Anyway to create a disk image to install to new machine?

Hello everyone. First off let me say sorry if this has been covered many times, I know that can be annoying. I tried searching and could not find a discussion explaining how to do what I want to do.

Anyway... I'm selling my Mac Pro to the company I work for to use as our production machine, so I'm going to have buy myself a new one. I'm going to get the 24" iMac and I want to make transferring all my data from the Mac Pro as smooth as possible.

Is there anyway I can create an image of my current machine's hard drive so that when the iMac arrives I can "install" it and have everything that was on the Mac Pro. Including all apps, registration/serial for all the apps...etc? Basically I want it to be like I never even bought a new machine. Other wise I guess I'll have to back everything up to my external and transfer/re-install everything.

Thanks in advanced.

I personally would keep the hard drive from the pro and transfer it in to the new imac, you can create files and burn to disk and then reinstall. Now if the software you have on the pro was purchased over the internet, I would certainly keep the hard drive and swap or get the imac first and migrate, this will transfer everything on the drive and set everything as if you never switched computers. I personally do not trust CCC as it tends to jumble things and as well overlook and by-pass some files and a long process as well based on how many GB's you are currently occupying.

powermac G5 said:

I personally would keep the hard drive from the pro and transfer it in to the new imac, you can create files and burn to disk and then reinstall. Now if the software you have on the pro was purchased over the internet, I would certainly keep the hard drive and swap or get the imac first and migrate, this will transfer everything on the drive and set everything as if you never switched computers. I personally do not trust CCC as it tends to jumble things and as well overlook and by-pass some files and a long process as well based on how many GB's you are currently occupying.

Click to expand...

I believe I'm going to be able to keep my Mac Pro until the iMac arrives. So what will I need to do to migrate to the new one?

When the new one comes, and you are setting up your user, etc., you will be asked if you have another mac. Answer yes, connect the two by cable, and then Migration Assistant will/can take over and make your new mac seem just like your old mac. Mine took about an hour and I just walked away for that time and let it run.

skybolt said:

When the new one comes, and you are setting up your user, etc., you will be asked if you have another mac. Answer yes, connect the two by cable, and then Migration Assistant will/can take over and make your new mac seem just like your old mac. Mine took about an hour and I just walked away for that time and let it run.

Click to expand...

Awesome thanks!

I'd go with Macswork suggestion. If you don't have an external drive for backups, now's the time and excuse to get one.

Once you have it, connect it to the MP, grab CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper! (my preference) and create a full bootable backup. When your iMac comes in, boot your iMac to the external drive and then create a backup from the external to your new iMac. You'll now have the identical system on both machines, a full bootable backup in case the internal drive fails, and you'll be able to wipe the MP with a fresh install before you let it go.

clone it with SuperDuper

Another vote for SuperDuper and the registered version, about $29.00, is many times faster than the unregistered version and you can also access Smart Backup.

Weekly backups then take less than ten minutes.

Likewise - Superduper for reliability altho to be fair i have never tried CCC. Be aware Cloning in SuperDuper means something a little different than exact copy of a drive.