How to clone HD?

[AJ Muni]

Well this is my problem. I successfully installed a bigger HD into my MBP, and then went ahead and installed leopard. After it finished installing, I chose to "Transer my data from a Time Machine back-up" (I had wisely backed up right before installing the HD)..and it went thru the transfer fine. When leopard started up, it had all the default icons on the dock, default system settings, and then another home folder with all my old stuff. What I wanted is to have the same exact set-up I had backed up (Apps, system settings, icons, 10.5.1, etc etc.) I then moved onto plan b. I took out my gf's HD (from her MacBook) removed the enclosure and stuck my old 80gb drive on there. I booted up her mac, and voila I had my "old mac" back. I then went onto my MBP and did a complete erase, and reinstalled leopard. This time instead of using the "Transer my data from a Time Machine back-up" method, I chose "Transfer my data from another mac" option. I have done this numerous times before when I've bought newer macs, and always the end result is "my newer mac" looking exactly like my "old mac" (settings, and apps wise). When this processed finished, (it took about 1 hour and 30 min) it gave me an error message at the end, and it had transferred NOTHING. My third plan was to use a super duper back-up, but to my luck it isn't compatible with leopard yet. So after doing some googling, I keep coming on this "clone hd" thing when people install new HD's. I kind of looked into Carbon Copy Cloner, but I've never used it before and I'm wondering if that can help me somehow. Can anyone suggest a possible solution for me? The end result I would want is my same old exact settings, apps, docs, all my songs in itunes, etc etc. on my new 250 gb HD. Thanks ya'll

Edit: And btw, I have a 250gb external HD I can use to "clone" or whatever you call it my old 80gb onto.

 

[heatmiser]

Carbon Copy Cloner.

 

[yellow]

I prefer SuperDuper!, which I now see you looked at.

 

[JNB]

CCC is (apparently) the only viable cloning solution until SuperDuper! is Leopard-ready. I haven't yet seen a clear statement of CCC's 10.5 readiness, though.

SD works in 10.5, but shouldn't yet be relied on until Shirt Pocket releases a proven version.

 

[Eidorian]

Bombich's Carbon Copy Cloner

 

[AJ Muni]

Thanks all for the CCC recommendation. Tell me if I'm doing this right...I'll plug in my gf's macbook (which has my old HD in it) into my external, and run CCC from her macbook. Once CCC has cloned my old 80gb HD onto my external, I then plug my external into my MBP. But how do i transfer it from my external onto my mbp? Or just run CCC from the macbook, and have the destination be my mbp? I'm quite confused. Thanks, and sorry for the dumb questions...

Edit: Also I'm at work on a pc, so I cant download CCC and play around with it. I'm going to be picking up the 2 notebooks and external (if I need it) at lunch..

 

[emoeric]

Aj,

I know it is very late for this post, but if you are somehow still lost, I have a solution for you. I too was upgrading my drive that was running Tiger. After the upgrade and surgery, I attempted to install Leopard on the new internal drive, but error messages occur.

If you want to know how I did it, I kept the old HD in an external enclosure. I put my OSX leopard CD and choose utilities at the top. I choose start up disc to be my external with tiger on it. I downloaded CCC and Superduper.

Super is excellent choice if you are upgrading space in Tiger and keeping it in Tiger. I attempted to run SuperDuper in Leopard and it does not erase anything.

Now that you are booted in from an external drive, install leopard on the external drive (delete things that you can live without, first burn them). You need 7.2 of free space in tiger for Leopard to let you install (even though it says only 5.8gb needed). Once it is installed on external, boot in from the external again. Run CCC. Copy external drive to internal drive. Add files that you burned onto CD back on computer. Finished.

Hope this helps alittle bit.