Restore from MBA to MBP

[Beachguy]

This is a pretty basic and simple question. I am rebuilding my 2012 MBP because it crashed and ate its partition with it. After trying every recovery product I could find, they all came back saying "Sorry, dude. Nothing we can recover here." What I am considering is taking a backup of my 2011 MBA and restoring to my MBP. Is this possible? MBA has 128 GB SSD, MBP has 750GB spinning disk from hell.

Any thoughts/suggestions?

Many thanks!

 

[JTToft]

Connect with Thunderbolt and use Migration Assistant or clone the entire drive with Disk Utility or Carbon Copy Cloner.

Or do a Time Machine backup on an external drive and then restore that to the other machine.

 

[Beachguy]

I was thinking of Time Machine since I don't have CCC. I wasn't sure if I could clone it since the drive sizes are so different, not to mention the media types. But my biggest concern was driver conflict.

I have read on the Apple site to install MacOS first and then migrate. That brings up another question, since the MacOS would be 10.11 on the MBP and 10.12 on the MBA...

 

[Weaselboy]

I was thinking of Time Machine since I don't have CCC. I wasn't sure if I could clone it since the drive sizes are so different, not to mention the media types. But my biggest concern was driver conflict.

I have read on the Apple site to install MacOS first and then migrate. That brings up another question, since the MacOS would be 10.11 on the MBP and 10.12 on the MBA...

Neither of those will be a problem.

You are going from a smaller disk to a larger disk, so you are good there. And the erase and restore (not migration which is different) will replace the OS and everything on the MBP with the backup from the MBA.

 

[AustinIllini]

It's really awesome how streamlined this is. Takes an hour or two over wi-fi depending on a bunch of factors. Over lightning is pretty amazingly fast, though.