Tutorial: Replace or upgrade the hard drive in a unibody Macbook

Unlike the old MacBook Pro’s design which is somewhat of a chore to get to the hard drive. Replacing and or upgrading the hard drive in the new unibody MacBooks is a rather simple process.

The first step is obviously to acquire a hard drive, and an external enclosure. Once you have those, install the hard drive in the external USB enclosure, connect it to your Mac, and run your favorite disk cloning software. I like to use Super Duper.

Lay your MacBook (upside down) locate and remove the 10 phillips screws on the bottom of the notebook.

Gently insert your nails and lift the bottom cover.

Locate the two phillips screws on the hard drive retaining mount and remove them.

Grab onto the pull tab and pull the hard drive out towards you a couple of inches.

Carefully, disconnect the hard drive connector.

Remove the mounting screws from the hard drive. Two on each side.

Now it’s time to begin working in reverse. Install the four mounting screws on your new hard drive, connect the ribbon cable. Replace the retaining clip.

Replace the ten screws on the bottom cover, and you’re all done.

Only thing left is to boot it up and make sure all went well.

If you would like to see the video on how to perform this upgrade, click here.