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Cloning to new Internal HD

M

Melodeath

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 9, 2009
580
48
Ok, I've finally filled up my 500GB internal drive on my Macbook Pro. I'm planning to buy a 750GB internal drive + enclosure DIY kit from OWC, but I need some advice.

I plan to clone my 500GB drive to the 750GB, so that I'm right where I "left off," but have 250 more GB of space.

1) OWC suggested I use the free Carbon Copy Cloner. Can I clone the current internal drive to the new 750GB drive under OSX while the computer is running? Or do I have to take the internal drive out and put it in an enclosure, hook both drives up to another computer, and clone? Or something else?

2) I have a Bootcamp partition on the internal drive. Will this be cloned as well?

Thanks a lot. This is my first MBP and I've never done any hardware upgrades to it.

I'm on OSX 10.6. Maybe this wasn't put in the right forum, but it's certainly OSX-related haha
 
1. No need to take the internal out, I use CCC to to clone the internal SSD to an internal/external HDD while I run Mac OS X.

2. No, you may have to reinstall Windows or can try Winclone.
 
simsaladimbamba said:
It does clone bit by bit. What makes you think otherwise?
Click to expand...
Just the fact that you said it can't clone the Windows portion made me think it wasn't bit by bit.

GGJstudios said:
Yes.

CCC can backup your Bootcamp partition, but it won't be a bootable clone. For details, read this.
Click to expand...

Thanks, although I'm still a bit confused. Do I need to partition my new drive, then run CCC for Mac OSX, then run WinClone to clone bootcamp? Or do I run CCC for Mac OSX, then run Bootcamp utility to partition my drive, then run WinClone?

Thanks to all
 
Thanks for the info guys. I bought the drive, and I just gave it 1 Partition (I assume I can create the second partition with the Bootcamp utility after the mac partition cloning). I also named it "*my name* 750GB" when I formatted it as HFS+. Will CCC rename it to "Macintosh HD" during the clone process, or do I need to rename it?

Thanks a lot
 
Melodeath said:
Thanks for the info guys. I bought the drive, and I just gave it 1 Partition (I assume I can create the second partition with the Bootcamp utility after the mac partition cloning). I also named it "*my name* 750GB" when I formatted it as HFS+. Will CCC rename it to "Macintosh HD" during the clone process, or do I need to rename it?

Thanks a lot
Click to expand...

No, and the name doesn't matter. All my HDDs and SSDs have different names, to distinguish them somehow, and CCC has no problem with cloning from"freckles" to "cancer".
 
Thanks. I was just wondering if it would rename the drive because I feel like "*My name* 750GB" is an awful (new) internal drive name :p

Edit: Will this drive having a new name affect Time Machine at all? Will Time Machine see it as a new drive and give it it's own backup? That would be a waste
 
Melodeath said:
Edit: Will this drive having a new name affect Time Machine at all? Will Time Machine see it as a new drive and give it it's own backup? That would be a waste
Click to expand...
I do not really know, but i think that TM uses the GUID-info to identify the disks/partitions. So you should see no problems (double backups) with renamed disks. On GUID-disks, a disk name is just metadata, like EXIF in a JPEG.
 
Thanks. But since this is a new disk (even though it will be the only internal HD), the GUID should be different than the first and start a whole new backup on Time Machine, or am I not understanding?
 
Hmm, so there is nothing I can do to have Time Machine "continue" where it left off once I switch the drive? It will be all the same data, just a different drive.

Time Machine will still keep the year of backups of the original drive, yes? Will it just show up as another (non-attached) drive under the Devices list? It will be a big waste of space if it starts a whole new backup, but my time machine drive is big enough and only used for time machine.
 
FWIW, since I upgraded to Lion and a WD My Book Live for my Time Machine backups, Time Machine has prompted me to restart a new backup every so often. I don't know what is triggering it.

B
 
balamw said:
FWIW, since I upgraded to Lion and a WD My Book Live for my Time Machine backups, Time Machine has prompted me to restart a new backup every so often. I don't know what is triggering it.

B
Click to expand...

That is odd. How do the multiple "new" backups look when you enter time machine? Are they listed as separate drives under Devices, or did it just erase the previous backups and start over?


Maybe if I do a restore from Time Machine instead of using CCC, Time Machine will not start a new backup?
 
It starts a new backup "to improve reliability".

With Versions I don't know how much history is preserved/recreated when it does this.

B
 

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That's a nice and vague message to pop up haha. Really weird it keeps making new backups.

Any opinions on using Time Machine to restore onto a new drive versus using Carbon Copy Cloner? All I'm really trying to do is have my computer be the exact same, except a bigger internal drive. I.e. all my files are in tact and have the same "modified dates," and Time Machine continues to backup like it has been, but isn't "starting over"
 
Ok, a sales person at OWC (where I bought the drive from), said Time Machine will resume as normal, and not start over when I exchange the drives. I guess I'll have to just give a shot.

They mentioned that TM uses the mac address of the computer to determine if it needs to do a new backup. And you can actually make some modifications to keep your TM backups and continue as normal if you are transferring your TM backup to a new drive, or if you bought a new mac.
 
Ok, so I did the drive replacement, and now Time Machine is trying to backup the whole drive because it sees it as a totally new drive. Do you think I should try renaming the drive to Macintosh HD like the original and seeing if Time Machine sees it as the same data as the original drive and doesn't backup all 400GB of redundant data?

Can I just rename the drive, or would that require reformatting, re-partitioning, and re-cloning?
 
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