Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Bought a 500GB HD for $70, Now What? (How To Transfer Stuff?)

HappyDude20

HappyDude20

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jul 13, 2008
3,688
1,479
Los Angeles, Ca
My White Macbook has always had the same 60GB hard drive that it originally came with...

...I'm tired of having to roam with under 10GB's so I bit the bullet and bought a 500 GB Western Digital Hard Drive on eBay using Live.com's 30% discount and combining it with eBay's 10% holiday discount.

So, the new hard drive arrived today and i'm not too sure as to how I'm going to transfer all of the information on my 60GB HD to the new 500GB HD.

Any insight on the matter and/or tools needed would be great. Thanks!

(I know swapping the old drive out of the macbook and popping in the new one won't be too tough since I knew it rests just after the battery...i'm solely befuddled as to how i'll get the stuff from the old drive to the new one.)
 
If you have another Mac or an external HD, use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to clone your drive, swap the drives over and clone it back.
 
Sky Blue said:
If you have another Mac or an external HD, use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to clone your drive, swap the drives over and clone it back.
Click to expand...

Alternatively one could make a Time Machine backup if they have an external harddrive and restore from that backup onto the new 500GB drive.

Either way you'll need an external drive or an enclosure for 2.5" SATA drives.

I would just use Time Machine.
 
I'd suggest an external hard drive caddy (preferably with firewire) and SuperDuper! Seat the 500GB into the caddy, connect it to the MB, and use SuperDuper! to clone the internal HDD. Pop them both out, switch, and reboot.

Also, http://support.apple.com/manuals#macbook

There should be a manual on replacing the hard drive in the specific model MB you own.
 
Hmmm' I have the only computer here at home.

I life near a FRY's electronic store and an Apple Store isn't too far away, perhaps they could do it for me for free? I do have AppleCare.

THOUGH!

I'd really rather do it myself.

The General: What do you mean by an enclosure? I've heard OF this before but haven't a clue as to what it is. I'm guessing this can help me accomplish what I want?

skorpien: A caddy? Is this the same thing as an enclosure? These things sound like more cash needs to be spent. Also, i gotta reboot? I don't think i've ever rebooted...so i'm a bit confused.

Also, when I do trasnfer the stuff from my 60GB to the new 500GB, will EVERYTHING be transferred just the way it is?
 
Go to Fry's, get one of these. Put you new drive in it, and it connects to your MB via USB.

Now use an app like Carbon Copy Cloner to clone everything over. Shut down, swap the drives and restart.

What you do with the enclosure after is up to you.
 
As others have mentioned, what you need is a 2.5" SATA hard disk enclosure/caddy that connects via USB and you need to install the hard drive yourself. I bought this one from a local store.

Also, forgive me for asking such a question, but the hard drive you purchased IS a 2.5" SATA HDD correct? You didn't specify, so if you bought a 3.5" HDD, it's not going to fit.

Edit: By reboot I meant to restart your system.
 
2.5 sata for my macbook.

i just downloaded carbon copy/cloner and superduper. gonna read up on which one to use and then go for it. i bought a 2.5 sata enclosure, 480mps for $12 with a $10 mail in rebate so not bad. i'll be doing all this today in the coming hours so i'll post if i have any questions or concerns.
 
That's a pretty good deal. Piece of advice, pick up a Torx-6 screwdriver to transfer the mounting screws on the internal HDD. I used SuperDuper! personally and it was very straight forward. I can't say anything about Carbon Copy since I haven't used it, but if it's anything like SuperDuper! it should be fairly easy. Also, I kept my old HDD in the enclosure to make an external HDD that I can use for media. Good luck with the setup!
 
Don't forget to format your new drive with Disk Utility - Mac OS Extended (Journaled) before cloning.
 
I;m having trouble,

thought id ask u guys .

http://www.kingwin.com/product_pages/kh200ubk.asp < Link of the enclosure i got. Closest I could find on their site but the connection to connect the HD is the same with the long rectangular thing with all those small squares.

KH200U-BK_D.jpg
 
dammit, dammit, dammit. guess i''ll head to Fry's later tonight to make the switch but since I now have a few hours to ask:

Anything in particular I gotta do with SuperDuper or is it pretty straight forward? As in, will it copy everything on my current HD onto the new one and all I have to do is pop in the new one into the mac, reboot and do the disk utility thing? Or is there some work required?
 
You need to do the Disk Utility thing before you even attempt to clone your drive. Once your new drive is seated in the enclosure, connect it to your computer and use Disk Utility to format it, making sure that it's Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Once it formats it, then you use SuperDuper or Carbon Copy and tell it to back up your internal drive to the external drive. Once that is done (be patient, this will take a while), you do the swap and just turn your computer on. It will have copied everything you need to be up and running immediately after the swap.
 
skorpien said:
You need to do the Disk Utility thing before you even attempt to clone your drive. Once your new drive is seated in the enclosure, connect it to your computer and use Disk Utility to format it, making sure that it's Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Once it formats it, then you use SuperDuper or Carbon Copy and tell it to back up your internal drive to the external drive. Once that is done (be patient, this will take a while), you do the swap and just turn your computer on. It will have copied everything you need to be up and running immediately after the swap.
Click to expand...

thanks a lot skorpien, so i just got back from frys and picked up this one instead.

http://shop4.frys.com/product/5681241?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

About to start the process you described but just to be clear in layman's terms since i dont wanna f*ck anything up:

1. First and foremost open up disk utility to do _________ to my current 60GB HD? Format it? Verify it?

2. Pop in the new 500GB into the enclosure i just bought from fry's and connect it to my macbook via the usb connection and using disk utility format this new HD, making sure it's Mac OS X Enabled (Journaled) as you say.

3. After it's done formatting I use SuperDuper and back up everything on the 60GB HD to the new 500GB HD. (I can imagine this will take time as you mentioned, kinda curious though as to how long, an hour? 6 hours? 22 years?:eek:)

4. after this is done, take out the battery and take out the old 60GB HD and push in the new one and simply turn on the computer. . . . . . .And i'm good to go & done?

5. Anything else? Restart? Restore? Anything w/ disk utility or well, anything?
 
1. You don't need to do your Step 1.
2 - 4. (proceed as stated)
5. Just start up and should work.
 
im about to format the new 500gb HD but am freaking out thinking i may be doing something wrong here.

i've clicked on the 500gb Western Digital HD and clicked the Erase tab. On Volume format selected Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and named it too. For security options i've clicked Zero Out Data but after i click ok and then click erase, it says, "Erasing a disk will destroy all information on the disk...are you sure you want to erase the disk.."

Do i?

EDIT: NVM. Got it and i'm now using superDuper to transfer everything to the new one.
 
Cave Man said:
Did you initialize the drive with a GUID partition table? The default on an external with Disk Utility is APM. If it's APM, then it won't boot.
Click to expand...

dammit really?

how can i check within disk utility to see if i used GUID or APM? GUID sounds/looks familiar and i've never even heard of APM but honestly i dont know how it went. We're talking about when I formatted the new HD right?

What happens if I did indeed do it with APM? What would i need to do to correct it?
 
When i click on the original HD on Disk Utility, i'm talking about the new 500GB one within the Enclosure, "465.45GB WD 5000BEV...etc" on the bottom is states:

Partition Map Scheme: GUID Partition Table...

but under the one i created titled Macbook HD it just lists the HD's info like the amount of space, format, etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back