How do you clone a MBP Hard Drive?

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I have a MPB (2.53 GHz Intel) with 4 GB RAM; I am running OS X ver.10.6.8. with a 120 GB drive that has 101 GB of free space.

I am new to the Mac World but, for what it is worth, I am Comp TIA A+ Certified (that and $5 bucks might get me a cup of coffee at StarBucks).;P

If, I was working on a PC, I could use my GHOST program to boot to a DOS environment and then clone the second drive but, I must admit that I am lost (still RTFM) making the transition from PC to Mac.

So, all my associate had lying around was a 120 GB HD after he pulled his personal HD out before giving me his "Old" MPB. :Blushing:

I have a 320 GB (still sealed in box) HD that I want install in my MPB. I also have an external USB SATA Hard Drive fixture. Just to test it, I inserted a 80 Gig HD in the fixture and plugged it into my MPB and clicked on Time Machine and, the computer asked if I wanted to start Time Machine; I selected "Later" and bailed with the knowledge that I had all the hardware that I needed.

Now, how do I transfer the OS from the HD in the computer to the one in the USB holder?

.

Submitted from: My Windows Vista Desktop.
 

bobtomay

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With 10.6.8 you can use either SuperDuper! or CarbonCopyCloner. I use the former.
 

Slydude

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You can also clone the drive using Disk Utility. See the section on restoring data. It is not my program of choice though because it does not do incremental cloning.
 
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Superuper for me. With the registered version, about $30.00, you can do a five minute weekly backup using SD's SmartCopy.

FW800 is the fastest and the external drive is then bootable should you need that.
 
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You can also clone the drive using Disk Utility. See the section on restoring data. It is not my program of choice though because it does not do incremental cloning.

Sly, thanks you.

There was a wealth of information in the article that you directed me to; the step-by-step directions were "spot on" and easy to follow.

I waited a couple of days before I did the cloning and installing until I purchased a second HD that I will use with the TimeMachine program. I looked at SuperDuper and CCC but, at least for now, Disk Utilities and TimeMachine seems to be all that I need.

Thanks again.

.
 

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Glad you found that useful. The need to do a full clone each time means Disk Utility is not as useful in some ways as the other programs mentioned but since Time Machine is handling most of the backup chore I don't clone as often as I used to.

One thing to be aware of though. It is not a major issue for me but might be for others. AFAIK Disk Utility does not clone the recovery partition that came into being with 10.7 and higher. Not a major issue if you keep a reasonably current clone since you can boot from the clone to perform repairs.

BTW if you have not already done so boot from the clone at least once to make sure things appear OK. I have had one clone not work properly and I did not discover this until I needed it for a repair. Don't remember which program I used for that one.
 
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Time machine is not bootable. The two cloning software applications are.
 
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Glad you found that useful. The need to do a full clone each time means Disk Utility is not as useful in some ways as the other programs mentioned but since Time Machine is handling most of the backup chore I don't clone as often as I used to.

One thing to be aware of though. It is not a major issue for me but might be for others. AFAIK Disk Utility does not clone the recovery partition that came into being with 10.7 and higher. Not a major issue if you keep a reasonably current clone since you can boot from the clone to perform repairs.

BTW if you have not already done so boot from the clone at least once to make sure things appear OK. I have had one clone not work properly and I did not discover this until I needed it for a repair. Don't remember which program I used for that one.

Time machine is not bootable. The two cloning software applications are.

All good information, thanks to all sources.....


Now for a concern, not a problem; I hit a speed bump in the learning curve.

"...boot from the clone at least once to make sure things appear OK. I have had one clone not work properly...."

When I booted the clone the first time, it was a "Hold your breath moment" - Compared to the old system HD, the computer took 4-5 times as long to boot up; almost as if the computer didn't "recognize" the new HD. It took forever for the "Bong" and another forever for the Apple Logo to (spinning circle) load. Upon use, just about everything I tried was sluggish with the "Wait" indicator spinning.

After a while of using it, I decided to "Verify" the integrity of the disc which, was pronounced "OKAY" by the computer.

At lunch today, I took the computer back to my associate (from whom I received it) and asked him to "Benchmark" it; if anyone was familiar with the running of this PC it was him. He said, "Boy, it sure is loading up slow....."

He went through and verified and repaired some "permissions" and told me to take it home and run it, his thoughts were that the new HD had to be "indexed". And, he did some kind of multi-fingered shortcut that involved starting the PC and holding down keys down. He also used a long press on the on switch; I was not clear on the explanation between the momentary push and the long activation of the power switch.

So, would / should the data pointers and permissions change with a new / cloned HD; is this normal? MBP is running ok (LOWER CASE!) but, it seemed to run better with the other HD in it.

BTW, I checked the specs on the new and old Hard Drives and, the spindle speed (5400 RPMs), the seek and latency times are listed as the same. Old HD is a Fujitsu MHW2120BH and the new HD is a Western Digital WDBABC3200ANC.

.

From: My MBP 5,4 (mid 2009)
.
 
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....

BTW if you have not already done so boot from the clone at least once to make sure things appear OK. I have had one clone not work properly and I did not discover this until I needed it for a repair. Don't remember which program I used for that one.

So, in my last message, I commented on how my MacBook Pro seemed to take an awful long time to boot up and was always "waiting" when asked to preform any task; this is comparing the cloned 320 Gigabyte to the operation with the "original" 120 Gig Fujitsu HD.

My first clone was made with 'Disk Utilities' so, after a week, I decided to try a different program (CCC) to see if the image that I cloned to the 320 Gig HD would work any better that the first one. Same results, a sluggish responding system that was slow to boot up.

I re-installed the original 120 Gigabyte Fujitsu HD and, the MBP boots up normally and is at least 2-4 times faster than with the Western Digital 320 Gig HD installed. I see that some older model MBP were released with the Fujitsu 120 GB Hard Drives.

Still running on the 120 Fujitsu; wonder why the Fujitsu works better than the clone?

BTW: I took the 320 GB Hard drive and using GHOST, I cloned a Windows PC and installed the drive and, the PC runs quicker now than with the factory drive that was installed; the 320 Gig HD is not bad at all.

From your experience, does one brand of Hard Disk Drives perform better than another in MBPs ?

.
 

Slydude

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Thanks for getting back with that update. I haven't noticed the slowdown issue that you are having. Not saying it doesn't happen though. Will have to do a bit of research.

I may be wrong but I think that the MBP has had different brands of hard drives from time to time. The original drive in my '08 MBP was a Hitachi. Then I had something different which died after being dropped several times. The current drive is a Seagate Momentus Hybrid. It is faster during boot than the old drive due partly to the included chip on this drive. The old drive was also 5400 rpm while my current drive is7200 rpm.
 
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chas_m

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Part of the reason startup off a clone take a lot longer than the boot drive is simple: you're using USB. It's SLOW. It's really slow. Compared to the SATA connection of your boot drive, watching-paint-dry slow. FW400 or FW800 is better, but still slower than the SATA connection. Only when you get to USB3 or TB or eSATA does the connection not form a huge part of the time difference.

The second factor may be the indexing as you've noted. But you can exclude a boot drive from being indexed by the clone drive, and should do so.
 

Slydude

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You're right about that of course. I interpreted QUEENSGATE555's last post a bit differently. It seemed to me that the boot times were being compared when the drives were installed internally. In other words the clones were made via USB but the boot times for both drives were compared with the drives installed internally.

Am I misunderstanding something?
 

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