[SOLVED] HELP - How to install Corsair SSD on Macbook?

[irlwizard]

Hello I have a Performance Pro Series 256GB gathering dust and my silly girl bought a used 17'' macbook with a core2 duo... I don't know anything about macs but the laptop is extremely slow. I think it is because of the harddrive (some crappy 160GB HDD from the stone age) so I am wondering if I can use my 'Performance Pro Series 256GB' in her laptop (if it has SATA)? She is coming over with it tomorrow so...

Q1
So, does Corsair SSDs support Apple OS X?

Q2
If so how should I clear/reformat my SSD before putting on OS X Lion...

Q3
And will enabling AHCI give the SSD TRIM support on Apple?


If you can only answer one question please go ahead. Some feedback is better than non.

Regards
-Irlwizard

 

[ryanhmusic]

To Q1 - Yes, your Corsair SSD should support Apple's OS X so long as it's correctly formatted in Mac's Journaled format.

To Q2 - You need a bootable Mountain Lion or Lion thumb drive (google will tell you how to create one of those if you don't want to buy it...but there's a utility called "Lion Disk Maker" that will allow you to write the OS (as downloaded from the App Store) to any thumbdrive 8gigs or greater)

To Q3 - I'm about 99.9% sure that one of the recent updates to OS X enabled trip support by default (I think it might have been 10.8.1).

--I'll do some googling to let you know for sure about Q3 but hopefully the answers to 1 & 2 are satisfactory.

Feel free to let me know if you need anymore help.

 

[irlwizard]

To Q1 - Yes, your Corsair SSD should support Apple's OS X so long as it's correctly formatted in Mac's Journaled format.

Your answers are great. But excuse me for having to ask - How do I reformat the SSD with Mac's Journaled format if I don't own a mac. I only have Win 7 and Win 8 systems in my house. :O

I only found this guide, but it tells you how to do it on a Mac...
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/formatting_hd_mac_stone.html

 

[ryanhmusic]

To Q1 - Yes, your Corsair SSD should support Apple's OS X so long as it's correctly formatted in Mac's Journaled format.

Your answers are great. But excuse me for having to ask - How do I reformat the SSD with Mac's Journaled format if I don't own a mac. I only have Win 7 and Win 8 systems in my house. :O

I only found this guide, but it tells you how to do it on a Mac...
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/formatting_hd_mac_stone.html

So from everything I've read/know about Macs and formatting to Journaled, you need a Mac to do it. So my advice would be one of two suggestions.

First - find someone to borrow a mac from for roughly 2 hours. Install liondiskmaker and download mountain lion -> use those to create a bootable USB thumb drive from any thumb driver >8GB.

Then when you go to replace with the HDD with SSD: install the SSD into the machine, plug the usb drive into a USB port and boot holding down the 'option key' that will allow you to enter the setup wizard for mountain lion. Under options (at the top) -> disk (something) is an option. Inside of that utility you can format to Mac Journaled very easily -- you'll easily be able to see how to do it.

Then follow the setup to install ML onto the SSD and boot. After that you're all set.

Second suggestion was to do all of that on her computer when she comes instead of borrowing a friends to setup before installing the SSD.

Lemme know if that answers the question or if you need any more help don't hesitate to ask. Sorry I couldn't be more clear on the exact process, I haven't done it in a few weeks and I don't have my mac handy to run through it again...

 

[irlwizard]

Sounds clear enough. ^.^

I'll do all of that on her Mac when she comes over. She only has Snow Leopard but I am sure that OS will allow me to download Liondiskmaker.

Hmm I just have a quick question about the USB tho. Mine is 8GB FAT32 format. Do I have to reformat the USB as well?? Or should that be fine?

Lastly. Does Apple have some type of BIOS that needs to be updated? If so I still have to wait for her to bring it so I can check out the model number etc. But if some type of Apple BIOS exists and you can reference a website of were to download it from that would be great. Might update that before installing the SSD.

With that said, thank you so much for your help Ryan, it's been a pleasure.

 

[ryanhmusic]

Sounds clear enough. ^.^

I'll do all of that on her Mac when she comes over. She only has Snow Leopard but I am sure that OS will allow me to download Liondiskmaker.

Hmm I just have a quick question about the USB tho. Mine is 8GB FAT32 format. Do I have to reformat the USB as well?? Or should that be fine?

Lastly. Does Apple have some type of BIOS that needs to be updated? If so I still have to wait for her to bring it so I can check out the model number etc. But if some type of Apple BIOS exists and you can reference a website of were to download it from that would be great. Might update that before installing the SSD.

With that said, thank you so much for your help Ryan, it's been a pleasure.

Yeah I'm also 99% sure SL allows for LDM to run just fine

So your 8gig FAT32 USB Drive would have to be formatted to Journaled as well for Lion Disk Maker to do its thing. You can do that using disk utility on the mac. -Plug the USB into the mac, open disk utility from applications->utilities and then format to Mac OS Journaled. It's pretty self-explanatory/simple once you start to do it.

Then LionDiskMaker will do it's thing on the USB stick and you can go ahead with the SSD install.

So as far as I know (and if you could get the system profiler information I could be more precise about this): as long as the macbook has a SATA controller in it (which i think nearly all the ones from the past 7/8 years do...) then there is no need for a BIOS update, the Disk Utility on the USB drive will see the SSD as an empty drive to format/install ML on.

The only thing I'd assume though is that she's running SATA2 on that mac and you'll be limited by controller speed but that's still a huge step up from any mechanical drive obviously.

If you want to update this thread with a screen shot of the system profile I could provide a tad bit more precision in my answers but I think what I've laid out should get you at least 99% of the way there.

IRLWizard - It's been a pleasure as well. Feel free to let me know if you've got any more questions/concerns and good luck with the SSD install!

Best,
Ryan

*p.s. don't forget to select best answer

 

[irlwizard]

Yeah I'm also 99% sure SL allows for LDM to run just fine

So your 8gig FAT32 USB Drive would have to be formatted to Journaled as well for Lion Disk Maker to do its thing. You can do that using disk utility on the mac. -Plug the USB into the mac, open disk utility from applications->utilities and then format to Mac OS Journaled. It's pretty self-explanatory/simple once you start to do it.

Then LionDiskMaker will do it's thing on the USB stick and you can go ahead with the SSD install.

If you want to update this thread with a screen shot of the system profile I could provide a tad bit more precision in my answers but I think what I've laid out should get you at least 99% of the way there.

Ryan I ran into a 'slight' problem LOL...

Erased the old USB FAT32 and formated Mac Journal or whatever than I downloaded Lion Diskmaker onto the USB. Finally I went to the app store to buy Mountain Lion OS but I got an error... Can only use on Core 2 Duo, i3, i5, i7... So In the topleft corner of the OS I clicked on the Apple icon and went to 'About This Mac'.

It says;
Mac OS X - Version 10.6.8
Processor - 2.16 Ghz Intel Core Duo (not Core 2 Duo, that is why I can't install Mountain Lion >.<)
Memory - 2GB 667 Mhz DDR2 SDRAM
Startup Disk - The Internal HD...

In - More INFO... I'll give you the stuf I think is relavent. If you need other info, please let me know.
Model Identifier: MacBookPro1,2
The Internal HD is 120GB LOL... But it says nothing about if it is IDE or SATA. But I'm guessing it's SATA or SATA II.


Anyway... What I need to do now is... Put the current OS and the CD-Key of it... onto the USB Flash Drive, together with Lion Utility... And pray that it works with Snow Leopard. Than erase the current harddisk and OS, take it out and reuse the registration key on the new SSD. Is this even possible? I know you can do stuf like that on Windows after removing your OS from old hardware and saving the key for your new upgrade...

Edit: Tried searching for Snow Leopard on the app store than just Mac OS X to find and redownload it into the USB as that would be easier. But it does not seem to exist in the App store as a OS download any longer. Just tutorials for it. :/

Regards
Sorry it got a lot more complicated. xP Stupid Core Duo haha... *scratches head*

 

[ryanhmusic]

Yeah I'm also 99% sure SL allows for LDM to run just fine

So your 8gig FAT32 USB Drive would have to be formatted to Journaled as well for Lion Disk Maker to do its thing. You can do that using disk utility on the mac. -Plug the USB into the mac, open disk utility from applications->utilities and then format to Mac OS Journaled. It's pretty self-explanatory/simple once you start to do it.

Then LionDiskMaker will do it's thing on the USB stick and you can go ahead with the SSD install.

If you want to update this thread with a screen shot of the system profile I could provide a tad bit more precision in my answers but I think what I've laid out should get you at least 99% of the way there.

Ryan I ran into a 'slight' problem LOL...

Erased the old USB FAT32 and formated Mac Journal or whatever than I downloaded Lion Diskmaker onto the USB. Finally I went to the app store to buy Mountain Lion OS but I got an error... Can only use on Core 2 Duo, i3, i5, i7... So In the topleft corner of the OS I clicked on the Apple icon and went to 'About This Mac'.

It says;
Mac OS X - Version 10.6.8
Processor - 2.16 Ghz Intel Core Duo (not Core 2 Duo, that is why I can't install Mountain Lion >.<)
Memory - 2GB 667 Mhz DDR2 SDRAM
Startup Disk - The Internal HD...

In - More INFO... I'll give you the stuf I think is relavent. If you need other info, please let me know.
Model Identifier: MacBookPro1,2
The Internal HD is 120GB LOL... But it says nothing about if it is IDE or SATA. But I'm guessing it's SATA or SATA II.


Anyway... What I need to do now is... Put the current OS and the CD-Key of it... onto the USB Flash Drive, together with Lion Utility... And pray that it works with Snow Leopard. Than erase the current harddisk and OS, take it out and reuse the registration key on the new SSD. Is this even possible? I know you can do stuf like that on Windows after removing your OS from old hardware and saving the key for your new upgrade...

Edit: Tried searching for Snow Leopard on the app store than just Mac OS X to find and redownload it into the USB as that would be easier. But it does not seem to exist in the App store as a OS download any longer. Just tutorials for it. :/

Regards
Sorry it got a lot more complicated. xP Stupid Core Duo haha... *scratches head*

So, now I must admit that you're leaving my domain of expertise, I'm only a recent Mac adoptee - haven't dealt with any Macs older than like 2009 or so...

But google showed this to me as a wal of installing Mountain Lion onto that outdated Mac: http://roaringcore.wordpress.com/roaringmountai/

I was wondering if perhaps you were comfortable pulling the thing apart, because if so, I've got some ideas for you.

You'd need to find out if the HDD and the Optical Drive are both SATA connected devices. If they are, lemme know and I'll outline a strategy for you.

I always get a kick out of the statement "Macs just work"...hah in my experience, no computer 'just works'

EDIT: Also - I suppose I never made this clear but in terms of using Lion Disk Maker (if that route even ends up being viable) - you need to run Disk Utility (on a mac) to format the ThumbDrive as "Mac OS Journaled" - then run Lion Disk Maker locally on that mac and with a copy of Mountain Lion downloaded to the applications folder of that mac, run Lion Disk Maker and select the USB Drive as a destination...

^but I don't think that method is the way for you to go anymore - clearly the computer is pretty old...