The issue is not one of weight but an issue with the systems cooling and an opening which objects could enter. For a few grams of weight I don’t think its worth it! A better solution would be to swap out the heaver HD for a much lighter SSD, and getting all of the performance benefits of the faster drive as well!

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While you might not think it the optical drive also acts as a stiffener so there is less twist in the case. This is because of the size of the hole for the DVD/CD’s so taking it out weakens the case design. Since you’ll be removing many screws it’s best to plan ahead. I found it especially helpful to have a small plastic tray with about a dozen separate compartments to hold screws. As I removed screws I kept them in one compartment for each item removed. For example: The lower case removal involves the removal of ten screws. I kept them all in the first tray compartment and set the lid aside.

Also, I put a post-it note identifying this compartment as “Lower case” and noted that the top right-most screws were the long ones. I continued with this methodology as a removed the next item, and the next, etc. Disassembly notes included for each compartment. This helped SIGNIFICANTLY as I was able to reassemble the Macbook easily by simply going from one compartment to the next (in reverse order). This guide is rated “Difficult” which it really isn’t when you plan ahead in this way. It saves time in the long run. When putting the macbook pro back together, the middle screw on the right side (if the computer is upside down and you have the hinge furthest away from you) requires a bracket that was not included with my new upper case.

I had to remove it from my old case and transfer it over - if you don’t do this, that screw will have nothing to attach to. This was one of the many additional parts i needed to transfer from my old case to the new one that aren’t mentioned in this guidei’m adding comments on each step to try to help othersi wish i had thought to take pictures.

Did you properly ground yourself to the case before putting the spudger to the connector/logic board? Did you use a spudger or something else that is non conductive.or did you use a flat blade metal screw driver instead and compound your error by not grounding yourself before touching the logic board?

All kinds of variables here but the bottom line is iFixit provided you a guide to fix your computer. Lots of others have followed this guide without trouble.

Your battery issues are not their fault. They did say this guide was moderate difficulty.maybe it's just a little beyond your skill level. We should all know our limits! DON'T remove the Battery Cable, you risk the battery NOT being recognised when you start the Mac up again, or breaking it!! More to the point, APPLE DOES NOT RECOMMEND THIS, so don't do it!

I Installed 2x 8GB ( 16Gb total) of Crucial Mac RAM at 1333Mhz for my Late 2011 MacBook Pro, and it works beautifully, fully recognised and working well. I followed these instructions, but as Apple didnt recommend disconnecting the battery, I skipped this step, and as well as taking less time, nothing was damaged or broken, and everything works perfectly!!! Just make sure that you DISCHARGE ALL STATIC ELECTRICITY FROM YOUR HANDS, by touching a metal surface in the Mac. Apple recommends the edge of the Optical Disk Drive ( Big silver thing ) before touching any parts. Also, Take care removing the RAM out of its packet, DO NOT touch the Gold connectors, and hold the RAM by the edges. Finally, be PATIENT, GENTLE and it should all go perfectly.

I managed it first time, with no technical ability, so follow my advice. This comment made me think that disconnecting the battery was no point at all, because really - how would the computer be able to switch on by it self.

I had my mac flipped around and was fiddling with the last part of the guide when I all of a sudden hear the start up sound! Don't know how and why it did. I turned it around with it guts open and guts hanging out. Screen was on. I forced it to shut down by keeping the power button down. Turned it back and first thing removed the battery cord. Luckily the computer started up just like normal.

But hearing that sound was just too scary. BTW I had been cautious to de static myself multiple times. The guide worked perfectly, as it has in the past (our family has three Mid-2012 Macbook Pros that have been separately upgraded with RAM and SSD). The PH00 screwdriver fit perfectly. One note on getting the screws to seat easily and thread perfectly.always turn them gently a couple turns to the left (CCW or Anti-Clockwise) until you hear a small click. That's where the threads will grab.

Works with any screw, but when threads are fine, this will help ensure that the screw is at the correct angle and will grab and seat perfectly. Great guides. I have a mid-2009 MBP. Removing the 3mm screws was nearly impossible. I read that Apple uses loctite glue to secure the screws. Someone recommended touching the hot tip of a glue gun (minus the glue, of course) to the screw head. Doing so heats the screw and loosens the loctite.

It worked well for the first one, I rushed the second and striped it so badly that I had to use a drill to bust up the screw head. I didn’t have a bit small enough to breakup the entire the screw, but I was able to pulverize the head so that the mounting surface was flat, which enabled me to install the new cable. At the moment, my cable is held in on that side by just the one screw and the weight of the hard drive. I’d like to replace the missing 3mm screw but I’d have to drill out the rest of the broken screw to have hole to put it in. Not exactly looking forward to that.perhaps if I just use some electrical tape to secure it down? On the upside, the new cable is working and my mac is up and running again.

My apologies, I was incorrect in my previous comment. The ZIF connector is a little flap on the hard drive cable that can be opened by flipping it up. This makes extracting the IR sensor easier. Removing the hard drive cable from the bracket may also make removing the IR sensor from the ZIF connector, but only if you've opened the flap. The new cable should already have the flap of the ZIF connector open, so make sure to close it. But does anyone know how you can tell if the IR sensor is connected? It's so small it's hard to tell if it can slide in further.

I have replaced my cable and my hard drive is now functioning normally again. Unfortunately, the sleeping LED is no longer functioning. I've removed the HD once again and realized the lever wasn't down on the ZIF connector. I pushed it down and put the bracket back into place.

Unfortunately, the LED is still not working. I am assuming the connector is either not far enough inside, or the LED on my new cable is broken. I am however reluctant to open everything up again but I am afraid I will break something on the connector, eventually. Am I risking any missing functionality on my Mac by not fixing the sleeping LED? Will my Mac/HD still fall asleep, do Bluetooth devices still work? I just did this step and I’m concerned I might have bent the little yellow cable or not seated it far enough into the connector.

More will be revealed. My suggestion might be to re-insert the cable before sticking the hard drive back onto the bracket. It might provide more flexibility and a better angle at getting the sleep LED cable back in the ZIF connector. This is just for the sleep LED? And the IR sensor? Right so if we don’t care about the LED for sleeping hard drive and never use the IR sensor then it doesn’t matter, right?

I purchased the HDD cable with the bracket, so my installation was a breeze. Remove the old cable and install the new one.

Four screws and done. Here was my problem with the MacBook Pro 13 Mid-2012. Bought the i7 model off Craigslist from a student. Seller said the hard drive went bad and she replaced it with a smaller 250GB drive. I thought no big deal because I was going to install an SSD anyway.

I bought a 500GB SSD and it would not boot. Rapidly flashing Apple, No sign, and Folder with question mark.

The drive booted fine with an external USB case. 750GB drive would not even recognize in the MacBook. Went to Apple and they would not touch it since it had a third-party drive installed, but they suggested replacing the cable since everything else worked. Sure enough, the HDD cable was bad and the replacement cable works perfectly! The 500GB SSD is recognized and boots OS X. So if your hard drive appears bad, check it first, and then determine if the cable is bad.

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However, watch that sleep sensor/ribbon cable. Pretty easy to damage that during the fiddling process of removing it. Also, the adhesive on the replacement cable may still have on it seems to arrive melted via the shipping process. So make sure it hasn't gotten on anything else.

Initial symptoms of the HDD cable failure were: slow indexing speeds, spotlight wasn't working, displaying directory listings were slow, complete OSX panics, OSX freezing, HDD folder appearing with question mark on boot. Disk Utility would randomly see the HDD but anything mounted externally it had no problem. I bought the hard drive cable from Amazon. I followed the steps and replaced the hard drive cable. However, when my computer could not turn on again. I decided to put the original hard drive cable back in place (without the Hard Drive) and I could turn it on.

I am running with dual HD, so with the main HD, my macbook boots from the HD that is in the optical drive place. I suppose that the Hard Drive cable that I bought was bad, since I succeeded to put the original cable back in place. However, does anyone know why the computer wouldn't turn on at all (no lights, no noise, nothing)? Usb logitech headset drivers for mac pro. Thanks you for this excellent guide! This was the first time I did anything more involved than changing RAM so the guide was really helpful. As for many others, the problem was that I got the dreaded 'question mark in a folder' image upon start up, indicating that the OS could not be found.

I managed to make one recovery start-up to repair the hard drive but the problem persisted, I then found comments about the hard drive cable often being the cause of this problem and this article allowed me to buy a new one and install it. Easy and quick! The cable I bought fit perfectly and had the IR sensor included. It is a MyArmor Replacement 923-0104 HDD Hard Drive Cable 821-2049-A With Bracket for MacBook Pro 13' A1278, £16 on amazon.co.uk Also bought ACENIX® 3 Pcs Nylon Plastic Spudger for £4.

Hello, I have a Macbook pro 2012 and am currently trying to diagnose whether my sata cable could be faulty or could it be the SSD firmware. I have a Samsung 850 Evo and a Sandisk Z400s and for some reason I can't format, partition, erase, or install the OS on either internally, which always results in an error.

However, I am able to format them externally using a sata-to-usb adapter and is able to boot internally once the OS is installed externally. Btw the original Toshiba HDD that came with the laptop does not encounter these issues. Does anyone have any ideas what could be the problem? Last week, I lifted my MacBook Pro Mid 2012 solely by the front right corner. After that, all operations were incredibly slow and I got lots of spinning color wheels. When I tried to run First Aid on the SSD in Disk Utility, the drive would not even appear in the list of devices.

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When I checked the SSD's SMART details with ‘smartctl’, there was nothing wrong. Still, I opened up the Mac and swapped out the SSD for a spare known to be working well in another machine. The second SSD also failed to show up in Disk Utility.

The hard drive cable appeared to be fine, but after reading the comments here and on other sites, I decided to replace the cable with a new one ordered from ifixit. With the new hard drive cable and the original SSD, my MacBook Pro is now back in business and disk access is fast again. Thanks for the very clear instructions. Like the previous poster, I was afraid of damaging the new cable when bending it. I used the flat tip of a spudger to bend the cable.

Excellent tutorial. But you need to add an age limit to it.

This stuff is. This guide worked well for me but I agree with others that: - 1) A different method for disconnection the battery is needed.

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I broke the edge of mine doing as instructed. 2) Some explanation of the best way to fold or bend the new cable in place is needed.

This is extremely fidley. My closeup vision isn’t good so resorted to clamping my iPhone in place while using the Magnifier function with lamp on focussed on the job to enlarge what I was doing. I felt like a surgeon doing keyhole surgery:-).

I was trying to replace my original HDD with a SSD (Samsung Evo 860 500Gb). I could boot up fine on the new SSD via USB (using a USB-SATA cable) but every time I tried to boot when the SSD was inside my computer (in the place of the original HDD), I couldn’t boot (forbidden sign appeared).

I read on several forums it was a compatibility problem with the original SATA cable. I seemed strange to me but I decided to buy a new SATA cable via iFixit. I’ve just replaced the original SATA cable with the new one and now I can boot on the SSD without any problem! Thank you very much for this tutorial, even if I still don’t understand why it doesn’t work with the original SATA cable ^^.

We just upgraded a 2011 Apple Mac Mini to have an SSD, a second hard drive, and new RAM. Video Also available on YouTube in. Parts List. SATA III 6.0 Gb-s 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive VTX3-25SAT3-120G.

5400RPM, 8 MB cache, 2.5 inch, 9.5MM height hard drive. Kit CMSO8GX3M2A1333C9. Model MC816LL/A 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 dual-core processor, AMD Radeon HD 6630M graphics, 4GB RAM, 500GB hard drive. Cable: Apple Part 922-9560, also called “Apple Mac Mini Server (Mid 2010) Bottom Hard Drive Server Flex Cable” or “Hard Drive Flex Cable Bottom”.

We used part number 1009005 at welovemacs.com. This is sold as a. Alternate Parts List The OCZ Vertex 3 is the fastest consumer SSD at the moment. Other SSD’s that you might consider include:. Highest reliability SSD:. Best value high capacity SSD: The Western Digital Blue drive mentioned above is high capacity and quiet.

For a faster spinning hard drive consider:. 7200RPM, 16 MB cache, 2.5 inch, 9.5MM height hard drive The dedicated graphics in the mid-tier Mac Mini make it worth it for me. But for the cheapest Mini, consider:. 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 dual-core processor, integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000, 2GB RAM, 500GB hard drive UPDATE: My video shows adding two 9.5MM height drives. I just upgraded another Mac Mini with a 9.5MM SSD and a 12.5MM standard hard drive. As with my first upgrade, the hard drive goes in the bottom slot (the side closest to the top of the case when upright).

This does fit. But first you need to slide the logic board out slightly. Be sure to remove the IR port adapter before sliding out the logic board. I used a cut up coat hanger to insert into the logic board holes and slide it out.

First Boot Starting with a blank hard drive is easy on the 2011 Mac Mini. Hold down Command-R to boot into which allows you to format the drives and download Lion over the Internet. TRIM Support in Lion For optimal SSD performance, enable TRIM support within OS X Lion. Grant Pannell describes the. Photos of Upgrade Opened Fan Removal WiFi Connection Empty Drive Bay Original Hard Drive Drive Bay Side View 1 Drive Bay Side View 2 New Hard Drive & Cable New Hard Drive Insertion New SSD New SSD & Drive Cables Attached New RAM Attach Fan. What you need 1.

Phillips Head screwdriver 3. External USB or firewire backup hard drive 6. New SATA hard drive. We recommend the Step 1 – Backup via Time Machine Before you start, you have to first make sure you have a recent time machine backup. After installing the new drive, we will restore from this backup.

Step 2 – Remove RAM slot The RAM slot is held on with just 1 screw. Unscrew it and pop off the panel. The screw does not fall out but remains in the panel itself. If you are upgrading RAM, this all all you need to do. Step 3 – Remove the glass screen This may seem like a scary step but it is extremely easy. Firmly attach suction cups at opposite corners. Then gently lift up.

The glass is held on with magnets and comes off with very little effort. I recommend laying out a towel or paper towels to lay the glass on. Be careful not to scratch the glass or screen beneath it. If at all possible, try to do this work in a non dusty area because we will later need to clean off the dust between the glass and LCD screen. Step 4 – Remove front aluminum casing There are 12 screws around the edges holding on the front aluminum casing.

Unscrew them all keeping track of which ones go where since they are varying lengths. You can then lift upwards around the edges to take off the front casing. Flip it towards the top of the imac and lay it on the table above it so that you do not have to unhook the camera. Step 5 – Remove LCD panel The LCD is held down with 8 screws on the sides which need to be removed. There is a cable marked in green toward the bottom which needs to be unhooked.

There is also a connector to the right marked in yellow that is held down with 2 screws. Remove the screws and pull the connector upwards to unhook it. You should then lift up the LCD gently where you will see 2 power connectors toward the upper right that need unplugging. The LCD should then be free to place elsewhere. The hard drive will now be visible. Step 6 – Remove the old hard drive There is a cushion glued on top of the heat sensor cable.

Gently pull up this cushion keeping it in one piece and try to maintain its stickiness for later. The heat sensor is held in place in a plastic notch and can slide out of it. There is a black plastic bar holding the hard drive in place. Lift it up from left to right to unlock it. This can be very challenging since it is tight.

The drive can then slide up and out and you can unhook the power and SATA cables. Step 7 – Add the new hard drive There are 4 screws on the old hard drive which need to be removed and added to the new hard drive so that it can slide into the holders on the iMac. Once the power and SATA cables are plugged back in, you can slide it back in and lower the black plastic bar to lock it in place. Place the heat sensor on the drive in about the same area where it was and use the sticky cushion to hold it in place. If it doesn’t seem sticky enough to hold, you can get some rubber cement from your local home depot and add just a bit to hold it in place. Step 8 – Put the system back together Rebuilding the system is mostly straightforward. It can be handy to have an extra pair of hands to hold the LCD as you reconnect the power cables.

We recommend you lay out the screws in an orderly manner so that you know exactly which one goes where as you rebuild. Once the system is rebuilt except for the glass, you want to use the microfiber cloth to remove any dust or debris on the front of the LCD screen and back of the glass. You will also need to use the microfiber cloth to clean the front of the glass once you remove the suction cups. Step 9 – Restore from Time Machine backup When you first boot up, insert the Mac OS X install disc and hold down the option key while booting so you can select the disc to boot from. Step through the install until the Utilities menu appears at the top of the screen. First use Disk Utility to erase the disk and create a volume. Then choose to restore from backup from the same menu and choose your external time machine backup.

Your system will then be just as it was except with a new hard drive.