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New hard drive question, install fresh, or restore...

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budman1961

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 9, 2010
225
7
Ive purchased a new Momentus XT drive, and im curious about setting it up. Ive had my MBP since May, and havent had any probs at all with it. However, for the first time I did have a forced shut down/kernel panic. No issues since then.

My understanding is that if I restore from time machine backups, I could possibly transfer existing issues to my new drive. I also know that manually adding all my apps and documents will be extremely time consuming.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks in advance.

Andy:confused:
 
budman1961 said:
Ive purchased a new Momentus XT drive, and im curious about setting it up. Ive had my MBP since May, and havent had any probs at all with it. However, for the first time I did have a forced shut down/kernel panic. No issues since then.

My understanding is that if I restore from time machine backups, I could possibly transfer existing issues to my new drive. I also know that manually adding all my apps and documents will be extremely time consuming.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks in advance.

Andy:confused:
Click to expand...

It's my understanding that a FRESH install of the OS, and then migrating over your stuff via time machine WILL NOT bring over any current problems or issues. I'm under the assumption a fresh install of the OS can solve most issues you previously had.

However, if you clone the old HD to the new HD then you will most definitely encounter all the same problems as you are making an EXACT copy of your HD. That much I do know.

I could be wrong though about time machine - would love to hear other thoughts on the subject...
 
I was curious on this as well. I read someone saying that its bad to do a clone to the momentus XT drive so I think I'll be doing a fresh install on mine when I get it in this week. Although, I've only had my mbp for about a month and I think the only app ive installed on OSX is office so it's no big deal for me. But I do have a Windows 7 partition that has quite a few games on there. But they are all DL so i dont have to fiddle with discs for that either.
 
I also bought the momentus XT (along with extra ram) this weekend. I'm wondering the same thing about bringing in a time machine backup. i copied my user folders to my external and made a list of all the applications I need to redownload or reinstall. It may take a bit of time, but I think its worth it. And it will make me feel as though I am running on a new machine.
 
Yeah I think I'm going to be doing a fresh install on mine for peace of mind but I was just curious on how other people did theirs. Post up in this thread on your success with the drive, I've been reading some mixed reviews.
 
Very interesting thread- wondering on this too as I'm upping the HD and RAM this week for my first time.

Was going to save time and internet by CCCing to the new drive- I gather that OSX is pretty clever in keeping house in that regard but does anyone have an opinion whether there will be any real-world speed difference to, say, Fresh OS+Time Machine vs. Fresh OS+Migration Assistant vs. Fresh OS+Manual Transfer? I also imagine the clone may be more stable/reliable (?)

I guess user activity with the OS may play a part, but for light app traffic (install/uninstall &c.) rather than terminal tinkering is cloning the way to go?

Thanks
 
I just upgraded my MBP 13" last week to the momentus XT 500G - did a fresh osx install and used time machine to restore everything. It is now like a new machine!!
 
I have upgraded the hard drive on every mac laptop I have owned and I always do a fresh install. I honestly couldn't tell you if the performance is better, but it sure feels like it does. I like knowing that everything is nice and fresh.
 
how is your battery life with momentus xt? i have installed it 4 days ago (fresh install) and my battery life is 1-1.5 hrs shorter. dont know if its because of the drive or 10.6.5 beta (latest).
 
Well, I thought that I would do a completely fresh install, app by app, but I caved.. I ended up doing a restore from time machine, a coule of hours later, all done.

Boot time is much, much better, app loading, and reloading is really AMAZING!

It really feels like a brand new machine.:D
 
Unscientific testing shows a cold boot time (start button press to the time capsule icon turning aqua from orange), 58 seconds.

Startup items:
Dropbox
Main Menu
gfxCardStatus
Growl menu
Growl Helper app
smc Fan Control
Divvy
iTunes helper

No extra other gadgets except iStat......very happy so far!:D:D
 
Good to hear. I was most concerned with running into issues with the drive. From everything I was reading about that drive lately was the it was a 50/50 chance to get a bad drive out of the box. So it seems like yours if fine. I'll be getting mine in the mail tonight and I should have it up and running so I can post up some results.
 
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