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

Cloning old HDD to new HDD

S.B.G

S.B.G

Moderator emeritus
Original poster
Sep 8, 2010
26,921
11,007
Detroit
I am thinking of getting a new HDD for my MBP and am wondering if there is an easy way to clone the current HDD or just copy the OS and preferences from the old HDD to the new one.

I'm thinking right now, that I'll just copy my applications, preferences and documents over to a folder on my iMac and then transfer them back to the new HDD on the MBP.

Are there any better ways that what I am thinking?
 
Look into CarbonCopyCloner and SuperDuper for cloning advice.


MacBook, MacBook Pro: Replacing the Hard Disk Drive, transferring data to the new HDD
3. Transferring data from the old HDD to the new HDD​


  • Making a clone (1:1 copy)

    A "clone" is direct 1:1 copy of the contents of one HDD to another HDD and allows the target HDD to be bootable.
    • In order to clone your old HDD to the new HDD, you need to get an enclosure for your new HDD. If speed is not an issue, any USB 2.0 enclosure for S-ATA HDDs will do (examples of USB 2.0 enclosure).
    • If you move around a lot of data or need a faster interface, you can also go for enclosures with a Firewire 800 interface (examples of Firewire 800 enclosure).
    • There are also eSATA/USB docks for 3.5" and 2.5" S-ATA HDDs (example).

    After you put the new HDD into your MacBook or MacBook Pro and put the old HDD into the enclosure (you can do it the other way around too), you need to boot from your old HDD via holding down the OPTION/ALT key right after the Startup Sound chimes. After you successfully booted from the old HDD in the external enclosure you either get CarbonCopyCloner (CCC) (free) or SuperDuper (SD) (free, but buying it gives you additional options) and install them appropriately.


    • How to use CarbonCopyCloner
      CCC offers you to select a SOURCE DISK, in this case your old HDD, and a TARGET DISK, in this case your new HDD. After you made your selection, there is only the CLONE button to click and to enter your account password. There are more options of course, but they are meant for backing up instead of making 1:1 copies.​
    • How to use SuperDuper
      SD offers you to select the source disk (COPY ...) and a target disk (TO ...). It has additional options for backing up only system or user files and to create a disk image and some more, but for the cloning process the above will do and the free version will suffice.​

    [*]Using Time Machine and the Migration Assistant

    If you use Time Machine as means to back up, you can just replace the old HDD with the new one and re-install Mac OS X via the Restore or Upgrade or Retail DVD and select the connected Time Machine HDD via the Setup Assistant to import ll your data and even your entire Mac OS X (if you backed it up too).

    If you didn't use Time Machine and want to start with a fresh installation of Mac OS X, you can either use the Setup Assistant during the installation process to import some of your data (including applications) or you can use the Migration Assistant to import the data after the installation is finished.

    Further reading upon Time Machine and Setup and Migration Assistant:

    [*]Deleting the old HDD's content

    If you want to use the old HDD for storing other data than your OS or using it as Time Machine, manual deletion can be quite a hassle. Thus it is easier to delete the HDD's content via Disk Utility.
    Therefore start Applications / Utilities / Disk Utility, select your old volume on the left side (not the actual HDD, but the part below that, the volume, which is indented to the right), go to the ERASE tab and click the ERASE button. The following message only tells you, that you are about to erase all data on that volume.
    If you want to use the old HDD in the external enclosure for Mac OS X only, the standard settings will do, if you want to use it with Windows too, look at the guide GGJstudios provided on file systems.
    ​
Click to expand...
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Spinnerlys' post explains all but to sum things up, get an external enclosure > put the new drive in it > clone with CCC > put the new drive in the MBP > enjoy

If you have an external HD, you could make a TM backup to it and then restore from a TM backup when you have installed the new drive (saves you the cost of enclosure)
 
I do back up regularly with TM. So then, after I put in the new HDD and install OS/X I can connect my TM external HDD and do a restore?
 
spinnerlys said:
Yes, either vie Setup Assistant during the original installation or via Migration Assistant after you created your account and have logged into it.
Click to expand...

I would do it with the Setup Assistant because if you do it afterwards, you can get into issues with usernames (I have experience with this, I installed 10.6 three times because I used the same username and Home folder name as in my TM backup and it refused to do it or something).
 
Sweet! That sounds great.

Why is it so easy?! It was never this easy when I was a Windows guy!
:D
 
To restore from a TM backup.

Connect your Time Machine backup disk to your computer.
Insert your Mac OS X Install disk, and double-click the Install Mac OS X icon.
In the Installer, choose Utilities > Restore System from Backup.
In the Restore Your System dialog, click Continue.
Select your Time Machine backup volume.
Select the Time Machine backup you want to restore.

You could also get an enclosure and CarbonCopy to make an exact copy. After you clone the drive and swap, you could use the old hard drive as a spare external. That is what I did when I upgraded my MBP's hard drive.
 
Does anyone have a recommendation on which HDD to buy for my MBP? I want a 7200RPM and about 500GB of storage. I saw this recommendation on another thread yesterday that I am considering.
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
The easiest and most trouble free way is migration assistant. It will automatically run after the installation of OS X is done on your new HDD. Just take your old HD and put it in a usb enclosure and connect. It will take a lot of time though, for around 150GB it took 4 hours. It was copying to a new SSD though. So I assume with a new HD, it will be a bit longer.
 
SandboxGeneral said:
Does anyone have a recommendation on which HDD to buy for my MBP? I want a 7200RPM and about 500GB of storage. I saw this recommendation on another thread yesterday that I am considering.
Click to expand...

Seagate Momentus is good, plenty of MR members have it.
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
First of all I just want to say I love this website and the Forum is full of helpful and very very knowledgeable people who dedicate their time to help others by sharing their info.

I have personally used Cabon Copy Cloner (free by the way), Migration Assistant as well as a Time Machine back up.

All have their purpose and work quite well. The last thing I used was Migration Assistant (about an hour ago as a matter of fact) and I really liked it. I am about to sell my wives 13 and giving her a 15. I have already went through and set up the new computer and did the Migration Assistant after the fact.

It brought over everything from her 13, programs, settings, preferences. Once I did I went into accounts and deleted the one I made when I first set up the 15 ... a previous poster had said something about username / home folder name issues. This solved that problem.

Good luck and I hope I was somewhat helpful.
 
Hello,

I just bought my first MacBook Pro (20+ years with Windows) and am looking to upgrade my hard drive as well.

I do have my MacBook hard drive all set the way I want it with Snow Leopard and BootCamp/Windows 7. I would of course like to keep it all exactly in-tact post upgrade without having to reinstall either OS. I don't believe TimeMachine will cover the Windows 7 partition though.

Is there a program out there that will allow me to make an image of the entire drive (both OS partitions and whatever boot record info) to a USB drive and then simply restore it to the new drive in the MacBook? Thanks!
 
spinnerlys said:
@ dmk1974

No, Use CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper for Mac OS X and you can use, though discontinued, WinClone to make an image of your Windows partition, which you can later restore to your newly partitioned HDD.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the quick reply! Bummer there's no single image solution. I'll check out SuperDuper.

On my Windows machines, I've used Acronis TrueImage Home for a few years with perfect success every time. I'd imagine I could use that for the Boot Camp/Windows 7 partition, correct?
 
dmk1974 said:
Thanks for the quick reply! Bummer there's no single image solution. I'll check out SuperDuper.

On my Windows machines, I've used Acronis TrueImage Home for a few years with perfect success every time. I'd imagine I could use that for the Boot Camp/Windows 7 partition, correct?
Click to expand...

As far as I know, the only thing that can clone a Bootcamp partition is WinClone.
 
I love Macintosh!

Well I am typing this on my MBP after upgrading the RAM yesterday to 4GB (3GB utilized) and today upgrading to the Seagate Momentus 500GB 7200RPM HDD. Everything went perfectly smoothly from start to finish and had no glitches at all. I installed OS/X Snow Leopard and then restored from a Time Machine backup which I made sure to run right before I started "surgery." All that is left is to run Software Update and get all the latest patches again. Snow Leopard even recognized my Logitech Performance MX mouse from the disc right from initial boot up after installing the fresh unformatted HDD - that was very nice.

I love it when technology works like it was meant to. I've done countless Windows upgrades and installs where things didn't go so well and frustration occassionally translated to physical aggression on the hardware! :eek:

I do know Mac's aren't perfect, but so far in my experience, they're much closer to perfect than their Windows counterparts.

Thank you :apple: for great software and hardware and thank you to Hellhammer for the advice on upgrading.
 
Does anyone have a recommendation for an enclosure for my old 120GB HDD? If they make one, I'd prefer a firewire enclosure.
 
I wouldn't pay the price for FW800 enclosure as you only have 120GB 5400rpm drive so I doubt it would be able to take full advantage of FW800. This is decent and cheapish. FW800 enclosure is easily over 50 bucks
 
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