How to copy over a hard drive to a new machine

[rodeman]

I've just ordered a new iMac to replace an older MacBook Pro. My pro has all the applications on it that I use and I'd like to just duplicate that onto the new iMac.

Both are running the same version of Snow Leopard. Is there an easy way to copy these over? I remember an Apple store employee telling me you could image or copy one hard drive directly to the other so you don't have to reinstall everything.

Can anyone tell me how to do this? I'm not a mac expert so this is completely new to me.

Thanks,
John

 

[bristleworm]

You'll need something like an external HD or a flash drive with os x installed on it. Then you connect the old macbook to the imac using a firewire cable. fire up the macbook pro while pressing T on your keyboard (this enables "target mode". you will see you're in it when a firewire symbol appears on screen).
Then you connect the external HD or flash drive to your imac, boot up the imac pressing the option key. The iMac will show you all available boot volumes.
Select the hard drive and press enter. Once OS X is loaded, you can clone your old HD to your new HD using "Disk Utility".