Hard Drive swap-out and transfer advice [Archive]

View Full Version : Hard Drive swap-out and transfer advice

pkts

Oct 10, 2007, 01:31 PM

Hi,

I have a first gen macbook 2.0Ghz. I need more hard drive space so I'm going to buy a bigger 5400rpm drive. Couple of questions:

1. What's a good manufacturer? Hitachi is good right? Anyone else?

2. I use bootcamp in addition to OSX. What is the easiest way to do this transfer. I don't want to have to reinstall both systems and all my programs. Can I just log into OSX and drag the hard drive partition onto the new drive (connected with a firewire enclosure I guess?) and then log in to Vista and do the same thing? Or do I need a software program?

3. Any recommendations on firewire enclosures to use my old drive as an external?

Thanks for any advice!

Toby.

Eidorian

Oct 10, 2007, 01:33 PM

1. Seagate and Hitachi are good.
2. You'll more then likely have to image (http://www.bombich.com/software/netrestore.html) the entire drive since you use Boot Camp.

plinden

Oct 10, 2007, 01:38 PM

You can clone your OS X to your new drive if you put it in an enclosure (as you already suggested) using SuperDuper! Basic functionality (cloning, manual backups etc) is free.

I've never backed up a windows partition, but people have been asking this question ever since BootCamp was released - eg. http://forums.macnn.com/104/alternative-operating-systems/300299/how-to-clone-xp-boot/

That's XP though. I'm not sure about Vista.

Edit: Eldorian, does NetRestore work with Vista? I was going to mention it, but its webpage mentions only XP

Eidorian

Oct 10, 2007, 01:41 PM

pkts

Oct 10, 2007, 01:52 PM

Thanks for the responses guys!

I found this link:

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/25932/winclone

They seem to offer dual boot vista and OSX imaging. I think I'll try it first. Any ideas?

Eidorian

Oct 10, 2007, 01:53 PM

Thanks for the responses guys!

I found this link:

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/25932/winclone

They seem to offer dual boot vista and OSX imaging. I think I'll try it first. Any ideas?Just a reminder that WinClone will only clone your Windows partition.

pkts

Oct 10, 2007, 01:57 PM

Just a reminder that WinClone will only clone your Windows partition.

OK Thanks...I'll guess I'll use Winclone for that and Bombich or Superduper for the OSX part? I searched and a poster says you need a torx t-8 screwdriver to remove the housing on the existing hard drive. Is that correct?

Thanks!

Eidorian

Oct 10, 2007, 02:00 PM

OK Thanks...I'll guess I'll use Winclone for that and Bombich or Superduper for the OSX part? I searched and a poster says you need a torx t-8 screwdriver to remove the housing on the existing hard drive. Is that correct?

Thanks!That is correct.

El Cid

Oct 10, 2007, 04:51 PM

1. What's a good manufacturer? Hitachi is good right? Anyone else?

3. Any recommendations on firewire enclosures to use my old drive as an external?

Thanks for any advice!

Toby.

I really like the Western Digitial I picked up not to long ago. 250GB @ 5400. I have also had good experiences with Toshiba in an ibook. As far as enclosures go, I picked up a Macally enclosure with firewire. But Macally has a good selection of small encolures off all types.:)

Eidorian

Oct 10, 2007, 04:55 PM

I really like the Western Digitial I picked up not to long ago. 250GB @ 5400. I have also had good experiences with Toshiba in an ibook. As far as enclosures go, I picked up a Macally enclosure with firewire. But Macally has a good selection of small encolures off all types.:)I've never seen a 2.5" SATA enclosure with FireWire connections.

Southern

Oct 10, 2007, 05:06 PM

I've never seen a 2.5" SATA enclosure with FireWire connections.

Yeah, it's either USB 2.0 or E-SATA (which Macs don't currently have as a factory option).

Eidorian

Oct 10, 2007, 05:07 PM

Yeah, it's either USB 2.0 or E-SATA (which Macs don't currently have as a factory option).USB will work fine on an Intel Mac.

Southern

Oct 10, 2007, 05:18 PM

USB will work fine on an Intel Mac.

Yeah I know I know, I kinda implied using the OR statement that E-SATA wouldn't without a PCI card or some kind (or is that PCI-E these days with Mac Pros?). I did consider using an external caddy through USB 2.0 but with a 320Gb HDD I have plenty of space at the moment.

Eidorian

Oct 10, 2007, 05:25 PM

Yeah I know I know, I kinda implied using the OR statement that E-SATA wouldn't without a PCI card or some kind (or is that PCI-E these days with Mac Pros?). I did consider using an external caddy through USB 2.0 but with a 320Gb HDD I have plenty of space at the moment.eSATA would work but you'd need a MacBook Pro or Mac Pro to get eSATA ports.

Otherwise you'd be using a eSATA to USB adapter. :rolleyes:

Southern

Oct 10, 2007, 05:28 PM

Otherwise you'd be using a eSATA to USB adapter. :rolleyes:

Now why didn't I think of that :D

Eidorian

Oct 10, 2007, 08:31 PM

Now why didn't I think of that :DWhat do you mean? You didn't know about an eSATA to USB adapter? I was surprised as well when I saw one.

Kinda silly don't you think?

plinden

Oct 10, 2007, 10:05 PM

I've never seen a 2.5" SATA enclosure with FireWire connections.
It seems OWC has portable firewire enclosures for 2.5" SATA drives - http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MSTG800U2K/

pkts

Oct 11, 2007, 11:31 AM

Thanks for all the responses.

I just want to recount what I did.

I swapped the drives. Put my old drive into a USB 2.0 enclosure and booted up from it using option startup. Then I downloaded super duper and ran the copy to my new drive (I had to format it first). That worked great but I couldn't get the win partition software to work...it was taking forever and it seemed like it was stalled. I tried running it off the USB startup disk as well as by rebooting with the new drive. So I ended up reinstalling Boot Camp (I had an older version anyway) and just copying across my programs and settings. I did have to go thru 32 windows updates!!! The whole windows installation process reminded me of how much I dislike using it. But now I'm off to see how the Orange Box runs. Fingers crossed!

BTW, the super irritating high pitched beep my Macbook used to make every two seconds is now gone...guess it was the old drive. Unfortunately I couldn't get a Hitachi or Seagate or Toshiba so I bought a Fujitsu 160 GB.