Installing new HD and migrating the software.

[g^3]

I'm planning on upgrading my 2.2 SP Macbook Pro from a 120gb drive to a 320 drive to have enough space to make a boot camp partition. Right now I'm using parallels for windows xp and it is simply not enough to run 3d modeling software and render.

I'm pretty comfortable with the physical replacement of the HD just not sure of the best way to move programs and data over to the new drive. I used CCC to copy all the old data to the new drive but how do I add a new partition? Do I need to first load the new OS to the drive, then partition it and then copy the data? Or can I partition the data after? Also, how much space should I partition and can I use parallels to access windows if I don't want to reboot?

One last thing...I'm also looking to upgrade the RAM, does anyone know the cheapest place to buy 4gb?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Cheers.

 

[bplein]

I used SuperDuper (but I think you can do the same with CCC). I've done this a few times, all successfully, on multiple Mac laptops.

• Attach new drive in a USB or FW case.
• Partition with GUID partition type, same size or larger (or whole drive)
• SuperDuper to clone the drive
• Boot from external drive to test
• If good, then you can take it out of the case and put it in your laptop.

You can also modify the partition size without deleting data after you've done above. Let's say that you messed up and you really wanted to new drive to have a 100GB second partition for whatever reason, but you made it a single large partition. You can use Disk Utility to shrink your partition, making room for a second. The system will move all data from the area being shrunk, without data loss. Just make sure you know what you are doing as you could delete data if you tried.

 

[g^3]

Thanks for your reply. In which part do I install bootcamp? Can I just stick the OSX cd in and install bootcamp to the new partition? and can how do I access the windows partition through parallels? I just want to make sure I'm doing this right before I take my computer apart.

 

[benmrii]

You said you're comfortable with it, but just to be sure you know, replacing the HDD will void your warranty on the entire computer. Something to weigh.

 

[g^3]

Yes, I'm well aware of that replacing the drive may void the warranty. Right now, without a larger capacity the computer will be useless if I run out of space. I'm and architecture student who uses lots of programs that create enormous files that take up a lot of space. I forgot to mention that I'm doing the semester abroad in the fall so working off of an external will be extremely inconvenient.

I'm still not sure about how and when to install bootcamp. Do I do a fresh install and partition the drive then and then use migration assistant to move my old data and programs over. Or is it fine to partition the drive, use CCC to make the OSX portion and then how do I get bootcamp on the other partition?

 

[bplein]

To install bootcamp, run the Boot Camp Assistant. It will walk you through creation of a bootcamp partition, creation of a driver CD, etc. Just follow the wizard.