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Is it in principle possible to swipe the hard disk out of a MacBook, swipe a new (blank) hard disk in, install the OS on the new disk, then swipe the old disk back in and find the machine operational again?

I would like to tinker with a new hard disk (bootcamp and perhaps rEFIt), but if that fails, I'd like to continue from the installation I have right now.

Edit Clearly, the hard disk will be unchanged. My question is whether the process of installing OS X / bootcamp will change something (SMC, PRAM, ...?) that makes the machine incompatible with the previous installation.

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2 Answers

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On the first boot after changing a drive it may take an extra couple of seconds for the new boot destination to be written to the PRAM, but it won't cause any issues.

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Yes, certainly. Removing the original drive will leave it exactly as it was before.

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It's clear that nothing can change on the hard disk while it's disconnected. I have now clarified the question. – Calaf Oct 15 '12 at 14:41
I know a guy whose double boot was in fact a double drive. One for Windows, one for the Mac OS. Worked perfectly. – Matthieu Riegler Oct 15 '12 at 16:41
@MatthieuRiegler Did this involve removing the internal drive every time, or could he reboot into the other OS without using a screwdriver (a KVM-style switch for SATA perhaps..?) ? – Calaf Oct 17 '12 at 17:20
Nope. He needed to remove 2 screws (Old Macbook) to change the HD. So it's not a very convinient solution but I works. – Matthieu Riegler Oct 17 '12 at 21:03

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