SuperDuper! and upgrading disk question...

[majordude]

I haven't used SD! but I just downloaded it.

Can I make a clone of my internal HD, upgrade the disk to a higher capacity, and restore the SD! backup onto that disk and have a fully functioning MBP with a larger hard drive?

 

[Neil321]

yep just make sure you boot from the external before swapping them to make sure all is Ok, this will of course require an enclosure

 

[sickmacdoc]

Yes that will work, but if you desire something even simpler I offer the following.

If you purchase something along the lines of a Western Digital Essentials portable drive (250Gb drives are usually on sale at Circuit City or Best Buy or both for about $99) you can easily format the new drive and SuperDuper (or Carbon Copy Cloner) it to the new drive. Then remove the drive from it, and swap the existing internal with the new drive and put the old internal in the WD case. That way you have a valid backup already (your old drive) in an external case and a larger drive internally ready to boot.

I have done this with several client machines recently and it works great since the WD externals use Scorpio line SATA drives and are pretty easy to swap into and out of the WD portable drive cases.

Just wanted to provide another take on this!

 

[majordude]

Okay, I backed it up to an external drive. That took a few hours!

Should I need it, how do I boot from a USB? And how do I restore it? Does it load a restore program or something?

Thanks!

 

[sickmacdoc]

Okay, I backed it up to an external drive. That took a few hours!

Should I need it, how do I boot from a USB? And how do I restore it? Does it load a restore program or something?

Thanks!

There are two ways to boot from the external. The following way is temporary (in that it only boots from the external when done this way and will revert to the internal when you don't do it this way): hold down the Option key just after you hear the startup bong (or chime or whatever one wants to call it).

Shortly all the bootable drives connected to the system will appear on screen. Use the arrow keys (or mouse) to select the one you want to boot from then press Enter or click on the little arrow beneath the drive's icon and it will proceed to boot from that.

BTW- the second way to boot from a USB drive is to use the Startup Drive pane in System Preferences.

The restore process when using SuperDuper is actually the same as what you just did, but in reverse. Run SuperDuper from the external drive and define the external as the source drive and the new internal as the destination and let it rip. You are basically just cloning it again to the new internal drive- there is no separate "restore" involved.

 

[majordude]

Thanks sickmacdoc!

 

[sickmacdoc]

Good luck- hope all goes well!