Switching hardrives

[joshuabitossi]

Hey everyone,

I spilt some water on my previous macbook. I've been informed that the hard drive should still be fine though.
Apple has quoted me $130 to transfer my old files onto my new macbook. Just wondering if it would be possible to

- remove my old hardrive
-put it in the new macbook in place of the current one
-transfer the files onto an external hardrive
-replace the new hardrive and transfer the files from the external hardrive.

If anyone has attempted this or knows anything about it I would appreciate your help.

 

[Bob_Stan]

You could probably buy something like the NewTech Voyager from OWC http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/NewerTech/Voyager/Hard_Drive_Dock and mount your old drive. Then you should be able to boot from it and use a program like Carbon Copy Cloner to copy the old drive to the new. Would be cheaper and you would have some useful hardware.

 

[bobtomay]

If the new MB is a different model than the old one, it's possible that the old hard drive will not boot on the new machine - it not have the correct drivers.

The NewTech Voyager from OWC is a good suggestion above though. About $40 instead of $130 and you'll have hardware left over along with an external hard drive for backing up the new system.

Once you have it, I'd recommend using the Migration Assistant found in your Utilities folder to pull everything from the old drive and not attempt cloning it.