r/mac – TechMacBook, have questions | Mac

Hi. I recently bought a used 13″ mid-2007 MacBook and I have a few questions/issues I hope you guys might help me with.

1. It gets hot here and after a time (around 30 minutes, give or take) it shuts down. From what I understand, the region I marked is where the graphics chipset is located, so my guess is that’s where the problem lies. Am I onto something here? I intend to remove the dust that undoubtedly has amassed inside since 2007 and replace all the thermal paste to be found inside the laptop – do you think that should be enough?

2. The DVD drive itself works, but inserting a disc takes a considerable amount of force and ejecting it requires prying the slot open a little with a screwdriver – obviously, not an ideal solution. Does anyone know if this is something that can be easily fixed? If not, will any external DVD drive work?

3. I’m thinking of perhaps replacing the stock HDD with an SSD, but given the problems with the DVD drive, I’m not sure how I’d go about reinstalling the OS. If I put the original HDD into an external case and plug it into the computer via USB, will I be able to boot from the original HDD’s recovery partition and reinstall from there? Alternatively, how would I go about creating a bootable USB? I tried making one with a Linux distro, but despite formatting the USB stick in a Mac format (complete with the GUID), UNetbootin wouldn’t recognise it, so I’m at a loss here. And again, should any SSD work?

I’m pretty new to Macs, so please excuse me if I ask silly questions about obvious stuff.