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tuckyfan240

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 4, 2008
12
0
I have a a Santa Rosa MBP with a 160GB hard drive and I am going to update the hard drive to a 320GB at 7200rpm. From what I have heard, the actual installation of the new drive is not hard, but how do I transfer everything that is on the current 160gb hard drive to the new 320gb hard drive. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
 
Get an external hard drive enclosure (FW or USB) and put the new 320 GB drive in in. Now get some backup software that can make a bootable backup. Use that software to clone the 160 GB drive to the new 320 GB drive. Now remove the 160 GB drive from the laptop and install the new 320 GB drive.

I make bootable backups all the time and have booted from my external drive as a test... but I have never tried the swap as outlined above.
 
Get an external hard drive enclosure (FW or USB) and put the new 320 GB drive in in. Now get some backup software that can make a bootable backup. Use that software to clone the 160 GB drive to the new 320 GB drive. Now remove the 160 GB drive from the laptop and install the new 320 GB drive.

I make bootable backups all the time and have booted from my external drive as a test... but I have never tried the swap as outlined above.

What kind of software would I need to do this and how much would an enclosure like that run me? You said you have not done it that way before. is there an easier way to do it?
 
Put the new drive in an enclosure (USB2 or FW) or get a Universal Drive Adapter and initialize it with Disk Utility as HFS+ Journaled and GUID partition map. Then use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your old drive to the new one (a few hours). Next, reboot holding the Option key down, then select the new drive (which is still external) and make sure it boots. If it does, then the cloning worked perfectly. Last step is to swap out the drives.
 
Having done this before, I recommend using software like SuperDuper! to clone your information to the other drive:

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

I've done this before on a Macbook Pro and it was flawless. The developer also offers excellent tech support.

I can second that.
smile.gif
I never had to use support with it also. Well worth money for the complete version in my opinion.
 
I can second that.
smile.gif
I never had to use support with it also. Well worth money for the complete version in my opinion.

Ok. I looked that one up and it was $28, but you think its worth the cost? Are there any free programs that would do the same thing?
 
try Carbon Copy Cloner... it'll do the same as SuperDuper... it worked for me when I upgraded my MBP's hard drive.

I found a cheap enclosure for $5 on Amazon and it worked perfectly (although I already had an external with Time Machine, so I dont use the cheapo enclosure that often). A good inexpensive enclosure will run $25-30

http://www.bombich.com/ccc for carbon copy cloner download
 
try Carbon Copy Cloner... it'll do the same as SuperDuper... it worked for me when I upgraded my MBP's hard drive.

I found a cheap enclosure for $5 on Amazon and it worked perfectly (although I already had an external with Time Machine, so I dont use the cheapo enclosure that often). A good inexpensive enclosure will run $25-30

http://www.bombich.com/ccc for carbon copy cloner download

I will look that up. Thanks! I don't plan on using the enclosure for anything else afterwards so I will probably just opt for the cheapest option that gets the job done.
 
http://www.amazon.com/2-5-SATA-HDD-...7?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1233123066&sr=1-7

this is the enclosure I had bought when I did my upgrade. it doesnt even have a brand name, and the instructions have poor grammar. however, it fit my old drive perfectly and I have transferred 60 GB at a time back and forth five times now with nary a hiccup. best $4 I have ever spent:D

it comes with 2 USB plugs, but only the main one is needed as the USB port on the MBP (at least the right side of the non unibody) has enough power for it.
 
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Having done this before, I recommend using software like SuperDuper! to clone your information to the other drive:

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

I've done this before on a Macbook Pro and it was flawless. The developer also offers excellent tech support.

I don't doubt that this Application does what it says, but it costs $$ and Mac OS X already has the ability to clone drives. By using Disk Utility.

Image:
picture5ef2.png

In this image I have illustrated how its performed. You drag your current partition (With the installation of Mac OS X and all your Files on it) to the menu bar noted as 'Source' in the image. Then you connect your new drive to the computer (Via USB / Firewire / eSATA or whatever your using in this case) That unformatted drive will appear in the left pane below the other entries. You then drag that to the 'Destination' part (In my Image I have left this blank as I do not have a Drive at hand to illustrate it, but its quite simple).

Once you have done that you simply click on 'Restore' and go watch some TV or read a book because depending on your data it could take a few minutes to several hours. I've personally used this method of Cloning my drive several times without incident. In-fact when I upgraded my own drive from a 100GB 7,200RPM to a 320GB 7,200RPM I did exactly what I've shown above. No issues.
 
wow I completely didnt realize Disk Utility can do this. I'm gonna go delete CCC from my hard drive...
 
Well it looks like Disk Utility would be the easiest way to go. Looks like this is only going to cost me around $4 plus the hard drive. Thanks for the help!
 
If you have a spare disk, you can use Time Machine to make a backup of the old disk, then install the new disk, insert the CD, and chose something like restore from time machine backup from the menu.
 
1) Use an external hard drive and set up time machine.

2) Install the new drive and boot from your leopard disk.

3) Select "Migration from a Time Machine drive".

Voila.
 
If you have a spare disk, you can use Time Machine to make a backup of the old disk, then install the new disk, insert the CD, and chose something like restore from time machine backup from the menu.

Perfect :D
Thank you so much.
So you can back up with time machine then do a complete restore from that?

~Regards
Name101
 
Perfect :D
Thank you so much.
So you can back up with time machine then do a complete restore from that?

~Regards
Name101

yes- time machine does a complete restore... however spotlight will have to re-index the drive and Mail will have to rebuild its database... but no messages are lost
 
Does the new drive have to be formatted before you use the disk utility or carbon copy to clone the current drive?
 
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