Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Upgrading system hard drive, how do I copy it over?

K

kkachurak

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 26, 2007
215
26
Orlando, FL
Quick question:

The Mac Pro is currently using the stock 320gb as the system drive. I just ordered a 150gb WB Raptor and intend to use it as the system drive.

When it gets here, how do I go about transferring over the system drive contents so I can make the swap? (My fourth bay is free) I realize I'm going to need a piece of software.
 
bigjnyc said:
carbon copy cloner
Click to expand...

NO NO NO NO. Why spend money?

You can do this with the built-in Disk Utility.

Here's how.

Put in the new hard disk.

Boot off of System DVD.

Go into Drive Utility.

Partition / Format new drive.

Choose "RESTORE" option for drive.

Select your old drive as source, and the new drive as target.

When finished, boot off your new drive.

Don't spend more money on third party software. :rolleyes:
 
aibo said:
CCC works great. It doesn't cost money either... so GotPro doesn't know what he's talking about.
Click to expand...

If the author of the program has a paypal link, it still costs money.

Even if he doesn't REQUIRE donations... Unless you are a useless leach on society that prefers to use others instead of "do the right thing".

The ultimate reason, of course... is that if you use CCC and something gets fubared... Apple will NOT help you.

If you use Disk Utility and it mangles things up... Apple will gladly help.

So, I'm sooo glad I have NO IDEA what I'm talking about.
 
I've also copied with disk utility. However I didn't boot off of the install disk I hooked up my new raid 0 drives, formatted and while booted off of my original drive I selected it as a source and copied it to the new raid array.
 
GotPro does indeed know what he's talking about, Disk Utility is what I've used every time I upgraded to a bigger hard drive and wanted to copy information between it and the older one.
 
I guess I would have to ask the question: why would you use 3rd party software (free or not) when software you've already got will do the trick? Is there any advantage to carbon copy cloner?
 
GotPro said:
If the author of the program has a paypal link, it still costs money.

Even if he doesn't REQUIRE donations... Unless you are a useless leach on society that prefers to use others instead of "do the right thing".

The ultimate reason, of course... is that if you use CCC and something gets fubared... Apple will NOT help you.

If you use Disk Utility and it mangles things up... Apple will gladly help.
Click to expand...

It's a donation button — it doesn't cost money. Like you said yourself, why spend money and don't spend money on third party software? Well, you don't have to. You can simply use it and there's no requirement to pay.

So, I'm sooo glad I have NO IDEA what I'm talking about.
Click to expand...

You still don't and you're an idiot.
 
GotPro said:
The ultimate reason, of course... is that if you use CCC and something gets fubared... Apple will NOT help you.

If you use Disk Utility and it mangles things up... Apple will gladly help.
Click to expand...
Personal bashing aside... this makes a lot of sense.

I'm a Mac newb - a lifetime PC and Linux user. I recently purchased a G5 Power Mac for general family use. I went to Fry's and and got a 750 GB Samsung SATA drive to replace the existing (old) 80 GB system drive. Last night I used Disk Utility to partition the new drive and then restore it with the system drive. It took 1 hour total and worked really well. All my apps and settings were maintained. I unplugged and removed the 80 GB drive and my G5 now runs the speedy 750 (with 32 MB buffer).

I'm totally impressed.
 
Follow Up

Okay so I got the Raptor drive in today. I booted from the System CD like GotPro said.

After I went into the Disk Utility and initialized the disk, I began the process for the restore. When I did that, I selected the "erase destination drive" just for good measure.

Well, when I clicked to start the restore it gave me an error saying that the destination volume wasn't large enough to do the restore. Which was odd, considering that the Source Volume was only 81.92GB large and the Raptor had about 140GB free.

After I clicked the Okay button within the error box, something odd happened. My vital info for both my System Volume and the Raptor Volume were showing just dashes (-)

I was terrified I had erased both drives - including all the data on my system volume.

I quickly rebooted, realized my data was still there and launched CCC. Sorry guys. It was just easier and less scary.

I'm sure if I wasn't such a noob, it would've been better just to go the Disk Utility route, but... alas. It's all done now. And the Raptor is screaming fast.

Someday - I'll install that RAID.
 
mchalebk said:
I guess I would have to ask the question: why would you use 3rd party software (free or not) when software you've already got will do the trick? Is there any advantage to carbon copy cloner?
Click to expand...

You can do it inside your OS.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back