I need to clone a drive/mac

[Sal Collaziano]

I had some problems with my 17" MacBook Pro and needed a replacement immediately. The Apple Store didn't have a 17" that met my requirements so I bought a 13" that I plan to give to my wife to replace her 13" non-pro.

So. I'm ordering a 17" over the Internet. When it arrives, I'd love to avoid ALL the configuration that I just went through to get this new 13" setup like my old 17". Is there any way to completely clone the drive in my 13" MBP completely and transfer the data to the new 17" MBP when it arrives?

 

[MacDawg]

Carbon Copy Cloner
Its free and works great

 

[Sal Collaziano]

Thank you. That looks interesting. Will it work with both hard drives INside MBPs? I mean. Can I install it on my 13" and then somehow push all the data onto the drive of the 17" without being on its desktop?

Carbon Copy Cloner
Its free and works great

 

[Hisdem]

I think you can connecting both computers with a FW cable, however, copy ONLY your data and not the system files as the drivers are different on the 13 incher, to avoid any later problems.

 

[davidlv]

Thank you. That looks interesting. Will it work with both hard drives, Internal, in both MBPs? I mean. Can I install it on my 13" and then somehow push all the data onto the drive of the 17" without being on its desktop?

CCC only works with mounted volumes, so you will need to use Target Disk Mode. Turn off the target computer, connect the two computers with a firewire cable, and turn on the target computer while holding down the "t" key. The connected Mac will boot in TDM and the HD of the target computer will show up on the source/host computer as a mounted firewire disk. Then you can run CCC and use it to clone whatever you want to the target disk.
If the drivers get messed up on the target computer, just insert the Mac OS X Install DVD and reinstall SL, overwriting the system files. Your data should remain intact. Then run the 10.6.4 Combo updater (download from Apple) and last, run Software Update from the SSystem Preference application (in the dock by default).
Check the options in CCC carefully and you should be OK.

 

[Sal Collaziano]

Now that sounds like a plan! Thank you!

 

[jlc1978]

I had some problems with my 17" MacBook Pro and needed a replacement immediately. The Apple Store didn't have a 17" that met my requirements so I bought a 13" that I plan to give to my wife to replace her 13" non-pro.

So. I'm ordering a 17" over the Internet. When it arrives, I'd love to avoid ALL the configuration that I just went through to get this new 13" setup like my old 17". Is there any way to completely clone the drive in my 13" MBP completely and transfer the data to the new 17" MBP when it arrives?

If your old 17" still boots, you can also do a firewire transfer directly from it; using migration assistant:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3322

Carbon Copy Cloner is a great product and it will do the job as well; migration assistant is just another option (that will also work with 2 Macs connected via ethernet so you could do it that way; even from the 13" if it lacks firewire).