Oldie but a goodie

Mijn probleem

I bought a 2nd hand Macbookpro. I wanted a reliable laptop for presenting and the old PC just wasn't cutting the mustard (even as a Hackintosh). The laptop was fine but only had a 200gb hard drive...just not enough for it to be useful and it seemed daft to go to the local authorised repair place knowing I could do this easily with the right tools and a bit of guidance from ifixit.

The upgrade kit took care of all the parts of the process including setting up the drive before I put it in.

Mijn oplossing

Well....it was all going okay, I got the screws out, in the right order.

The warning about the clips over the superdrive were very useful.

The keyboard and drive connections came away with a little encouragement and the spudger.

It all went back together nicely, no surprises with any part of the process....until I tried to turn it back on.

Nothing.

Opened it all up again, made sure everything was connected but it back and again nothing. I started to panic.

And here is the lesson for anyone else doing this. Never ever attempt anything like this if you've got an important once in a lifetime photoshoot the next day. You've organised the hire of some very expensive gear and the idea is you're going to tether the laptop. The laptop appears to have died. I had resigned myself to the fact that I would be going to the local Apple store in the morning to buy a new Macbook Pro.

But....I decided that if it was dead then it wouldn't hurt to put the old drive back in and voila...it worked again. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. The photoshoot would go ahead as planned.

The next day, after the shoot this time, I started again. As I'd been through the process about 5 times by now I knew what was to be done and had the new drive in in about 10 minutes. This time the little b*stard fired up first time.

It's all working fine, I have plenty of room on the drive. The laptop appears to be running a little quicker and my heart is beating a little slower than the evening before.

Mijn advies

Oh yes. Only make a significant change to your computer if you're not under any pressure. I don't know what didn't work the first time but I'm sure I've knocked a couple of years off my lifespan due to the panic.