How to copy old hard drive to new one?

[lionsandwings]

I replaced my internal hard drive on my iMac and I am trying to restore the files from my old internal hard drive. I purchased an external hard drive enclosure and when I plug my old internal hard drive into my iMac via USB, I can access all of the files.

I want to have access to the files from the old drive without leaving it plugged into the iMac (I want to use the old HD as an external back up for another computer (PC).

I did a clean instal of Snow Leopard on the new internal hard drive and did not have time machine back ups (I do now).

I have another external hard drive used as back up with Time Machine in my iMac

I downloaded SuerDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner but neither will allow me to copy the old hard drive to my new internal hard drive. I was reading in the SuperDuper! instructions about "Sparse" image, but not sure if that is the best way to go.

I also thought of just copying the old internal HD to my existing external HD, but there is not enough available space.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

 

[Hellhammer]

Hold down alt while booting and select your old HD as start up volume and press enter. Then open CCC and clone the old HD to the new one (you may have to erase the new one first with Disk Utility)

 

[lionsandwings]

Not sure if that will work. It has bee about a month since changing out my hard drive and I don't want to start over again.

 

[Hellhammer]

Not sure if that will work. It has bee about a month since changing out my hard drive and I don't want to start over again.

Well, what you want to transfer then? You could just copy the files you need from the old HD to the new one.

 

[spinnerlys]

Does the following help?

Mac OS X 10.5, 10.6: How to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from another Mac

The Migration Assistant can read from a bootable copy of your old internal HDD and will think it's a Mac started in Target Disk Mode.