copy data from macbook to macbook?

[Tartarus]

Hello, i am going to buy a white unibody macbook to replace the white macbook i currently have, in my current computer i have a 160gb hard drive, in the unibody im getting i am going to it has a 250gb hard drive, is there a way to copy all of my data over to the new one, and revert my old one to lion, not mountain lion that it is currently running. i purchased the white macbook (not the unibody) with lion on it, and i then installed mountain lion, is there a way to put plain ol lion on it?

or should i just swap hard drives?

 

[r0k]

Hello, i am going to buy a white unibody macbook to replace the white macbook i currently have, in my current computer i have a 160gb hard drive, in the unibody im getting i am going to it has a 250gb hard drive, is there a way to copy all of my data over to the new one, and revert my old one to lion, not mountain lion that it is currently running. i purchased the white macbook (not the unibody) with lion on it, and i then installed mountain lion, is there a way to put plain ol lion on it?

or should i just swap hard drives?

I believe it's difficult to "migrate" from a newer OSX to an older OSX. One alternative is to get a FW400 to FW400 cable (or is the unibody FW800?). You can then start the old Mac in target disk mode by holding T while it boots. You can then migrate from the old Mac to the new Mac using Migration Assistant.

Again, I must caution you migrating from a Mountain Lion user to a Lion user might lead to some unexpected results. For instance, if your iPhoto Library has already been "upgraded", you might not be able to migrate it to Lion on the new machine.

Why are you interested in rolling back to Lion? Are there some issues with Mountain Lion for you? As for swapping drives, I would use this as an opportunity to start afresh. Migration Assistant isn't quite afresh, but even if you are going from Mountain Lion to Mountain Lion, Migration Assistant is the next best thing to formatting, installing from scratch and copying all your stuff over. It's a lot easier, can be run unattended and provides 80 to 90 percent of the benefit of a fresh install.

 

[Tartarus]

I believe it's difficult to "migrate" from a newer OSX to an older OSX. One alternative is to get a FW400 to FW400 cable (or is the unibody FW800?). You can then start the old Mac in target disk mode by holding T while it boots. You can then migrate from the old Mac to the new Mac using Migration Assistant.

Again, I must caution you migrating from a Mountain Lion user to a Lion user might lead to some unexpected results. For instance, if your iPhoto Library has already been "upgraded", you might not be able to migrate it to Lion on the new machine.

Why are you interested in rolling back to Lion? Are there some issues with Mountain Lion for you? As for swapping drives, I would use this as an opportunity to start afresh. Migration Assistant isn't quite afresh, but even if you are going from Mountain Lion to Mountain Lion, Migration Assistant is the next best thing to formatting, installing from scratch and copying all your stuff over. It's a lot easier, can be run unattended and provides 80 to 90 percent of the benefit of a fresh install.

no, i want to put lion back on the old macbook before i sell it (because my brother and i shared the same download of mtn lion. so the lion pc will be factory stock, and the unibody will then get mountain lion and all my stuff

 

[TheZA]

So I'm taking it you are buying the unibody with Lion or less, and not Mountain Lion? At the start, assuming the unibody has Lion or < and older Macbook has ML, you won't be able to use Migration Assistant to move over the ML operating system to the unibody. However, you could clone your Macbook to an external hard drive (in it's own partition) using Carbon Copy Cloner or Superduper. Then boot from it on the unibody, erase the internal hard drive on the uni, then clone it back on to the uni's hard drive (or separate partition). If you have the Mountain install disk for the Macbook, you could then reinstall Mountain on the Macbook (sans data).

 

[chibiterasu]

I believe it's difficult to "migrate" from a newer OSX to an older OSX. One alternative is to get a FW400 to FW400 cable (or is the unibody FW800?).

There is no firewire on unibody white macbooks.

I would get an external 2.5 inch sata enclosure and use carbon copy cloner as suggested. when thats done if you have lion or higher on the old macbook use the recovery partition (hold down option at boot) and restore the old macbook back to factory settings.

 

[r0k]

There is no firewire on unibody white macbooks.

I would get an external 2.5 inch sata enclosure and use carbon copy cloner as suggested. when thats done if you have lion or higher on the old macbook use the recovery partition (hold down option at boot) and restore the old macbook back to factory settings.

I had to go pull up mactracker and I am stunned... A Mac without FW. Wow. Oh well, I guess he can use gigabit ethernet or USB to migrate or as he says a SATA to USB cable or enclosure. I believe the unibody is not one of the models voted off the island by Mountain Lion. The newest Macbook voted off the island by ML was my late 2008 White non-unibody Macbook. If I'd gone for Aluminum, I wouldn't have been voted off the island either. Oh well.

 

[chibiterasu]

I had to go pull up mactracker and I am stunned... A Mac without FW. Wow. Oh well, I guess he can use gigabit ethernet or USB to migrate or as he says a SATA to USB cable or enclosure. I believe the unibody is not one of the models voted off the island by Mountain Lion. The newest Macbook voted off the island by ML was my late 2008 White non-unibody Macbook. If I'd gone for Aluminum, I wouldn't have been voted off the island either. Oh well.

Yer I used to own a 2010 white one until apple replaced it with a 2012 mbp anyway thats a long story. I think apple tried to differentiate the MacBook with the mbp because in 2010 internally they were the same (ok pro had more ram and a slightly bigger HDD) but there was little difference apart from a aluminium case, sd slot, firewire, inferred, and a backlit keyboard. As you say the white unibody ones are still on the island of Mountain Lion (more like the edge lol)

 

[GenesisJLS]

Just clone the hard drive in disc utility application to an external hard drive. You could also just use time machine.