I just ordered a Samsung 320GB 5400RPM drive for my MacBook to replace the original 160GB hard drive. I also got a free USB external enclosure for the Samsung drive when I purchased it. I was just wondering if there is a program that will allow me to just copy whats on my 160GB hard drive to my 320GB one exactly so I can just take the 320GB drive out of the enclosure and pop it into my MacBook and have it ready to go?
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New MacBook hard drive.
- Thread starter SeanEE89
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You might be able to use Disk Utility to copy your HD to the new one through USB, I don't know if it would expand correctly though.
as a complete MacBook newbie, i did this past weekend and used Carbon Copy Cloner. very easy to do and took me all of an hour.... of which 45 mins was simply copying data.
SD can also be used as a backup utility. But if you have Time Machine, there's not much of a need for it. Carbon Copy Cloner is what I always use. Very easy to do. Just make sure you clone to your new drive in the enclosure and test boot it from the enclosure as well. If it boots from the external, then just swap the drives out.
One other thing - when you initialize the new drive with Disk Utility, you will want to click on the drive name (and not the indented volume) and under the Partition tab, click on Options and choose GUID partition table, then initialize. If you don't do this, you will not be able to boot from the new drive on an Intel-based Mac.
I am running Carbon Copy Cloner right now. I will try to figure out what you mean't to do with Disk Utility though.
Will Carbon Copy Cloner also get all my music, word documents and all that jazz?
+1 to SuperDuper. Used it when I upgraded my old MacBook's hard drive and once it was done, I popped the drive into the laptop and it booted right up with everything there
Be absolutely certain that you do a test boot from the new drive in its external enclosure. If you don't get the partition table correct, then you will have an unbootable drive.
Everything will be identical (except for the extra available space
).
Install the new drive into your computer and do a fresh install of your OS. Put your old drive into your enclosure and hook it up. Run Migration Assistant and just copy all your old data and settings to your new computer. I don't think you'll have a problem on the intel macbooks via USB enclosure as I think it was only via Firewire on the PPC macs.
This could be a major mistake. (1) If it doesn't boot, it is more difficult to isolate the problem. (2) With MA, some apps will require reentry of serial numbers. Cloning to the new drive in an external enclosure for test-boot is the most efficient way of doing this.
Yeah I know that but doing a fresh install is always good too. Why copy over corrupt or clustered system files when a fresh install will speed things up. I don't see how doing a fresh install will cause it not to boot. When cloning you can run into problems of the drive not booting so that is why you make sure when you clone it to be sure it's bootable.
I used to use Superduper and that was a great utility. I've never used Carbon Copy Cloner but heard that is a good utility too.
I used to use Superduper and that was a great utility. I've never used Carbon Copy Cloner but heard that is a good utility too.
The one time I did (APM as a test) I was greeted by the flashing question mark. No way will it boot after that.
I would use either Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! as suggested by others. They both do the same thing at the end of the day. I've used both, but decided to stick to SuperDuper! because it seems to be less CPU-intensive between the two.
That being said, a fresh install has it's benefits too, that is if you have time to reinstall everything.
If I were you, and finance was not a problem, I would get another external drive of at least 320 GB (not necessarily a notebook drive). After I got the internal 320 GB working, I would clone the it from time to time. I would then have a bootable external drive should something happen to the internal drive. You can never have enough backup copies.
That being said, a fresh install has it's benefits too, that is if you have time to reinstall everything.
If I were you, and finance was not a problem, I would get another external drive of at least 320 GB (not necessarily a notebook drive). After I got the internal 320 GB working, I would clone the it from time to time. I would then have a bootable external drive should something happen to the internal drive. You can never have enough backup copies.