Replacing MBP Hard Drive without having to reinstall everything

legobrainboy · 02-26-2009, 05:30 PM

Help!

We'll be replacing the 160gb hard drive on my girlfriend's MacBook Pro with a 320gb internal hard drive.

Is there a way to move EVERYTHING (including the OS and all apps) from the old hard drive to the new one?

**wildcard** · 02-26-2009, 05:35 PM

Carbon Copy Cloner
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

**Howard Roark** · 02-26-2009, 05:38 PM

I second the motion ^^^.

Get Carbon Copy Cloner and clone your (existing hard drive) TO your target hard drive. Remove existing hard drive and replace with new one and voila, its as if nothing happened.

**johannes** · 02-26-2009, 05:40 PM

You can clone the original hard drive. What's usually done by some folks is:
1. Get a cloning program like Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper (Google them)
2. Place the new HD in an enclosure. Connect to Mac.
3. Clone current HD into new HD that is in the enclosure.
4. Once done, swap current HD with new HD.
5. That's it. New HD will have everything as is. Then just place now-old HD into the enclosure-- format it and you now have an external HD.

The lazy way to do this would be:
1. Have the store where you're buying the new HD do all of this for you.

Usually, they'll do it for free if you bought the HD from them.

**macdrive007** · 02-26-2009, 05:43 PM

+1 on SuperDuper!
+1 too for:

Originally Posted by johannes

The lazy way to do this would be:
1. Have the store where you're buying the new HD do all of this for you.

Usually, they'll do it for free if you bought the HD from them.

legobrainboy · 02-26-2009, 05:50 PM

HWOO! thanks! that was quick!

just downloaded both carbon copy cloner and super duper to make two backups on an external drive but we'll still be asking the shop if they can do the cloning for us. we just want to have our own backups just to be 200% sure nothing gets lost.

been a mac user since the rainbow-colored logo and this is the first time i've had to deal with a hard drive replacement. i'm glad the mac community here is growing and the people are quick to answer cries for help! thanks philmug!!!

**mousehole** · 03-01-2009, 01:41 AM

when charlie originally posted about the new 500gb hdd's he was offering at dw, i think it was mentioned somewhere in the thread that the store staff would take care of transferring your data for you.

of course, if you have sensitive personal data on your existing hdd, you might want to clear that out onto another storage device before leaving your mac at the store... :O

RC · 03-01-2009, 02:15 AM

I find it easier to install the new drive into the mac, put the old one into the enclosure connect it to the mac pro and just back up from there....kinda like connecting your old mac to a new mac, that way they system is fresh and it won't be copying old bugs that was in your system before...

**Shinrai** · 03-01-2009, 01:23 PM

I've used SuperDuper many, many times when migrating across systems even from an MBP and MB then back (I'm on Leopard). Some preferences needs to be reapplied, esp those in System Preferences like keyboard shortcuts and bluetooth devices.

Otherwise, I haven't noticed any big problems every time I did this. Even my custom dock and icons are there.

**djwoblely** · 03-01-2009, 06:47 PM

the guys at dw. wont clone your xp or vista partitions. last time i had it done i had to do that part myself. they didnt clone the windows partitions only the osx.

i ended up cloning my osx and windows myself. I just had them install the hd since i didnt wanna open it all the way and maybe loose some screws