Moving hard drive

[Qualitech]

I have a 2007 24" iMac and a 2008 24" iMac. The 2007 is loaded with all my current working apps and data. I want to take the hard drive out of the 2007 and move it to the 2008. I know if I tried to do this with Windows I would have to reinstall the operating system due to differences in motherboard, etc. Do I need to do anything special to move drives between imacs or will it just start up and go?

Thanks!

 

[Brian33]

I don't really know the answer, but since you're moving the system boot drive I certainly wouldn't count on it working.

If both Macs are in working condition, I suggest you use Migration Assistant to copy all of your apps/settings/documents to the 2008 iMac. It's quite easy. You can connect the Macs by having them on the same network, or you can start up the 2007 in "target disk mode" (which I've never used) and connect them with a firewire cable (I think).

 

[Fishrrman]

You don't have to move the drive.

Just move the data that's ON the drive.

A LOT less trouble.

IMPORTANT QUESTIONS:
Do you want the 2008 iMac to contain exactly what the 2007 contains now?
In other words, do you wish to completely erase what is currently on the 2008?

Answer this and we can go on from there.

 

[Weaselboy]

I have a 2007 24" iMac and a 2008 24" iMac. The 2007 is loaded with all my current working apps and data. I want to take the hard drive out of the 2007 and move it to the 2008. I know if I tried to do this with Windows I would have to reinstall the operating system due to differences in motherboard, etc. Do I need to do anything special to move drives between imacs or will it just start up and go?

Thanks!

That will work just fine with no issues. Only thing you need to do after the swap is open System Preferences and in the Startup Disk pane select the new drive as the boot disk.

I am assuming here they are both on the same version of OS X. You might have a problem is say the 2007 was still on Tiger, since Tiger would not have the drivers needed for the 2008 machine. But if you have updated to Snow Leopard or later, you will be fine.

 

[Qualitech]

Thanks to all that have replied. The reason for moving the physical drive is the 2007 is a 2tb new drive and the 2008 is a 1tb older drive. They are both running mavericks with the latest updates. So as a test, if I were to clone the 2007 drive onto an external drive and boot from it, would that be the same as booting from an internal drive?

 

[Weaselboy]

Thanks to all that have replied. The reason for moving the physical drive is the 2007 is a 2tb new drive and the 2008 is a 1tb older drive. They are both running mavericks with the latest updates.

You won't have any issues then.

So as a test, if I were to clone the 2007 drive onto an external drive and boot from it, would that be the same as booting from an internal drive?

Perhaps a little slower, but yes.