Skipped Migration Assistant and swapped hard drive from MBP 13 2009 to MBP 15 2011.

[ldburroughs]

Before I begin, Happy Fourth of July!

I recently upgraded from an '09 MBP 13" to an '11 MPB 15". I spent hours waiting for the Migration Assistant to do its magic by wifi (no firewire cable). After letting it run overnight and seeing very little progress, I decided it was time to try something else. I cloned the hard drive from my 13" MBP and simply swapped out that drive with the stock drive in my 15" MBP. It took a little less than an hour using SuperDuper!. Everything works as if I had been using this computer all along. In fact, it seems to have worked a little too well. Having dealt with PCs over the years from time to time at home and in the office, I know this is virtually impossible with Windows. In my case, however, it seemed to work like a charm.

My question/concern is: Am I missing something? It is recognizing all of the components properly but it just seems too easy. All of the apps, files, and settings work perfectly as far as I can tell.

Take care everyone and enjoy the holiday!

 

[Prodo123]

Before I begin, Happy Fourth of July!

I recently upgraded from an '09 MBP 13" to an '11 MPB 15". I spent hours waiting for the Migration Assistant to do its magic by wifi (no firewire cable). After letting it run overnight and seeing very little progress, I decided it was time to try something else. I cloned the hard drive from my 13" MBP and simply swapped out that drive with the stock drive in my 15" MBP. It took a little less than an hour using SuperDuper!. Everything works as if I had been using this computer all along. In fact, it seems to have worked a little too well. Having dealt with PCs over the years from time to time at home and in the office, I know this is virtually impossible with Windows. In my case, however, it seemed to work like a charm.

My question/concern is: Am I missing something? It is recognizing all of the components properly but it just seems too easy. All of the apps, files, and settings work perfectly as far as I can tell.

Take care everyone and enjoy the holiday!

That's the magic of Macs. All of Apple's hardware is specifically tailored for the software, and since there's only a small variety of hardware in Macs compared to PCs, Apple is able to include kexts (Mac-equivalent for drivers) for every Mac into a Snow Leopard installation. So yes, this makes total sense and theoretically you could swap that hard drive into a Mac Mini, too.

 

[nwbusa]

Yep, that's the glory of Macs. I've done it myself on Mac upgrades and never had a problem.

 

[jamisonbaines]

glad it works for you. idk if there is any reason to fret the different hardware when doing a straight up clone.

when i upgraded my hd i did the time machine restores with an ethernet cable (think i might have done firewire for target disk mode when i went ibook g4 -> mac mini..i don't remember)

yes wireless would be brutal. but couldn't you have just unplugged the ethernet cable going to your wireless router and used that to link the computers together?

live and learn

 

[Philflow]

I've done this before with Windows notebooks. As long as they use similar parts it works fine.