HDD Swap and keep data?

gmoney10111 · May 31, 2007

Hi all,
I've just bought a lovely new SATA 160GB HDD for my Macbook. Before swapping it out, I was wondering if anyone could think of a way of getting all my data on and off old to new HDD. I could probably put it all on an external HDD, but how do I get it on to the new disk drive once the new drive is in the macbook?
Open to any and all suggestions. Thanks!

cwa107 · May 31, 2007

gmoney10111 said:
Hi all,
I've just bought a lovely new SATA 160GB HDD for my Macbook. Before swapping it out, I was wondering if anyone could think of a way of getting all my data on and off old to new HDD. I could probably put it all on an external HDD, but how do I get it on to the new disk drive once the new drive is in the macbook?
Open to any and all suggestions. Thanks!

I used a USB adapter to hook up my new drive via USB, then used SuperDuper to copy the data from the one drive to the other.

gmoney10111 · May 31, 2007

If, for example the data is going from a Macbook to an internal drive on a pc, can I still use Superduper to do this? Or something else?

cwa107 · May 31, 2007

gmoney10111 said:
If, for example the data is going from a Macbook to an internal drive on a pc, can I still use Superduper to do this? Or something else?

I haven't used SuperDuper to do that, but I believe it can. Alternatively, you can use Disk Utility to make an image of your hard drive and then copy that over to your PC.

gmoney10111 · May 31, 2007

Right, i've got my SATA HDD, and External USB2 HDD. Superduper just does it's stuff does it? Then I can boot from External with new SATA installed and just copy across, ditch the external and hey presto?!

cwa107 · May 31, 2007

gmoney10111 said:
Right, i've got my SATA HDD, and External USB2 HDD. Superduper just does it's stuff does it? Then I can boot from External with new SATA installed and just copy across, ditch the external and hey presto?!

Yep, that's it.

Mace · Aug 11, 2007

Glad I found this b/c I had questions about the same although mine involves an MBP.
Question though, how do I boot from the external? Do I need a certain key combo when I boot up my MBP or will it recognize that I only have os x on 1 drive.

Thanks for any clarification!

cwa107 · Aug 11, 2007

Mace said:
Glad I found this b/c I had questions about the same although mine involves an MBP.
Question though, how do I boot from the external? Do I need a certain key combo when I boot up my MBP or will it recognize that I only have os x on 1 drive.

Thanks for any clarification!

Hold down the option key when you power the machine on and then select the device you want to boot from.