02-08-2012, 07:27 PM

How's it going you guys. New to this forum but not new to forums in general. So hopefully Im posting this in the right place and can see what help I can get and yes I have searched around, but hoping for some direct help. Been using Apple products forever now, but never have gotten this involved. Im a very technical guy with plenty of experience working on all the ships Ive been on and cars, etc. Just not a lot of experience with computer hardware itself. So here is what I got sorry it is a little bit about OS, but this is mostly a hardware question I believe.

I currently have the late model 2008 Macbook Unibody still running Leopard 10.5.8. I just received all my new upgrades in the mail and just want to know how to go about doing it all at once and restoring my data and applications without transferring to much of the "junk files" as well.

I got a new Crucial M4 256 GB SSD, Crucial 8GB of ram, and I have OSX Lion on the mac USB. I was hoping to be able to do this all at once. What is the best way to go about this. Also how should I transfer all my data and stuff to the new ssd. I also have 2 1TB external seagate hard drives I can use and one has my time machine backups on it.

Do I just install the new ssd and then install lion off the usb and restore with time machine? Should I use migration assistant or carbon copy cloner somehow with my external hard drives? Whats the best method here? So mainly I just dont know which method to use to get everthing on the new ssd.

Thanks for any help or direction to find out what to do.

02-08-2012, 09:14 PM

Alright you guys. Sorry I didnt mention this earlier because Im continuing to research this, but also would another option, possibly better option?, be to partition a section on my big external hard drive and completely clone my current internal hard drive to it? Then install the new solid state in to my computer and install lion and then use migration assistant? Or just boot off that cloned partition, but then Im not sure how that would work because I need to install Lion as well and Im skipping actually installing snow leopard.

02-09-2012, 09:59 PM

No help anyone? Im about to just jump into this. I think Im going to just partition my external hard drive and make a clone of my current one on it. Install the new hard drive and memory, install lion, and then restore from the clone using migration assistant. Hopefully this works.

02-10-2012, 04:25 PM

You're going from Leopard to Lion..so a clone won't do you much good for the purpose of a cloned drive. Here's what I would do, install the SSD and RAM boot up holding option, select the Lion thumb install lion. Grab the get CD and install the iLife stuff if you use it..

No take your cloud backup and clone back to your new drive but only select you applications and docs not anything else. I Would do it one at a time to make sure my apps played nice with lion. I would NOT use migration assistant because you cannot bring just parts of you old drive back it's an all or nothing affair. My gut says that a couple of you applications are not going to play nice and probably cause system instability because your coming from Leopard.

On another note some new firmware just came out for your drive you might want to update that before you get started.

02-10-2012, 04:43 PM

Thanks for the help! Alright so it looks like cloning is not a good option for me. So I'll probably install everything and install lion then use time machine like you said. I don't think I should have many issues with my apps cause I think most of them just need like leopard or later from what I know. I do have the iLife stuff and pages and keynote, etc installed but my cd itself is back back home and not accessible. Shouldn't the time machine restore just restore all these apps. Also thanks for the heads up about the firmware. I was planning on updating it and burned the new firmware iso of 3009 to cd, but my new hard drive itself says firmware 0009, but also has a sticker on it saying updated to 0309. So I guess it should be good with the new firmware. Surprised it as updated since I got it off amazon.

So time machine should restore everything I'm hoping, but are you sure cloning wouldn't work. Cause this link recommends it for upgrading from leopard straight to lion. How to install Lion over Leopard | Macworld.

Thanks again. Really been needing help. Want to get this stuff in, but skeptical on losing all my apps and everything.

02-11-2012, 04:34 AM

The reason I said to use a cloned HD is so you can specify what comes back to the new drive an fresh install. A cloned HD is not a Time Machine backup it's a bootable version of you HD on another HD. Yes 0309 is the most current Firmware so you're good to go there. I know logically you're correct all of your programs should work but the stories are all over the internet and forums about programs that should work but didn't under Lion. Another benefit of using Carbon Copy Cloner in this situation is you can leave behind applications you don't use anymore music you don't listen to etc. while keeping them safe and bootable.

The process I described is how I moved the first time I went to Lion and then back to Snow Leopard. Lion is an all encompassing OS once you go there it's more difficult to go back. The way I described gives you a way out of Lion and the most flexibility dealing with things as they go wrong.

When I was in the Army and spent long periods of time away from "home" I started ripping my install dvd's and making image files of them and saved them on an external HDD that way I'd never be without a needed install that is a habit I still keep today. Every program used on any computer in my family we're no to 5 computers is saved in an external drive along with the clones of their drive. Just food for thought.