Do you Have Your Torx in Order?



 

So, after years and years of advice and instruction on maintaining hard drive redundancy, and the benefits of upgrading from time to time, I finally am following my own advice and upgrading my venerable Macbook Pro.  After a screamingly good deal came out for laptop disk drives locally, I went out and snagged a 750GB 7200 RPM hard drive from MicroCenter and brought it home.  I also picked up a copy of Mac OS X.6 since my previous upgrade came through a friends DVD who was no longer living in the area.  All told, I am in for a little over $100 – not too shabby!  However, as they say, the Devil’s in the Details!

I’ve changed out lots of hard drives in my time…after all, it’s no secret that I am a working IT professional – that’s my day job.  I’ve been doing that for about 10 years now, so hardware upgrades are pretty routine for me by this point – and I’ve got lots of tools to do it with too…everything from magnets, to phillips heads, to flat heads, to Torx bits for unique screws, and even a pair of nylon pliers.  But all of this based on a Windows background.  I’d never done much with Macs.  The mentality I’ve always had though is that hardware is hardware, right?  I did check out a few tutorial videos on YouTube and all the tools sounded like ones I own, so I jumped right in and off I went – until I got inside the Mac and was presented with two teeny tiny screws that required a Torx bit T6.  I went to my trusty toolbelt and saw my Torx bits went from T30 all the way down to T4 – awesome!  Until I noticed that one slot was missing – and sure enough, it was the dreaded T6!

A trip to Wal-Mart yielded no dice (it was getting late), so this morning off to Lowe’s I went.  I did find the T6 bit – but it was in a package of other bits and a nut driver – for $20:

Torx KitSuffice to say, I was a bit (if you’ll pardon the expression), a bit torqued to be missing what was likely a 50 cent bit and having to spend nearly $20 to reassemble the Mac.  However, the eternal optimist, I put the positive spin on it – this is a nice kit I bought and the rest will probably go to Good Will since they are showing their age a bit.  Finally, of course, the educational moment for me:  I finally got my Torx in Order!

So, with the Mac now flying on a 7200rpm drive with plenty of storage, my weekend will likely be spent performing a fresh install of all my favorite apps.  Which ones do you think will go on there first?  I’ll give you a hint – the company name starts with A and ends with dobe!  The takeaway from all this – make sure you have your Torx in order – it is definitely a good motto to add to your motto book!  Have a great weekend everyone – just because I wont be shooting doesn’t mean you can’t so be safe, be smart, and…(wait for it)…

Happy Shooting!

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