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Moving to New SSD from MBP with Corrupted HDD

nduemler

nduemler

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 11, 2016
6
1
Hi all...

I have an older 2009 MBP that has a corrupted HDD (Snow Leopard) that will not get past the Apple logo on startup. I have an [even] older HDD (10.4 Tiger) from an earlier Mac that I just found while moving and I am able to successfully boot my MBP externally from there. I do have a TimeMachine backup of the current HDD (Snow Leopard).

Today I bought a new SDD and my question is, what is the best way to make my new SSD bootable with my TimeMachine backup?

Since this is a secondary machine, I haven't needed to upgrade the OS in some time, but I am in need of a new project so I figured I might as well start there...

Ideally I would like to put the TimeMachine backup on the SSD externally before I replace the current drive.

Please note I do not have a copy of any OSX at this time...

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Thanks.
 
An other way is to install the Tiger HD and update it to SL. Then clone that drive to the SSD. You'll need an external caddy for the SSD or a SATA to USB adapter.
Then move the SSD into the Mac and restore.
You could also install the SSD first and boot off of the Tiger drive externally but I dont see any advantage in that.
 
I have no idea if this will actually work, I've never done this before, but I can't think of how else this would be done using mostly what you have on hand.

You could if you have access to another Mac, place the SSD in your Mac, then use target disk mode to clone a disk image of the most recent time machine backup (connected to the other Mac) to the SSD. In theory should work, then you could upgrade and have a recovery partition on the SSD which will make things easier in the future.
 
Okay, update:

I was able to boot using IR... I first partitioned the SSD and formatted it properly. I then decided to install fresh El Capitan from internet to the SSD. This downloaded properly and restarted. Once it restarted, it goes to "Installing OS X" with blue bar and it just has been stuck there for hours.

I am able to go back and look at disk utility and it shows that this new SSD has ~7 GB used and 4 folders and 16 files on the drive.

Any thoughts on why this may be occurring? Would it have something to do with once it restarted, it tries installing on internal (corrupted) HDD instead of the SSD?
 
I thought IR would install whichever OS originally came with your system?
If you jump straight to El Capitan I don't think you'll be able to use your SL TM backup.
I could be wrong about that.

And if you are getting IR to work you should definitely install the OS to the good SSD.
 
I seem to recall reading that Internet recovery won't work on MacBooks earlier than 2010?
Others please correct me if I'm wrong.

OP:

I'd concentrate on getting an "older" OS installed onto the SSD now that boots and works for you.

Do you have the Snow Leopard install DVD?
 
nduemler said:
Okay, update:

I was able to boot using IR... I first partitioned the SSD and formatted it properly. I then decided to install fresh El Capitan from internet to the SSD. This downloaded properly and restarted. Once it restarted, it goes to "Installing OS X" with blue bar and it just has been stuck there for hours.

I am able to go back and look at disk utility and it shows that this new SSD has ~7 GB used and 4 folders and 16 files on the drive.

Any thoughts on why this may be occurring? Would it have something to do with once it restarted, it tries installing on internal (corrupted) HDD instead of the SSD?
Click to expand...

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202313

Your 2009 does not support Internet recovery, so you are booted some other way. Can you please explain exactly what drives you have mounted and how/where and exactly what you are booted to?
 
Well, all... Thanks for all of your input! I got it up and running with El Cap installed!
 
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