macbook hard drive compatibility

[helpmhost]

Hi,

I have 2 questions about the hard drives in macbooks and macbook pros.

Can I put the hard drive that was in a macbook into a regular PC plugged into a regular SATA port?

Can I buy any 2.5" SATA laptop hard drive and put it in my macbook?

Thanks.

[styrafome]

Not sure about the first question, except that if you are able to plug it in, a PC will still not be able to read a disk formatted as HFS+, the standard disk format of a Mac. There is Windows software called MacDrive that may make it readable, though.

On the second question, I believe any 9.5mm tall 2.5-inch SATA drive will work. The 12mm tall drives won't fit.

[JDV]

You may need a 2.5" bay converter to hold the drive in place, but there is no reason that a notebook drive won't work perfectly well in your PC (assuming that, as you've indicated, it has SATA support).

Joe VanZandt