New mini internal hard drive - best way to transfer old information?

[beatmonkeytwo]

This is the one I brought, and as far as I am aware it's USB 2.0

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/External-USB-...14&_trkparms=72:1683|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318

Will try what you said cave man

 

[Cave Man]

Uh oh. What's the size of your new hard drive?

 

[MorzillA]

I'll be fitting my new 09 mac mini internal hard drive hopefully tonight. I want to copy all the information (programs etc) onto my new hard drive before I install it. Whats the best way of going about this?

I already have an external caddy, so am I right in thinking I can put the new hard drive into that, connect it up to my mini, format it, install osx, and use migration assistant, or I vaguely remember something called 'cloner' or something similar to that name to copy all the data? That when all the info is copied I can take out the stock hard drive, remove the new drive from the external caddy and place it into the mac mini? Then it should boot up fine?

Sorry if this has been posted before, I've had a quick search and could not find what I was looking for. If someone could direct me to somewhere I can read about it then that would be great

about how many gigs is your new HD? and is it working now with out any problems?

Carbon Copy Cloner. Its donationware.

Sounds like something I should have "for a rainy day" Thanks!!!

 

[beatmonkeytwo]

Uh oh. What's the size of your new hard drive?

320GB... and I've just thought you saying that, the enclosure I brought says for up to 120GB.

But the external caddy with the new 320GB drive in it shows up on my desktop with a complete clone of what was on my 120GB Hard drive, so has CCC worked, but it just wont boot from a selectable drive, or has it not worked properly?

 

[beatmonkeytwo]

I'm stuck

I just tried holding the option key after restart with a osx install disk in the drive to see if that showed up as a bootable option, but just stays on the grey screen and had to restart. Any ideas?

 

[PrinceOfEgypt]

I'm stuck

I just tried holding the option key after restart with a osx install disk in the drive to see if that showed up as a bootable option, but just stays on the grey screen and had to restart. Any ideas?

can't you only boot from firewire drives anyways? I don't think you can actually boot off usb drives..

try putting the new drive into your mini.. worst case, you'll just have to go back to the old one

 

[beatmonkeytwo]

can't you only boot from firewire drives anyways? I don't think you can actually boot off usb drives..

try putting the new drive into your mini.. worst case, you'll just have to go back to the old one

Yeah I was tempted to do that, but don't want to open it all up and then put in the new drive, put it all back together and then it does not boot!

And I think usb one's are supported - the apple website:

You can press the Eject key on the keyboard to eject DVD media. Inserting a startup DVD will add that DVD to the list of startup volumes (as in the image above). You can also attach FireWire or USB external hard drives to add to the list of startup volumes.

 

[beatmonkeytwo]

PHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW! The bootable options came up this time, and typing this from the external caddy booted drive. I removed all my usb devices apart from mouse, keyboard and external caddy, then restarted, starting with a turn off at the mains. All I can think of is some usb device had a conflict with the option key???

All seems to be running okay. It's to late now to take it out of the caddy and put it in the mini, so i'll have to wait until tomorrow.

The caddy seems to of worked fine even though it states only up to 120GB can be used in it.

 

[bigbird]

Your next step is to open up the Mini and replace the stock drive with your new drive. When you put it all back together and start it up again, don't hold down any keys. It will boot from the new HD. Expect the first boot up process to take significantly longer than a normal boot. That is because the OS is scattered all over the new drive and it must all be "put together", as in spotlighted and indexed. When you do a file level clone, which you probably did with CCC, it isn't an exact duplicate of the original HD. The exact same content is there, but the exact same order is not. Be patient. It will boot. After that initial boot, it will boot up quicker than ever with the bigger faster new HD.

 

[Cave Man]

The caddy seems to of worked fine even though it states only up to 120GB can be used in it.

I would keep your original drive in a nice safe place for a couple of weeks to ensure nothing is amiss.

 

[beatmonkeytwo]

Be patient. It will boot. After that initial boot, it will boot up quicker than ever with the bigger faster new HD.

Thanks for that, least I won't be so concerned now if it takes ages to boot

Defo keeping the 120GB stock drive in the external caddy for a few weeks like you say cave man, before I format it for a drive that I think I'm going to put in my ps3

 

[Wotan31]

USB sucks. you should have bought a firewire drive caddy instead.

 

[Cave Man]

USB sucks. you should have bought a firewire drive caddy instead.

USB is perfectly fine for testing purposes. The issue is that there are so many controllers out there, some of which are better than others - and why I buy from the Usual Mac Sales Suspects (OWC, Macally, etc.).

 

[beatmonkeytwo]

USB sucks. you should have bought a firewire drive caddy instead.

To expensive, only needed a cheap caddy just to get the job done, as old drives going to go into my ps3.

Well I've installed the new 320GB and so far everything seems fine. Just trying out applications, movies, burning etc. Is there anything else I can try to make sure the drive is functioning as normal?

The new 7200rpm sounds as quiet as the stock 7200rpm did. The only difference I can see is the northbridge temp is slightly higher than the 5400rpm drive was.

Everything seems more snappy. + I have the big HD I need.

 

[beatmonkeytwo]

I'm sure the 7200rpm boots around the same time as the 5400rpm did. I think I remember reading something one day about resetting the PMU, as the computer still thinks the old hard drive is in it. Or am I talking rubbish?