HDD swap

[sophie999]

Hi everyone,

I am about to swap my old HDD on 13" MBP mid 09 to new SSD (crucial). I usually back up my mac by creating an image on external HD using the OSX disc utility. If my drive dies, I can run my mac from external drive while waiting for replacement.

My question is:
1. Once I swap the HDD, can I just boot mac from the external drive and re-image the back-up copy onto the new drive? Or do I need to somehow format the new drive to OSX first?? (not sure how).
2. Is that a bad idea to image the back up to the new SSD vs re-installing everything from the scratch. I have a lot of stuff on mac, and time is of essence to me.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks very much.

 

[chscag]

Moved your post here where it really belongs.

In answering your question... I recommend not using Disk Utility to do the swap. Both Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper are well suited to use for cloning and making the swap. Carbon Copy Cloner has a fully functional trial version which you can download and use. Both apps can create a bootable clone.

 

[Nighthawk4]

I did exactly this.

I used SuperDuper! to clone the original disk, removed the disk and fitted an SSD, plus more memory, then booted up off the external disk and setup the new drive.

Good luck

 

[lclev]

I have have used Carbon Copy Cloner to do the same as Nighthawk4 and it works great. Both CCC and SuperDuper are good programs. One other option which I just had to do on my MP is to create a bootable USB with Sierra, or what ever version of OS X you like on it, and use it to do a clean install. Then using a current Time Machine backup, migrate your apps and data back.

Both are viable options. I actually had less hassle with the migration only because for some reason Microsoft Office wants to be reactivated - have the product key reinstalled - after I have used CCC to clone a new drive. I did not have that issue with migration.

Lisa