MacBook – How to install an Operating System after replacing optical Drive by a second HDD on MacBook white late 2009

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I want to improve the performance of my MacBook white by donating it a Solid State Drive.

Because the prices are too high and I don't want to get stuck in space shortage, I thought of replacing the optical drive by my old 320 GB HDD and place a new 128 GB SSD in the original place of the HDD.

This way the SSD can use the SATA III connection while for the HDD the SATA II connection of the optical drive will be sufficient – I assume.

But since my Macbook has no recovery partition I was wondering:

How would I install any OS on the MacBook without the optical Drive? I have Snow Leopard on DVD. Since I like clean installations I have burned my App Store purchases of Lion and Mountain Lion on DVD to.

Are there Any solutions for this problem available?

I know there is the possibility for accessing the optical drive. I own a PC with Windows installed on it, but I never actually tried this out. Also I doubt, that the MacBook can access the optical drive of my PC while there is no OS installed on it.

Glad for any feedback and hints, thanks!

Best Answer

I assume you want to get the OS and apps on your SSD and the rest of your files on the HDD.

  1. Attach the optical drive to it's SATA II connection and the SSD to the SATA III connection.
  2. Install the OS and apps on the SSD.
  3. Replace the optical drive with the HDD.
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