Hard Drive Crashed - Wife "Concerned"

Mijn probleem

My wife loves her MacBook, even though it's 5+ years old. When the hard drive crashed, I offered to buy her a new MacBook Air, but she had other priorities for our budget. Opting for a $75 500GB replacement drive that I could restore via Time Machine seemed the best choice.

Mijn oplossing

Easy! I popped out the battery, used my IFIXIT toolkit to unplug the old drive, slipped the new drive into place, replaced the bracing "thingy bob", then popped the battery back. In "Safe Mode", I booted from the Apple disk utility CD, selected Disk utility, then restored from the TimeMachine G-drive which also formatted the new disk. My wife had neglected her backups for a few months, but her critical photos (many scanned from old family albums) were saved. After updating the software to current levels, she was good to go.

Mijn advies

Keep your TimeMachine current. The hardware repair is the simplest part of the process. Remember "Safe Mode" boot is invoked by holding down the Shift Key immediately following the power up chime. Keep holding down the key until you see the Apple.

Sorry! Did not think to take pics along the way.