New MacBook: Use old HD?

[marekkurlmann]

I'm going to be buying a new MacBook very soon to replace a year-old MacBook with a 250 GB hard drive that I installed myself. Because the HD is only a few months old, I'd like to use that HD in my new MacBook. I'd also like to transfer all of my files and programs from the old MacBook to the new MacBook.

What's the best way to do this? Just swap the HD from the old MacBook to the new one? Some other way?

(For what it's worth, I have a Time Machine backup and a bootable clone backup of the HD--minus my music library, if that will help)

 

[bplein]

1. Download and launch Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper
2. clone your internal drive to the new drive (in an external firewire or USB case)
3. Test that it works by booting from it
4. If it works, remove it from the case and replace the one in your laptop.

 

[war eagle]

I'm going to be buying a new MacBook very soon to replace a year-old MacBook with a 250 GB hard drive that I installed myself. Because the HD is only a few months old, I'd like to use that HD in my new MacBook. I'd also like to transfer all of my files and programs from the old MacBook to the new MacBook.

What's the best way to do this? Just swap the HD from the old MacBook to the new one? Some other way?

(For what it's worth, I have a Time Machine backup and a bootable clone backup of the HD--minus my music library, if that will help)

Is it a BlackBook? If so and you are trying to sell it PM and i'll take it off your hands.

 

[iToaster]

Odds are you'll run into driver problems with a straight swap, so it would be best to move over the old HD, wipe it, reinstall OS X from the installation discs that came with the new MacBook and then restore from a time machine backup.

 

[misterredman]

Odds are you'll run into driver problems with a straight swap, so it would be best to move over the old HD, wipe it, reinstall OS X from the installation discs that came with the new MacBook and then restore from a time machine backup.

This seems to be the safest solution to me. Since you have to swap the drive anyway you could try swapping as is and erase/reinstall/restore only if it doesn't work correctly.

 

[bplein]

Odds are you'll run into driver problems with a straight swap, so it would be best to move over the old HD, wipe it, reinstall OS X from the installation discs that came with the new MacBook and then restore from a time machine backup.

Sorry, not necessarily true. I can boot two different laptops with different video cards here just fine from the same drives.

I read the question wrong, however.

The quickest way to test this is to put the old macbook hard drive in the new macbook. Macbooks (unlike the MBP model) have easily customer replaceable hard drives. Just swap them and see. My bet is that it works fine.