming power'?
I realised I can re-mount it in Disk Utilities, and probably with a Unix command.
I just wanna save power when I'm mobile, by not having to use the spinner.
i have a inspiron e1705. i dont not have many big programs. some of them include Age of Empires III and an expansion pack, itunes, garmin software for my gps, java, office (excel, powerpoint and word), firefox and ie,
wd anywhere backup, avast! anti-virus, mp3 rocket, apple qucktime, spy-bot, etc.. i am pretty sure that these are all up-to-date. i have sp 2 installed... (is there a third one?).
i also have many pictures and videos (17.3 gb for pictures, 47.4 gb for music, and 8.6gb for videos). i do not have too many documents.
i have also just recently formatted my computer. any ideas as to why it is so full, and how i can create more room? do i just have to delete some things?
I just received my T530 (2359CTO) and need to encrypt the hard drive. When I purchased it, I opted (among other reasons) for Windows 8 Professional because it comes with BitLocker. I then discovered that some ThinkPads have hard drives that support hardware encryption (FDE).
I've tried to figure out whether mine has this feature, but haven't had any luck. The BIOS gives me the option to set a hard drive password, but I'm not positive that it actually encrypts the hard drive with this setting.
a) how to figure out if my hard drive supports hardware encryption b) how to enable it
Was thinking about flipping the switch on FileVault, but the reported issues with backup restorations, increased susceptibility to corruption due to sparsefile usage, etc., have me concerned.
I currently use encrypted DMGs for the absolutely must-not-be-plaintext stuff, but I don't particularly want anything on my laptop available in the case of theft.
I'm also using a Time Capsule in conjunction with Time Machine for backups at the moment.
All that said, is anyone using, say, TrueCrypt or some other approach to full-disk encryption which they support?
my 4 month old MBP keeps kicking out errors saying that my startup disk is almost full even though I have something like 40GB free. Windows partition works perfectly fine in boot camp. I've run Disk Utility's verify disk and permissions options with no errors and I was able to repair disk permissions just fine. The bootup hardware diagnostic tool with the OS X disk runs fine too. Onyx runs its cleanup functions fine, but I still get the error every now and again.
Obviously I have performed a backup and will likely make a trip to the Apple Store but has anyone encountered something like this? All signs point to software issues, but I'm still a little worried.
I'm willing to purchase my first Macbook Pro, but I have one huge question mark in mind: Will I get to access all my data on my NTFS-formated external hard drives? If so, how, is it natively supported with Mac OS X?
I am thinking buying a 500GB 2.5" WD HD for my macbook and taking out the original HD. Can I swap the macbook HD with the PS3 120G HD? so I can download more contents from PSN.
i usually move with my computer when it is using, for example of from table to another place with out standby. At this moment, my harddisk usually have the sound of "click", i dont know what does it mean, does my disk have protection module inside or not, I did some "disk Utility" checking error, but the result have nothing wrong with my hard disk, So did my disk have problem now? will Apple warrant disk for my laptop if i send it back to Apple
How can one empty the recovery without to much risk to the system? D Drive is 89% full on Pavilion M6 1045dx entertainment PC - OS Windows 7 Home Premium
Unfortunately the internal keyboard and mouse on my MBP seem to have packed up for good. Fortunately, I can still use a USB keyboard and mouse.
Is there any way I can copy the entire contents of the hard disk onto an external USB hard disk (everything so that I don't lose desktop icons, filing structure e.t.c.) and then restore it when I get a new machine?
I have BootCamp configured and my HD is partitioned into two. In Leopard, I display the Hard disk icons on the desktop, but now I have the Windows hard disk too, which is annoying. I never use it and it's annoying. If I go to the finder settings and turn off the "display hard disk" setting, all my HD icons disappear, even the Macintosh HD one. How can I remove only one HD icon (the Windows HD)?
I am selling my 160gb hitachi hdd that came with my alubook. thinking of upgrading to another hitachi drive, either the 320gb 5k500.b or 320gb 7k320 drive. what are your thoughts? i want performance but at the same time a very quiet and cool operating drive. anyway, how do i wipe my current hard disk clean before i sell it off? the next owner is also a mac user. is there any particular thing i need to do so he wont have problems installing os x? also, what do i do to load os x to my new hard disk? i know i need to run the installer from the dvd. do i need to format it first? if so, how? and..is there a way i can clone my current hard disk instead of going thru the hassle of reinstalling everything?
I have 2 computers at home: the Macbook Pro and a desktop. I was thinking of getting an Airport Extreme router... I want to be able to access the hard disk of the desktop, from the Macbook. Can Airport Extreme do that?
Bought this ProBook, with SSD, because I specifically wanted an SSD and Windows 7.I figured that 128Gb would be enough to run Windows and some of my graphic software, but when I booted up the computer I noticed that of the 128Gb just over 100Gb was filled with pre-installed software, much of it HP stuff.I only installed Adobe CS6, Lightroom 5 and some really light stuff, and I'm running everything else off external drives. But with continuous updates from Windows and HP software my C drive has filled up and I'm now looking at only 6Gb free space anymore. Which software I can safely delete and which is absolutely necessary to run the system?It's slightly misleading to buy a computer with 128Gb SSD only to find it nearly full with pre-installed software.
ok i'm at work right now and was going to remove vista from my 6920 aspire to put on xp because i have vista. Thinking i wouldn't have a problem i simply used the Kill Disk program to format my drives. I put in my xp cd and it will not load because it says HDD not detected, I don't have a cd burner on my work computer but i do have a 4 Gb flash drive is there anything i can do to get it to load up windows xp, Been reading that there is something with XP not allowing install due to the laptop having SATA setup and xp won't work with that? Can anyone please help me. Hoping there is something i can do to maybe load the drivers from my flash drive then install the xp cd.
I'm contemplating upgrading from my Samsung 830 128gb to a Samsung 840 EVO 250gb, on my trusted x120e. The EVO has Full Disk Encryption (FDE) and I am curious to know if:
1. Turning on the FDE is done through the BIOS? 2. Do I need to enter the FDE password each time I reboot (like I have to with the hardware passwds?) 3. Is there a performance penalty (finite but negligible perhaps) for turning on the FDE? 4. Is the FDE significantly greater protection (in a practical sense) than just the (non-encrypting) hardware passwd (which nonetheless is quite effective in that the disk isn't recognized at all if used in another pc)? 5. My X120e is an AMD machine and the Samsung Magician software (most recent versions) works only for Intel machines. If the FDE is controlled through that sw, then I have a problem.
how many hard drives could fit in the Vaio Z, because on the SonyStyle site when configuring the HD's and choosing for example 256GB SSD it shows 2x128GB SSD. Does this mean 2x SSD hard drives? If so then I'm wondering why they don't make the option available to put in 2x256GB SSD's. Also, if 2 SSD's are possible, are 2 standard 2,5" spinning HD's possible?
Just received a box to send my dv9543cl back to HP in the "bay area". I have read on this site that it is advised to remove the hard drives before sending the laptop back to HP for repair. Is this correct?
you get a Z11 configured with one SSD drive, is it possible to later install a second drive on your own? Also, can you install a normal hard drive as a second drive? Like can you get a 128gig SSD drive as a boot drive and then install a 2.5" Hard Drive in the second slot?