How to install OSX on new hard drive.

[kiario]

I recently bought a hybrid seagate HDD/SSD for my Macbook Pro. I have read that I will need to put a fresh copy of OSX on there and then use migration assistant to transfer my files. As I already have OSX Mountain Lion 10.8 on my current harddrive, how would I transfer the OSX to the new drive? My Macbook Pro originally came with 10.6 Snow Leopard. My new drive is in an enclosure, ready to transfer.

I have been using this information to guide me through the steps:http://eshop.macsales.com/articles/how-to-transfer-your-data-from-your-old-drive-to-a-new-drive

But I am concerned as to how I will go about this, as to whether I will need to instal Snow Leopard before hand or instal Mountain Lion externally before it even goes in my Mac.

 

[throAU]

What year MBP? Has itr been updated for internet recovery?

Last time I did it on my 2011, I installed ML via Wifi recovery onto the new drive and then restored data from my time machine backup when prompted.


The time before, on my mini, I installed SL to the drive via CD and then again used TM backup to restore data and apps to the newly installed drive.



If you have no TM backup you could put your old drive in the external enclosure and fish through it to copy files back when the new OS is installed.


Both times i removed the old drive and installed the new drive before installing the OS to it. I do it this way because I'm an ex-PC guy and it ensures that the boot sector, etc gets written properly by the OS X installer. You can maybe do it by installing to the external drive first, but I figure I'll need to swap them anyway so I just do it first and just run teh installer....

 

[Weaselboy]

I recently bought a hybrid seagate HDD/SSD for my Macbook Pro. I have read that I will need to put a fresh copy of OSX on there and then use migration assistant to transfer my files. As I already have OSX Mountain Lion 10.8 on my current harddrive, how would I transfer the OSX to the new drive? My Macbook Pro originally came with 10.6 Snow Leopard. My new drive is in an enclosure, ready to transfer.

I have been using this information to guide me through the steps:http://eshop.macsales.com/articles/how-to-transfer-your-data-from-your-old-drive-to-a-new-drive

But I am concerned as to how I will go about this, as to whether I will need to instal Snow Leopard before hand or instal Mountain Lion externally before it even goes in my Mac.

After you install the new drive, just attach the old drive in the enclosure and option key boot to that drive. The the free, 30 day trial of the app Carbon Copy Cloner to move everything on the drive from the old to the new.

Once that is done, quit and unplug the external and start from the new drive. Then go to System Prefs and set the new drive as the startup disk. Done.