Yea so i messed up big time.....

Well after the 40min drive, the 15 min walk, the 30 min wait.... I got the macbookpro exactly how i wanted it except... I didn't get the high res screen .

I'm currently carless and because of my work, I needed to continue installing programs and configuring my mac so it was possible for me to get my work done.

I plan to go back to the apple store in a few days to switch my mac to the high res one, but i have the following question...

I'm new to mac and not sure how to do this, but is there anyway i can save my mac settings, program settings, installed programs, desktop/dock settings, etc... So don't have to spend time doing it all over again on the new macbook?

I have an external drive.

Thank you in advance for your replies

You can use Migration assistant if you are going to the apple store they will be able to do this for you simply by connecting your old and new mac together via firewire. This will transfer files, user settings etc over to you nice new MBP.

they told me if i wanted to transfer data, i would have to leave the macbook there for a few days .

Humm strange usually it's a quick process. Maybe you could make a time machine back up? I've not had any experience with time machine myself though.

If you have Leopard on this MBP make sure it's using your external drive as the time machine drive - it will back up your entire system.

Once you get your new Mac insert the Leopard DVD so that the install begins; you're asked what language you want to use and a few moments later you see the start of the installation - look at the top of the screen, one of the menu options is Utilities and there is an option in this menu to restore a time machine backup - choose this.

You'll get a message which tells you something along lines of a time machine restore will remove all data from current drive - connect your external drive and click continue.

A few moments later you will be asked where you want to restore from (you'll probably only have the one option (your external drive)) make your choice and continue, this will bring up a list of dates you can restore - choose the most recent unless you have reason to choose an older version.

You'll then be asked where you want to install to - choose the Mac HD and continue.

Took me about an hour to get 'my system' back from time machine after I picked up my MacBook with a replacement HDD earlier today - this was a 40GB system and it worked really well.

Dave

damainman said:

Well after the 40min drive, the 15 min walk, the 30 min wait.... I got the macbookpro exactly how i wanted it except... I didn't get the high res screen .

Click to expand...

I'm a little confused here. Did you not get the high-res screen, or did you not get the bigger MBP? According to the Apple store website, the Macbook Pro comes in either a 15" model at 2.2GHz which has a display at 1440x900, a 15" model at 2.4GHz which has the same display resolution, and a 17" model at 2.4GHz with a display resolution of 1680x1050 (which is the same as my 22" external screen.) Are you saying that you got the smaller MBP by mistake? Or did I not pay attention to a previous post?

The 17" also comes in a Hi Res 1920 x 1200

Ah, okay. That wasn't clear from the site. So this is a 17" that was gotten at the standard 1680x1050 res then, and needs to be the 1920x1220.

Gotcha.

Use an app like Carbon Copy Cloner (Google it) to make a complete, bootable clone of the MacBook's hard drive (on the external) and then restore it all over (booting from the external hard drive) on the new MacBook.

Thanks for the replies. Now does the above procedures with using time machine backup installed applications as well?

Meaning when i transfer to my new macbook, do i have to reinstall all the applications or do they get backed up and restored as well?

Both the restore from a Time Machine backup and the copy created by Carbon Copy Cloner will set your new Mac exactly the way as the old one - this includes all installed applications, dock, user accounts, personal settings, dashboard, etc, etc, etc.

i would go ahead and use time machine

thanks for all the replies.

Is there a quick way to clear the data off the mac? Aside from uninstalling everything one by one?

damainman said:

thanks for all the replies.

Is there a quick way to clear the data off the mac? Aside from uninstalling everything one by one?

Click to expand...

Put in your OS install CD and from the utilities menu choose Disk Utility, then format the drive.

Thanks for the reply. I'm on a time limit lol, my ride will be here in a few minutes and I'm currently backing up my data.

How would i manually remove information such as applications and what not without doing a format?

damainman said:

Thanks for the reply. I'm on a time limit lol, my ride will be here in a few minutes and I'm currently backing up my data.

How would i manually remove information such as applications and what not without doing a format?

Click to expand...

Delete one by one. Just reinstall the OS, it's so much easier.

Benjamindaines said:

Delete one by one. Just reinstall the OS, it's so much easier.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply again.

I wish i had the time to. But my ride is on a schedule and won't be able to take me until after my 14 day return period runs out. To update to leopard it took over an hour and i can't wait that long .

So just delete the application files and folders? Does this remove application preferences as well?

For example i have the adobe suite installed, and i have world of warcraft, etc..... All i do is delete the .app file or is there something i should be doing?

Hmmmm.....

According to the following links:

- http://www.simplehelp.net/2007/07/2...to-completely-uninstall-applications-in-os-x/

-http://www.applematters.com/index.php/section/comments/cleanapp-a-better-way-to-remove-applications/

- http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2006/01/a_cleaner_uninstall_one_thing.html


I need to delete the apps and go to the library to find extra files left behind? There is no real uninstaller that deletes everything? That kinda sucks.

I use AppZapper.

AppZapper doesn't work correctly in leopard.