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Mac Mini 2011: New primary hard disk

E

Eamorr

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Greetings,

I've just bought an SSD and Mac Mini cable and was wondering how do I transfer Lion from the spinning disk on to the SSD?

Should I go out and buy the Lion memory key? Or can I simply clone my existing drive?

Many thanks in advance,
 
Surely there's a free way of doing it?

Can I clone a drive if I first put the SSD in an external HD?
 
Superduper is free for just cloning, you only pay if you want this:
"Buy now to unlock scheduling, Smart Update (which saves a lot of time), Sandboxes, scripting and more!"

It sais this at the bottom of that page:
"Get cloned.
Give SuperDuper a workout on your own system. Clone to your heart's content — for free. See what else is possible. When you're convinced that SuperDuper is a terrific solution — and a great value at $27.95 — you can register right from the application and start using its advanced features immediately!"
 
Eamorr said:
Surely there's a free way of doing it?
Can I clone a drive if I first put the SSD in an external HD?
Click to expand...
1. Carbon Copy Cloner http://www.bombich.com/
2. Yes, but many people have had better results with a clean install.

And remember cloning will not bring the Recovery partition to the new SSD, so if you want that, a clean install is better, followed by a session with Migration Transfer.
 
Eamorr said:
Greetings,

I've just bought an SSD and Mac Mini cable and was wondering how do I transfer Lion from the spinning disk on to the SSD?

Should I go out and buy the Lion memory key? Or can I simply clone my existing drive?

Many thanks in advance,
Click to expand...

don't buy the usb key it will not load on a mini. just clone the oem drive onto a few other drives including the ssd.
 
davidlv said:
And remember cloning will not bring the Recovery partition to the new SSD, so if you want that, a clean install is better, followed by a session with Migration Transfer.
Click to expand...
What I would do is download the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant (http://support.apple.com/kb/dl1433). Run that and make a recovery USB key. Then you don't need a recovery partition on your Mac (you can always use Internet Recovery even if you don't do this).

If you like create an image of the USB recovery key so you can use the Recovery key for other stuff. If you ever need to use the recovery key you can use another Mac to restore the image back onto the USB key.

The recovery partition/recovery USB key you can make will download Lion from the internet if you want to re-install Lion, so it probably doesn't save much time versus using Internet Recovery.

Edit: Just to be clear, for the recovery USB key to work on the 2011 Mini it must be created using that. Once you've created an image of the entire recovery USB key (so image should be equal to the capacity of your USB key), that image can then be restored to a USB key from any Mac.
 
Last edited:
"I've just bought an SSD and Mac Mini cable and was wondering how do I transfer Lion from the spinning disk on to the SSD?
Should I go out and buy the Lion memory key? Or can I simply clone my existing drive?"

1. Install SSD or connect it in some manner
2. Initialize the SSD using Disk Utility
3. Use CarbonCopyCloner to "dupe" contents of spinning drive to SSD
4. IMPORTANT: Do a "test boot" to assure that SSD now boots, and that things are where you want them to be.

Done.
 
Is there a special version of Lion that only works on the new Mac Minis?

philipma1957 said:
don't buy the usb key it will not load on a mini. just clone the oem drive onto a few other drives including the ssd.
Click to expand...

I did buy the key because I wanted to have it in case of emergency, and you're right. It doesn't work. I also tried the internal Recovery drive and I keep getting an error message saying it's incompatible.

Is there a special version of Lion that only works on the new Mac Minis?

Any help appreciated!!!!!!
 
josephebacon said:
I did buy the key because I wanted to have it in case of emergency, and you're right. It doesn't work. I also tried the internal Recovery drive and I keep getting an error message saying it's incompatible.


Any help appreciated!!!!!!
Click to expand...

Is there a special version of Lion that only works on the new Mac Minis?

yes and the usb key from apple is useless with 2011 mini's.

call them and ask also ask for a refund for that purchase. let them know that they should clearly state the key does not work for 2011 mac mini's

let us know what they tell you.
 
You can generate a recovery partition USB key using a 2011 Mac Mini and that will work on the 2011 Mini (see my post above).

If you want a full install disk, that is still possible but you will need to use Internet Recovery on the 2011 Mini to get it (take a look at https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/13166449/). For the Target Disk Mode step you should be able to use a Thunderbolt cable if you prefer if you have another Mac with Thunderbolt).

You can use the special InstallESD.dmg using Disk Utility as detailed elsewhere to create a full install disk.

If you don't have another Mac with either a firewire or Thunderbolt port you could of course pull out the disk and put in an external enclosure and put another disk in the Mac Mini etc. but that would be a lot of work.
 
Why did Apple not just make it simple and include a physical USB recovery key with the new Minis? You have to jump thru way too many hoops to format a recovery drive.
 
I agree they should have included a full install disk on a USB key but I understand that they'd want users doing a clean install to download the latest version of Lion and install that.
 
I honestly don't get what you are all winging about.
I bought a new 2011 Mini and a new HDD.
Before I even turned on the new mini I had ripped out the old HDD, inserted the new blank HDD. Plugged it in, started with cmd+R held, it downloaded the recovery environment, allowed me to reformat the drive then install Lion.
Once it was finished and booted for the first time I recovered my old Mini's files and apps from the time machine backup. I'm now running my old mini data and apps on a new mini with little to no effort.
If you have the skills to change the HDD you should have no problems with the recovery process. It's not that hard!

Now go buy a Toshiba laptop, they don't come with recovery media at all and if you forget to make it yourself before the drive fails just try and get recovery media from them. Good luck with that!
 
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