MacBook Pro 15" Unibody Early 2011 Hard Drive Replacement

Written By: Walter Galan

Comments: 4

MacBook Pro 15" Unibody Early 2011 Hard Drive Replacement

Difficulty

Moderate

Steps

Time Required

No estimate

Introduction

This guide is a prereq only.

Tools

Phillips #00 Screwdriver

Step 1

Remove two Phillips screws securing the hard drive bracket to the upper case.
These screws are captive to the hard drive bracket.

love the attention to detail added to this step "screws are captive" thanks. :D

aaronmiller - 17/07/14

One of these screws has damaged thread and needs replacing - does anyone know what size they are so I can search and purchase a replacement?

Andy -

Step 2

Lift the retaining bracket out of the upper case.

Step 3

Lift the hard drive by its pull tab and pull it out of the chassis, minding the cable attaching it to the computer.

Step 4

Remove the hard drive cable by pulling its connector straight away from the hard drive.

I just replaced my hard drive; but I notice that my ribbon cable does not have pins for one of the three connection sections of the new hard drive. It is a new SSHD, hybrid drive from Seagate, while my Mac is early 2011.

Does this matter that the far right port on the hard drive does not actually connect electronically to the ribbon cable?

I have been having issues with the computer (since installation) suddenly shutting off/freezing (persistently) with the need to force shut down. When I turn it back on, it often starts up trying to initiate Internet Recovery.

However, after that is completed I am able to go to disk utility and select the new hard drive like it was always there.

I do not know if this is a function of a faulty hard drive, the ribbon, or something pricier; but it is getting worse.

Now it starts up to just a blue screen or white screen. I checked out the physical hard drive and somehow the ribbon cable had become bent and squished underneath it.

Could this be the source of all my problems?

Hunter Lindberg - 13/08/15

You might be referring to the four pin section that would be used for jumpers. These are a hold-over from older IDE hard drives, where the placment of a jumper on the corresponding pins would dedesignate a drive as either Master, Slave or, on newer iterations Cable Select. To my knowledge the pins are not used in most applications of SATA hard drives.

Michael - 11/04/16