Easiest or cheapest way to clone hard drive?

[filmbuff]

I just bought a 2006 black Macbook on ebay and first of all I have to say I am very impressed with this computer. I'm fixing it up so my Mom can use it for email and web browsing but after a day of using it I wanted to keep it!

Anyway, I bought it with OS10.7 installed on the original 120gb HDD and it came with no install disks, and the only OSX disk I actually have is 10.4 I want to replace with HDD with an Intel 320 SSD that I ordered on eBay. I'm wondering what the easiest way to clone the disk is, since I need to keep the operating system intact.

The tools I have at my disposal:
Black Macbook
My Macbook Air
External DVD drive
10.4 install DVD
USB3.0 external hard drive
a second USB3.0 external hard drive enclosure
the 2.5" SSD

Suggestions?

 

[revbarabbas]

I'm assuming the USB 3.0 enclosure is for a 2.5 drive, so you can just stick the SSD in there and use "Carbon Copy Cloner" to make a bootable clone from the HDD to the SSD, then just replace the HDD with the now cloned SSD inside the laptop. Since you have all the tools it will be free. (you might need to buy some screwdrivers)

 

[Weaselboy]

Install the SSD and out the existing HDD in the USB enclosure. Then option key boot to the recovery partition on the external. Now start Disk Utility from the Utilities menu and erase the new SSD to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Then use Disk Utility to clone the HDD to the SSD as shown in this video.

Then restart to the SSD and go to System Preferences and in the Startup Disk pane select the SSD as the boot drive. Done.