Mac OS X forum: [MBP] Booting clamshell + External boot...

thanks

by allandbyallo - 4/4/12 8:20 AM

In Reply to: What you can do by Jimmy Greystone

not quite that daring right now
i've opened up my previous mbp to replace a fan, and while i got it closed again, it was pretty darn sloppy at best haha
i'd like to avoid doing that.

i dont think the HD is on the way out, it's not THAT horrible, but its definitely not as fast as it should be. i just freed up some space and i wouldn't mind just running a couple utils to see whats up if anything

either way i'm gonna upgrade soon to a new HDD and replace the optical with an SSD for os/apps
but for now i'd like to just do some tests/tweaks

thanks! i appreciate your time and knowledge
a

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Yes

by Jimmy Greystone - 4/4/12 10:37 AM

In Reply to: thanks by allandbyallo

Yes, those older style models are a bit of a pain if you don't know what you're doing. There is a trick to getting the top case off, but you need to be careful doing it or you could damage the flex cable that connects it to the MLB. Of course the other methods have you risking bending the crap out of the bottom case, so it's kind of a situation where the design was aimed more at being aesthetically pleasing than functional repair wise. And just hope your keyboard never goes out. Good lord is that a lot of work to replace on those things. It rivals the newer unibody models where you just rebuild the entire laptop inside a new top case.

If you're going to upgrade the HDD, you may as well do the LVDS cable at the same time, since both require removing the top case.

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"it's not THAT horrible"

by R. Proffitt - 4/4/12 10:40 AM

In Reply to: thanks by allandbyallo

Any dodgy drive is DODGY. I can only guess you have to learn this one first hand.

After a few years you'll know that any DODGY drive is something you never want around.

Kinda funny story. Years ago our shop had collected dozens of bad drives. We had lucked out and fixed a few to recover data using boards and parts but it was time to move on. I took the entire lot to a swap meet and put out a sign "Dead Drives, 5$ each" and they sold out in minutes. Only one person looked at me, then the drives and said "If you can't fix them I know I can't." They knew my shop and me so I took that as a compliment. They didn't buy one.

Bob

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