Question about replacing my hard drive

[Errk!]

Any tips on copying the old drive to the new? I'd rather not have to reinstall all of my programs and transfer everything that way. Is there software that I can use? Do I need some kind of special hardware connector to be able to do something like that?

 

[Sandy Santra]

Any tips on copying the old drive to the new? I'd rather not have to reinstall all of my programs and transfer everything that way. Is there software that I can use? Do I need some kind of special hardware connector to be able to do something like that?

Hi, Errk! There are several apps that will do this. I used SuperDuper: it can create an exact clone, and it's a cheap app ($30 US, I think). You use SuperDuper to clone to an external drive, replace your laptop's internal drive, boot either from a Leopard CD or any external firewire system drive you have lying around with leopard installed, set up your new internal drive as a bootable system disc (either with Disk Utility or SuperDuper [as part of restore process]), and then run SuperDuper from somewhere and clone from your backed up clone to the new internal hard drive.

There are lots of websites and topics in forums detailing the process.

Good luck!

 

[Errk!]

Hi, Errk! There are several apps that will do this. I used SuperDuper: it can create an exact clone, and it's a cheap app ($30 US, I think). You use SuperDuper to clone to an external drive, replace your laptop's internal drive, boot either from a Leopard CD or any external firewire system drive you have lying around with leopard installed, set up your new internal drive as a bootable system disc (either with Disk Utility or SuperDuper [as part of restore process]), and then run SuperDuper from somewhere and clone from your backed up clone to the new internal hard drive.

There are lots of websites and topics in forums detailing the process.

Good luck!

Great, thanks. I'll definitely look into that.

Is Time Machine suitable for something like this? With Time Machine or SuperDuper does it matter that the drives are different sizes (100gb vs. 320 gb)?

 

[Sandy Santra]

Great, thanks. I'll definitely look into that.

Is Time Machine suitable for something like this? With Time Machine or SuperDuper does it matter that the drives are different sizes (100gb vs. 320 gb)?

Yeah, they both do. There's some sort of standard procedure for using Time Machine to restore everything from the latest "full image" that it has of the system drive (which, of course, you'll have to use Time Machine to create, if you haven't done so already). I'm sure there's documentation on this...maybe even at the Apple website.

SuperDuper for sure doesn't care about the change in volume size--I know, because I restored my 130GB image to my new 320GB drive with no problem (on that front).

 

[Motty750]

I have a mid 2007 iMac 20" My hard disk is just about full. However I have two external hard drives that I picked up for a good price. My question is can I crack open the case on one and use the drive in my iMac?

Model is Seagate goflex Desk 1.5TB, the other is a 2TB that I plan to continue to use as my backup disk. Ideally I like to rebuild the external case with my old hard drive and then format and use for PVR from my television. Just recycling really, I'm not bothered if I have to bin it really.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers Motty