Macbook Pro HD Help

[ptwarriors315]

So I got a laptop as a graduation present about a month ago. I am currently running bootcamp on my laptop and I use the Windows side more than I do the Mac side. It's mainly because I play games on the Windows side. Now, my hard drive is currently only 320 GB and I have 2 questions. How do I know what kind of hard drive I need to get? And secondly, if I'm running bootcamp, and I buy a new hard drive, can I somehow copy everything from this HD to my new HD? And will the HD space split between the Mac and Windows side? Or will it go straight to one side, and not the other? I honestly have no idea.

Here are my specs -
Exact Specs
-2.4GHz Intel Core i5 Processor; 3MB shared level 3 cache.
-4GB of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
-320GB 5400-RPM hard drive
-15.4 inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen display; 1440 by 900 pixels
-Intel HD Graphics
-NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics processor with 256MB of GDDR3 memory
-Built-in iSight video camera
-8x slot-loading SuperDrive
-Mini DisplayPort
-SD card slot, FireWire 800 port, two USB 2.0 ports
-Optical digital audio/analog audio input and output ports; built-in stereo speakers
-Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet
-Built-in AirPort Extreme wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
-Backlit keyboard and ambient light sensor.
-Preinstalled Mac OS X and iLife
-Size and weight: 14.35 by 9.82 by .95 inches; 5.6 pounds
-Meets ENERGY STAR requirements

And before you ask why didn't you just buy a windows machine? My dad works for apple so that wouldn't fly with him lol.

 

[snaky69]

So I got a laptop as a graduation present about a month ago. I am currently running bootcamp on my laptop and I use the Windows side more than I do the apple side. It's mainly because I play games on the Windows side. Now, my hard drive is currently only 320 GB and I have 2 questions. How do I know what kind of hard drive I need to get? And secondly, if I'm running bootcamp, and I buy a new hard drive, can I somehow copy everything from this HD to my new HD? And will the HD space split between the Apple and Windows side? Or will it go straight to one side, and not the other? I honestly have no idea.

Here are my specs -
Exact Specs
-2.4GHz Intel Core i5 Processor; 3MB shared level 3 cache.
-4GB of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
-320GB 5400-RPM hard drive
-15.4 inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen display; 1440 by 900 pixels
-Intel HD Graphics
-NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics processor with 256MB of GDDR3 memory
-Built-in iSight video camera
-8x slot-loading SuperDrive
-Mini DisplayPort
-SD card slot, FireWire 800 port, two USB 2.0 ports
-Optical digital audio/analog audio input and output ports; built-in stereo speakers
-Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet
-Built-in AirPort Extreme wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
-Backlit keyboard and ambient light sensor.
-Preinstalled Mac OS X and iLife
-Size and weight: 14.35 by 9.82 by .95 inches; 5.6 pounds
-Meets ENERGY STAR requirements

And before you ask why didn't you just buy a windows machine? My dad works for apple so that wouldn't fly with him lol.

Any 2.5" laptop hard drive will fit, use the one you want to.


You'll have to remake your bootcamp partition, AFAIK.

 

[ptwarriors315]

Any 2.5" laptop hard drive will fit, use the one you want to.


You'll have to remake your bootcamp partition, AFAIK.

Okay thanks very much. So would I be able to use a flash drive and grab everything from the windows side and bring it over to the mac side? And how do I transfer HD's or whatever. I'm not sure how to word it. How do I put my things from 1 HD onto another.

 

[ptwarriors315]

Anyone know??

 

[no3tic888]

First though, you need to buy an external USB or Firewire enclosure for the extra HD you're gonna have. Or an sata/USB adapter.

You can do the data transfer a couple of ways:

1. Use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the old HD to the new one without the Bootcamp partion.

2. Do a fresh install and use Apple's Migration Assistant to copy your data over to the new HD.

Either way you'll need to install a new Bootcamp partition.

A flash drive would be okay to transfer the files over as well and to keep as a backup.

 

[ptwarriors315]

First though, you need to buy an external USB or Firewire enclosure for the extra HD you're gonna have. Or an sata/USB adapter.

You can do the data transfer a couple of ways:

1. Use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the old HD to the new one without the Bootcamp partion.

2. Do a fresh install and use Apple's Migration Assistant to copy your data over to the new HD.

Either way you'll need to install a new Bootcamp partition.

A flash drive would be okay to transfer the files over as well and to keep as a backup.

Wait so Carbon Copy Cleaner won't copy the bootcamp partition? Does that mean I would have to use Winclone or something? Or just use an external HD, put all of windows on it, then put all of that on the mac side.

Is there a video somewhere where I can see someone else doing this? I'm better at watching a video, than words.

So this is what I want to do.
-buy 500GB HD, wait to put it in.
-put all of windows onto mac side, or put windows onto external HD for now
-put in new HD?
-copy my mac side onto the new HD
-I'm not sure how I would do these steps but I guess I would create a new windows partition in boot camp? Then I'm stuck

If someone could post like a tutorial on how to copy all of windows, and all of mac, andexactly what to do that would be amazing. I really need this.

 

[snaky69]

Wait so Carbon Copy Cleaner won't copy the bootcamp partition? Does that mean I would have to use Winclone or something? Or just use an external HD, put all of windows on it, then put all of that on the mac side.

Is there a video somewhere where I can see someone else doing this? I'm better at watching a video, than words.

So this is what I want to do.
-buy 500GB HD, wait to put it in.
-put all of windows onto mac side, or put windows onto external HD for now
-put in new HD?
-copy my mac side onto the new HD
-I'm not sure how I would do these steps but I guess I would create a new windows partition in boot camp? Then I'm stuck

If someone could post like a tutorial on how to copy all of windows, and all of mac, andexactly what to do that would be amazing. I really need this.

Do you have anything important on your windows partition? If not, just remake it, it'll save you a few headaches. If you have a lot of stuff on there, you'll need to use winclone.

Use your external HD to make a time machine backup before you do anything, should anything go wrong, you know you won't lose any data that way.

Once that is done, I suggest giving carbon copy clone a try and cloning your current hard drive to the new hard drive you bought, it should be pretty easy to do.

Pop the new hard drive in there, press the power button, check that everything works. Restore your windows partition with winclone.

You're done.

 

[ptwarriors315]

Do you have anything important on your windows partition? If not, just remake it, it'll save you a few headaches. If you have a lot of stuff on there, you'll need to use winclone.

Use your external HD to make a time machine backup before you do anything, should anything go wrong, you know you won't lose any data that way.

Once that is done, I suggest giving carbon copy clone a try and cloning your current hard drive to the new hard drive you bought, it should be pretty easy to do.

Pop the new hard drive in there, press the power button, check that everything works. Restore your windows partition with winclone.

You're done.

Thats what I'm also deciding on. I have a few games that I have a CD and program (Steam) that will install the games. So I really don't need those. It's mainly photoshop and Sony Vegas pro which I don't really feel like downloading again.

But thanks for your help.

 

[accessoriesguy]

So this is what I want to do.
-buy 500GB HD, wait to put it in.
-put all of windows onto mac side, or put windows onto external HD for now
-put in new HD?
-copy my mac side onto the new HD
-I'm not sure how I would do these steps but I guess I would create a new windows partition in boot camp? Then I'm stuck

use carbon copy cloner. it makes life easier.

you could either transfer all of your files over to the Mac side or you can get yourself one of these 2.5in EnclosureThen when you finish making the copy and installing the new hard drive you can keep your stock 320GB hard drive as an external portable hard drive
If you use a lot of memory here is a 1TB 2.5in Hard Drive It of course costs $110 compared to those much cheaper smaller drives, since this is fairly new. 8)

 

[ptwarriors315]

The only thing I have trouble with is what to do first, and how to do it. I don't know how to use that Carbon Copy Cleaner program and also I've never put in a new HD before so I wouldn't know what to do after I put the new HD in, and start up the computer. And I wouldn't know how to put the mac and windows sides back on.

Basically I'm just troubled by the steps I need to do. That's why just a mini-tutorial would be awesome. I'm just talking about someone just listing the steps like...
-example 1
-example 2
-etc.