Restoring OS X From External Drive

[vondudka]

So here's the deal.

I have a late 2010 MBP
My hard drive kept failing and I never backed it up with time machine (idiot). On one of the last times I could still get the drive to boot up I copied my documents/photos/videos/music to an external drive because I forgot about time machine. My drive finally stopped working and I decided to upgrade it to a SSD (absolutely awesome btw). Now I have an external 2.5" HD enclosure that I put the original MBP Hard Drive in and it shows on my desktop and I can access it. In disk utility it always tells me to back it up and then restore the drive. Now I'm wondering if there is a way that I can restore that hard drive onto my current SSD so that I wouldn't have to reinstall programs. I'm assuming you wouldn't have to when you back it up from a time machine image. The reason this is needed is because I lost my product key for my Adobe CS6 programs and can't get a new one. And it would just make my life easier in general.

If anyone knows any way to work around this that would be awesome.

Thanks

 

[gr8tfly]

So, I'm guessing Disk Utility gave you the error when trying to do a Repair Disk? If it's mounting read-only, DU is giving you a last ditch effort to recover data. What kind if error did it log during the repair run?

Rather than risking some unknown corruption of a system file, I think the safest way to go is to install a fresh copy of OS X on the SSD, then use the Migration Assistant to pull over your applications, users, and user data (can't remember all the options, but leave the system files unchecked (unless you have any special drivers for 3rd party h/w)). Most serial numbers and authentication should transfer. Your CS6 keys should all available through Adobe's website if you registered it or if you bought it as a download through Adobe, it would automatically be there.

After you do the migration, install all the updates (such as 10.8.4). Actually, if you need to download 10.8, it might already be 10.8.4. Btw, are you booted off the failing drive's Recovery Partition? I think that should be ok once you've launched Disk Utility and started the Restore. If it completes successfully (i.e. no odd hangs or crashes), I would have confidence it did the Restore properly.

The other option is, depending on how well the failing drive behaves, and your confidence in it, you could try and do a Restore from it to the SSD and see how it goes.

 

[vondudka]

Completely forgot about Migration Assistant. I guess I haven't ever had to use it. That worked. Thanks!

 

[gr8tfly]

Glad you're up and running again! Enjoy!